More Than the Sum of its Parts - Connecting the Dots in Seismic Interpretation
Monday, 09 May 2011 16:09
There’s no doubt that the field of seismic interpretation has developed dramatically over the last few years. From attribute analysis to horizon and fault mapping, well correlation and stochastic inversion, operators today are confronted with a plethora of different interpretation technologies and software offerings.
Too often, however, the industry is still plagued by a lack of integration between these solutions. There is no single, unified workflow that bridges the geology, geophysics and reservoir modelling domains and takes the operator from seismic interpretation through to a more production-focused reservoir modeling building approach.
The result is that users are often faced with the cumbersome and time consuming transfer of SEG-Y files between different applications, data loss, and the inability to see the complete picture through a cross-platform interpretation system. And this is occurring despite the fact that many of the software solutions on the market today are highly complementary to each other with the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
It’s with this in mind that UK-based seismic geophysics specialists ARK CLS will be taking the message of integration to EAGE this year through a series of innovative new plug-ins which will provide direct data links between some of the industry’s leading seismic interpretation software solutions and the Petrel* seismic to simulation software.
For example, ARK CLS has a long-term relationship with dGB Earth Sciences and has developed a number of commercial plug-ins for dGB’s OpendTect open source interpretation software. This includes Workstation Access, which supports the importing and exporting of data from OpendTect to Landmark's SeisWorks®/OpenWorks® and Schlumberger's GeoFrame-IESX* data stores.
At EAGE this year, ARK CLS is taking this move toward cross-platform integration a step further by developing a plug-in between OpendTect and Petrel* software. Using the Ocean* software development framework, the plug-in will enable users to seamlessly export and import seismic data between OpendTect and Petrel making the cumbersome moving of SEG-Y files between applications a thing of the past.
High quality 3D seismic, time/depth horizons, and horizon attributes generated by OpendTect can all be easily transferred to the Petrel software, enabling users to build robust reservoir models, maximize their geological data, and bridge the gap between seismic quantitative interpretation and more production-focused reservoir models
Yet, it is not just OpendTect that ARK CLS is focusing on this year at EAGE but also its own customized seismic interpretation software. Two of its flagship solutions in this respect are its Seismic Coloured Inversion (SCI) and Seismic Spectral Blueing (SSB) software. SCI is an easy to use, fast track method for the routine inversion of 2D and 3D seismic data and SSB is a powerful tool to enhance high frequencies and optimize the shape of the spectrum of seismic data. Both software packages will be launched as plug-ins for Petrel software at EAGE this year.
In addition to already being able to connect seamlessly with third party seismic and well data repositories, such as SeisWorks®, OpenWorks® and GeoFrame, the new SCI plug-in will enable users to carry out sophisticated coloured inversion techniques within the Petrel software.
3D seismic data, for example, will be able to be routinely inverted within the Petrel software with the user able to shape the average seismic spectrum to the well log impedance spectrum and generate relative Acoustic Impedance (AI) in as short a time frame as possible. The same goes for spectral blueing where the spectra of the seismic data can be shaped so that it is consistent with the Earth’s reflectivity.
And there is more to come. Future plans include the development of a plug-in for Petrel software of ARK CLS’s Seismic Net Pay solution, a robust algorithm for seismic net pay estimation which can be used to make estimates of either net pay or net rock volume depending on input data and calibration.
No single vendor can provide all the solutions to seismic interpretation with collaboration central to technology advances. ARK CLS is leading the way, building a cross-platform development framework and connecting the dots in seismic interpretation today. For more information on ARK CLS, visit their stand at #1082.
* is a mark of Schlumberger
SeisWorks®, OpenWorks® are registered trademarks of Landmark Graphics Inc
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