Media
Latest technology is secret weapon in supermajors' E&Parsenal
Upstream
May 18, 2006
Gas-hungry supermajors in Australia are wielding the latest technology for their deep-water exploration efforts.
The two most vocal are Shell and Chevron, with the Anglo-Dutch player soon returning to operatorship and Chevron drilling in the Greater Gorgon area with the semi-submersible rig Jack Bates.
Both companies have been developing proprietary technologies to help them in areas such as deep water.
Chevron vice president and chief technology officer Don Paul says that two key aspects of being a successful explorer and developer are seismic imaging, and drilling and completion, especially in the deep.
"When you can advance the technology enough, all of a sudden things appear that you couldn't see before. This is a crucial competitive advantage," he says. As for drilling and completion, Paul says Chevron's Unocal acquisition brought a new capability.
“In the deep water, you can't take 10 wells to get down the drilling curve. So what you need to do is add more predictive technology,” he says.
"You need to be able to predict from a combination of the seismic, from your ability to understand how reservoirs behave, the ability to actually predict the mechanical properties of rocks, combine all those with drilling operations, so that your second well is a lot better than your first well, and by the time you're into your third well, you know exactly what to do."
Shell is pleased with a recently-developed deep-water exploration tool Control Source Electro Magnetic (CSEM) imaging.
This is a non-seismic approach that uses low frequency electromagnetic signals to exploit the difference in resistance between water and saturated hydrocarbon bearing reservoir, says Wouter Hoogeveen, Shell's vice president-exploration for Asia-Pacific.
In combination with high-quality seismic data, CSEM provides complementary information on the presence or absence of charge, thus helping to reduce risk, says Hoogeveen.
"The CSEM survey carried out by Shell in the deep waters of Sabah (off Malaysia) in 2004 was the first of its kind in the region and the 3D CSEM we are currently acquiring in Sarawak (Block E) is the first of its kind in the world," he says.
For its upcoming Australian drilling programme in Block WA-371-P, Shell is considering another recent innovation in expandable technology.
However, the company says it needs to finish detailed well design before it knows if that technology will be applied.
