Evaluating fracture-induced anisotropy using borehole microseismic data

J-M Kendall, J.P. Verdon and A.F. Baird

…For decades passive seismic monitoring has been a routinely used tool in earthquake engineering, mining and geothermal industries. In the past 10 years its use in the petroleum industry has seen an order of magnitude growth: in terms of annual revenue the global market is now more than a ¼…

Presidential Column

…Several main topics come to mind as I sit down in early January to write a column for the February RECORDER: the next Executive Committee, the Geophysical Society of Houston, and our Canadian Distinguished Lecturer tour. I’ll begin close to home with the new Executive Committee. Election balloting closed after…

Executive Message

…Careers in geophysics are typically characterized by constant change. When I first transferred into a geophysics undergraduate program in the late 1980s, I was told that we are running out of hydrocarbons, so geophysics is a “sunset industry”. In the early 1990s, as a graduate student, many told me that…

CAGC Column

…This winter, seismic field work here in Canada has dropped off almost fifty percent (50%) from the same time last year. The numbers are similar to that of Q1 2010 after the fall off from the global economic crash in mid-2008 rippling down through our industry over a period of…

Value of Integrated Geophysics

…From Prospecting To Reserve Audits Within the oil and gas industry, geophysics has been a science deployed by companies to reduce drill risk and increase the chance of success. Whereas gravity, magnetic and other forms of remote sensing data all have their role to add value in the search for…

Tracing the Industry

…ON THE MOVE... David Mackie is pleased to announce that he has taken the role of Exploration General Manager and Board Member of Qarun Petroleum (an Apache Egypt Joint Venture Company) in Cairo Egypt as of June 2012. David has 28 years of experience both overseas and in Canada. Qarun…

Grapevine

…Doodlespiel 2014 Results! With 96 teams and 425 participants another Doodlespiel has come and gone. With fantastic weather, a wonderful venue and setting this Doodlespiel again delivered great competition and camaraderie that we all have come to expect. It was an all RPS A event final, seeing Sterling Hansen's team,…

Per Avseth

An Interview with Per Avseth

…Rock physics represents the link between geology and geophysics. Increasingly over the last decade, rock physics stands out as a key technology in petroleum geophysics, as it has become an integral part of quantitative interpretation of seismic and electromagnetic data. Ultimately, the application of rock physics tools can reduce exploration…

John Logel (2014)

An Interview with John Logel

…In today’s world of immediate and abundant information, it is easy to forget that geophysics is a specialized and complicated discipline that requires years of learning and understanding. It combines the sciences of mathematics and physics with the art of geology. This unique combination of left and right brain functions,…

Marc Sbar

An Interview with Marc Sbar

…With the typical questions we need to answer today there is really no choice but to use pre-stack data. Of course it is only one of the elements you need for a thorough interpretation, whether you are dealing with rank exploration or development. The following discussion will explain why. To…

Distributed Acoustic Sensing as a Fracture Diagnostic Tool

Paul Webster

…Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is an acoustic detection technology that has recently been applied in production and geophysical settings. A single mode silica optic fiber in a cable is attached to a well bore and interrogated with laser pulses. An Interrogator Unit on the surface generates the laser pulses which…

Introduction to January Focus: Unconventional Reservoirs

Marco Perez

…The promise of unconventional reservoirs is sustainable hydrocarbon production from previously inaccessible reservoirs. The high capital expenditure required to develop this resource and the depressed commodity prices makes for narrow profit margins and increases the focus on efficient and optimal project execution. Most of the focus is on lowering costs…

Hydraulic fracturing as a global cascade in networked systems

David Cho

…Networked systems require the consideration of interactions between component parts as well as the parts themselves in understanding the properties of the system. In the case of hydraulic fracturing, the process can be regarded as the spread of a fractured state through an initially unfractured network of rock elements. In…

Unconventional shale gas reservoir characterization using the hitcube approach – The mapping of marl rich mudflows in the Horn River Basin

Claire Pierard, Hardeep Jaglan, Kristoffer Rimaila, Arnaud Huck, Friso Brouwer, Steve Jensen, Eric von Lunen

…In unconventional reservoirs, the occurrence of marls is a significant risk to production and a major challenge to be able to locate and quantify them. As the marl thickness is often below the seismic resolution, an advanced characterization technique is needed. The HitCube inversion is an efficient stochastic inversion to…

The impact of interbed multiples on the inversion and interpretation of pre-stack data

Andrew Iverson

…Unconventional resource plays commonly use a geophysical workflow involving analysis beyond stacked images and structural interpretation. This involves pre-stack quantitative interpretation methods such as inversion to obtain P-impedance and S-impedance (Zp and Zs) volumes that are then interpreted using rock physics and geomechanical templates (Close et al. 2012). The goal…

Tom Podivinsky

An Interview with Tom Podivinsky

…[Satinder]: Tom, let’s begin by asking you about your educational background and work experience. Thanks Satinder, my University education was in Edmonton at the University of Alberta. I spent a lot of time ski racing between High School and University, so when I started at the University of Alberta in…

President’s Message

…The past year was a decent one for the CSEG. Your society remains fiscally sound. Attempts are being made to expand the CSEG’s technical influence: the MUG, Microseismic Technology days, and the Chief Geophysicists Form’s Induced Seismicity Symposium were new (or new-ish) events for 2013. CSEG helped ‘backstop’ the impromptu…

Executive Message

…Well this will be my last column as an executive of the CSEG – oops except as an editor for February’s special issue on Anisotropy and Fractures. So with that wonderful opening in mind, if you have any material worthy of print regarding Anisotropy, Fractures Stress or Geomechanics please contact…

CAGC Column

…This winter looks to be the slowest in seismic field work here in Canada in decades. A combination of humdrum commodity prices and, here in Alberta, a new regulatory regime and a new Aboriginal Consultation process has caused backlogs and uncertainty as our industry goes into its busiest part of…

Value of Integrated Geophysics

…An Example of Measureable Value from a 3D Seismic Survey The objective of this column is to show that applying quantative methods of geophysics, does add direct value to projects, especially in the application of full cycle economics, in the exploitation and production of oil and gas within the Western…