Tracing the Industry

…ON THE MOVE... Sandor Bezdan has moved to OMV, an Austrian oil company. He can be reached at +43 (1) 40 440-23266 or sandor.bezdan@omv.com. He hopes to see many Canadian colleagues at the next EAGE meeting in Vienna. He hopes to see many Geo-X and other Canadian colleagues at the…

Grapevine

…Lunchbox Geophysics FREE informal lunchtime talks – all you have to do is register and bring your own lunch. Here’s a list of upcoming talks: "4D Gravity for Reservoir Monitoring” Chris Nind from Scintrex Tuesday May 9 12:00 Noon Aquitaine Auditorium, +15 level of 540-5 Avenue SW To register for…

Rodney Calvert

An Interview with Rodney Calvert

…Rodney, let’s begin by asking you about your educational qualifications and your work experience. I got a B.A. in Physics at Oxford University, which was most enjoyable, and I think that persuaded me to pursue geophysics. I didn’t want to have a career in the laboratory in a white coat.…

Reducing reservoir risk using 3D-seismic based stratigraphic and geomorphologic analyses

Henry Posamentier

…3D seismic data can play a vital role in hydrocarbon exploration and development especially with regard to mitigating risk associated with presence of reservoir facies. Such data can afford direct imaging of depositional elements, which can then be analyzed by applying seismic stratigraphic and seismic geomorphologic principles to yield predictions…

Velocity determination for pore pressure prediction

Satinder Chopra and Alan Huffman

…Summary Knowledge of formation pore pressure is not only essential for safe and cost-effective drilling of wells, but is also critical for assessing exploration risk factors including the migration of formation fluids and seal integrity. Usually, pre-drill estimates of pore pressure are derived from surface seismic data by first estimating…

Stereotomography: Past, present and future

Gilles Lambaré

…Abstract Stereotomography was proposed seven years ago for estimating velocity macro-models from seismic reflection data. Initially the goal was to keep the advantages of standard travel time tomography but remedying for difficult interpretative travel time picking. Stereotomography relies on the concept of locally coherent events characterized by their local slopes…

Practical applications of P-wave AVO for unconventional gas Resource Plays

Bill Goodway, John Varsek and Christian Abaco

…Introduction This article is the second of two parts following part 1 in the March 2006 RECORDER. Part 1 described the potential of conventional isotropic AVO to identify optimum geo-mechanical properties for the successful exploitation of tight gas shale Resource Plays through effective hydraulic fracture stimulation. Based on comparisons to…

Frontier Next Door: Geology and Hydrocarbon Assessment of Sedimentary Basins Offshore Western Canada

Henry Lyatsky

…Introduction A new, rich petroleum province is waiting to be explored. The sedimentary basins offshore western Canada are currently off limits to hydrocarbon exploration due to a continuing government moratorium. Yet, political developments at the provincial and federal levels give grounds for optimism that this moratorium may be lifted in…

Junior Geophysicists Forum

…Before we update you with news regarding our next event we figured we should update you with our name change. The Young Geophysicists Forum (YGF) has undergone a bit of a name change, and we figured now was the best time to do it. To be more in-line with terminology…

Ilya Tsvankin and Vladimir Grechka

An Interview with Ilya Tsvankin and Vladimir Grechka

…[Satinder]: Let us begin by asking you both about your educational background and work experience. [Vladimir]: I got my M.Sc. in Geophysical Prospecting from Novosibirsk State University, Russia in 1984 and Ph.D. in 1990 from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Novosibirsk, Russia. It seems it was a long time…

Executive Message

…By the time you are reading this, my tenure as Finance Director will have come to an end. I have enjoyed serving on the executive the last two years and was fortunate to work with a great group of people. Our meetings were fun and we’ve had a few lively…

CAGC Column

…The Upstream Oil & Gas Industry (the industry), along with every other segment of the economy, is facing a demographic shift that is changing the way companies must do business. In fact, the human capital shortage we are just beginning to experience today is poised to last for the next…

Presidential Column

…Satinder Chopra and I have come up with a new idea for the RECORDER: this monthly Presidential column. We’d like to see if the membership gets some value from a brief column featuring my opinions or observations on a particular topic. I’ve enjoyed the Executive Message columns, especially their biographical…

Letters to the Editor

…More on the Petroleum Geoscience Vision of the University of Calgary Helen Isaac reported on the above subject in the February 2006 issue of the RECORDER. Such discussions are commendable. When training the future workforce, it is not only desirable but absolutely necessary to have visions of the future. However,…

Tracing the Industry

…ON THE MOVE... Deric Cameron would like friends and colleagues to know that he has left Devon Canada Corporation, and recently joined Petro-Canada as a Senior Geophysicist with the Western Canada Northern Gas Paleozoic Team. You can reach Deric at (403) 296-3571 or decamero@petro-canada.ca. Thrust Belt Imaging (TBI) enthusiastically announces…

Grapevine

…GEDCO Speaking of women athletes, (no, not me – I wish! – GS), but GEDCO is a proud sponsor of Beckie Scott, silver medal winner in the Women’s Team Pursuit in cross country skiing with partner, Sara Renner. We’ve always been proud to sponsor Beckie, and even more now that…

Winds of Change in Recording Seismic Data

Peter Maxwell and Jason Criss

…In 500 BC, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote, “Nothing endures but Change”. When referring to man, the natural change of things is usually the result of endless attempts to make something better. When we visualize how seismic data recording will look in 10 years the only thing we know for…

Recent and future developments in marine acquisition technology: An unbiased opinion

Nick Moldoveanu

…Introduction In June 2001, Gijs Vermeer was invited by the CSEG RECORDER to look at the future developments in seismic acquisition. It was a rather difficult task, considering the seismic industry collapse in 1999 and the severe cuts in seismic industry research and engineering following a cumulative minus $2 billion…

Recent advances in marine seismic acquisition and processing technology

Thorbjørn Rekdal and Andrew Long

…Summary We review the developments in marine seismic technology over the past five years, and then use recent innovations to predict the next five years. Overall, most oil companies are beginning to embrace better acquisition planning as being a necessary foundation to overcome long-standing challenges to better seismic data. In…

Reflections on the Deconvolution of Land Seismic Data

Peter Cary

…Convolution is the process by which a wavelet combines with a series of reflection events to produce the seismogram that is recorded in a seismic survey. The familiar model is that a seismogram, s(t), is the wavelet, w(t), convolved with the reflectivity, r(t), and noise, n(t): s(t) = w(t) *…