march 2010 the geomodeling network newsletter

The Geomodeling Network – Sponsored by Blueback Reservoir www.blueback-reservoir.com

The Geomodeling Network Newsletter March 2010

Did you miss me?

It’s been a while since I last put out a Geomodeling Network newsletter, 6

months in fact. This is 100% down to the lack of articles to include.

Obviously no articles means no content and no newsletter…..oh no, the

crazy paranoia is setting in……..are you trying to tell me something?

Not wanting to sound like a nagging dad over this (and I won’t mention it

again), but if any network member has anything they would like to

contribute (we are now over 1,200 members), please send it to me

([email protected]) for inclusion in the next

newsletter.

Here endeth the lesson!

One piece of news that I am happy to share with you is that the 1000th

member of the Geomodeling Network is none other than Mr. Michele

Marco Comisso, an explorationist, currently based in Stavanger. Now

Michele, if you are reading this, it will probably come as a surprise to you

too, as I have yet to inform you about this momentous event. However,

keep watching for the mailman as your reward will shortly be delivered to

you by a large team of Nepalese sherpas.

So, if I don’t have any articles, what’s in this month’s newsletter – good

question. I have had to resort to what I know best which is shameless

advertising and padding. Obviously I’m hoping the next newsletter is a lot

better – but that’s down to you (I’m nagging again, I’ll stop)

Cheers for now,

Mitch Sutherland

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


http://www.blueback-reservoir.com/






Table of Contents

1. The Blueback Toolbox – Feb 2010 Release

With more and more PETREL users using the Blueback Toolbox, this article lists some of the highlights of the 6th release of the popular software. Page 3

2. Do you upscale J Functions before using them in geological models or simulations? J Functions are commonly used to calculate initial saturations in geocellular models and flow simulation models. A discussion on their usage in geomodeling. Dan O’Meara – President at O’Meara Consulting Inc Page 10 (This article was taken from the Geomodeling Network online discussion forum)

3. Bridge – New Release of the CSEM Interpretation Software A new version of the software that demystifies electromagnetic data. Page 13

4. Blueback Opportunities One of the fastest growing consultancy/technology companies around is looking for talented people in the UK/US/Norway Page 18

Exam answer No1

UNIX is basically a simple

operating system, but you

have to be a genius to

understand the simplicity. Dennis Ritchie



Member Articles, Reviews & Questions

1. The Blueback Toolbox – Feb 2010 Release Blueback Reservoir Feb 2010 Newsletter – Paul Hovdenak The Blueback Toolbox software is a set of Petrel™ functionality features not available in standard Petrel. It has been developed by the Blueback Reservoir development team using the Petrel development kit called OCEAN. All new features are developed based on requests from Petrel users, and with 4 releases per year the Toolbox is rapidly expanding and optimizing Petrel workflows. With approx 20,000 Petrel users worldwide and a close cooperation with Schlumberger, the Blueback Toolbox is an excellent and important tool for all companies using Petrel.

Yes - another Blueback Toolbox is now ready for download! It’s been only 2 months since our last release, but as we already now have around 20 new Petrel features ready, it’s time to let you in on these time saving new workflows and functionalities.

We have in this release had a strong focus on the geophysics side, and we are now charging for access to this module. However, our Base module will still be free of charge in 2010. Contact us for more details around the cost and licensing alternatives.

We have in 2009 seen a strong interest in the Toolbox and our Ocean development services, and we are now adding significantly more resources to our Petrel development team.

Finally I would like to encourage you to send us your ideas to what should be added to the Blueback Toolbox. I know there are many excellent ideas around for how to improve and speed up Petrel. Often these can be implemented in very short time!

Best regards from Paul Hovdenak, Manager Software Portfolio [email protected] +47 98230340

Scientists have discovered a

noise made just prior to the Big

Bang, which sounds something

like "Oops" Cully Abrell

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“Just relax and let your mind go blank. That shouldn't be too hard for you" Dr.Grace Augustine in the Avatar film!

Blueback Toolbox - February'10 version

The new version of the Blueback Toolbox is now available for download. Several hundred Petrel users now have installed our Toolbox, and it’s great to see that we can help expanding and optimizing reservoir characterization workflows in Petrel.

All the new features in this release have been developed based on feedback and suggestions from Petrel users. The Toolbox Getting Started manual is available from within Petrel, and contains a detail description of all functionality.

Check out our Getting Started Manual for a detailed description of all the functionality features. Below is a short description of some of the new key features: Live traces map, and auto cropping

- Check your loaded seismic and remove empty traces

This tool lets you create a map showing where you have so-called dead traces in a seismic cube.

Dead traces can be defined as all traces with constant sample values or with sample values within a value range.

The tool is an excellent and fast way of quality controlling your seismic data.



The Geophysics module now has a long list of Petrel features

Re-sample 2D and 3D seismic - Re-sample your seismic cubes and lines An excellent tool for ensuring your various seismic objects have the same sampling interval and for issues around memory limitations.

Seismic before and after re-sampling

“Rocks are records of events

that took place at the time they

formed. They are books. They

have a different vocabulary, a

different alphabet, but you

learn how to read them.” John McPhee



Clean and smooth 2D interpretations

- Much needed operations on interpretations before making surface grids This tool is particularly useful prior to making maps, as gridding algorithms often struggle with data sets where you have dense data along a line and the large gaps between the lines.

Project scanner

- A tool for scanning a project to report its content and history

The idea is to get a quick overview of what a project contains. The background on this functionality is that many Petrel users struggle when they inherit projects from colleagues or other companies – it is very often difficult to get a good overview of what the project contains and the history of the various data objects.

The project report

Geology shows that fossils are

of different ages.

Paleontology shows a fossil

sequence, the list of species

represented changes through

time.

Taxonomy shows biological

relationships among species.

Evolution is the explanation

that threads it all together.

Creationism is the practice of

squeezing one's eyes shut and

wailing "does not!"

Exam answer No2



Fault info - Output various fault information for a given fault and horizon

This tool lets you create a point set along the intersection between a fault and a horizon in a pillar grid. The point set has a set of attributes describing the fault: - Vertical Throw - Horizontal Throw - Total Throw - Dip Angle - Dip Azimuth

Fault in yellow, horizon in pink, and points with attributes in blue

Listing of all new features - Re-sample 3D seismic - Re-sample 2D seismic - Flatten interpretation - Merge interpretations - Interpretation operations - Smooth 2D interpretation - Clean 2D interpretation - Convert to points - Make Boundary - Live seismic traces map - Auto cropping of seismic - Create seismic horizons with pre-defined names - Fault info as point attributes - Project report utility - Set color for multiple objects - Toolbox functionality available in the Petrel Workflow manager

“Civilization exists by

geological consent, subject to

change without notice.” Will Durant



Blueback Toolbox - download info

The Blueback Toolbox is available to anyone interested and can be downloaded from our FTP site.

ftp.blueback-reservoir.com User: TOOLBOX Password: xxToolbox2009

There are 4 different zip-files of the Toolbox installer: - Petrel 2009.1 32 bit - Petrel 2009.1 64 bit - Petrel 2009.2 32 bit - Petrel 2009.2 64 bit

The file names are self-explanatory, and you download the installation file suitable to your Petrel installation. Note that there is no longer an installer for Petrel 2008 version.

Installation: - Unzip it and run the installation on the PC you will be running the Toolbox on. - Then start Petrel and open the Blueback License dialog from the HELP pulldown menu.

- Press the Request New License Codes button, and fill out the form before you send it to [email protected].

- Once you have received the license file, press the Load license file button. The Status field turns green.

- You are now ready to get started using the Toolbox

Contact [email protected] if you have any problems downloading or installing the Toolbox.

Note that the described licensing above is for a node locked license. Contact us if you would like to install a server license instead.

The Blueback Toolbox - development strategy

The strategy with the Blueback Toolbox is to provide a product with functionality and features that will speed up and enhance the main workflows in Petrel. The user interface is the same as the rest of Petrel, and new users will rapidly get up to speed with the new Blueback Toolbox functionality. Our close cooperation with Schumberger SIS ensures that we coordinate our

“Are you sure you want to

send „Recycle Bin‟ to the

Recycle Bin?”

Microsoft windows error message



http://www.zazzle.co.uk/geology_moving_humor_poster-228850425968774475



Toolbox develoment with the Petrel development plans. This way the Petrel users around the world get access to more features faster!

All new features are developed based on feedback from Petrel users. With the Petrel development kit (Ocean) there are limitations to what can be developed, but in many cases we see that small development efforts can make a big difference :-)

The Blueback iPod

For each new Blueback Toolbox version, a Blueback iPod is awarded to the one who suggested the best new feature that was included.

Ipod winners Jason and Patrick at ConocoPhillips in Houston!

For the February'10 version the winners were Mario Coral, Jason McLennan and Patrick Wong at ConocoPhillips in Houston. Their excellent suggestion was to make the Petrel project scanner feature for quickly getting an overview of content and history of a project.

Exam answer No3



Blueback - the Petrel plug-in company!

Blueback Reservoir can also provide development services for larger development projects on the Petrel platform.

Contact [email protected] if you would like to discuss this further!

2. Do you upscale J Functions before using them in geological models or simulations?

Dan O’Meara – President, O’Meara Consulting Inc.

J Functions are commonly used to calculate initial saturations in geocellular models and flow simulation models. So, where do these J Functions come from? Two possibilities are from core plug capillary pressure curves and from log-derived J Functions. It is often implicitly assumed that these J Functions can be used to model saturations in cells or gridblocks that are of much greater scale than cores or logs. This assumption - or leap of faith - needs to be validated every time. In other words, one needs to construct J Functions from the upscaled porosity (volume averaged), permeability (geometric average is most scale invariant), and water saturation (pore volume averaged). Then, you need to test whether the upscaled J Functions need to be refit before using them in the simulator. How often is this done? If not, why not? Steven Trueman Geologist at Suncor / Petro-Canada

Hi Dan - whichever method and scale - I would agree with you that it is essential to validate the model and data. A comparison of fine scale well (raw) and blocked well saturations (model) with histograms and cross plot should do it. I particulary like the cross plot for a quick look at over or under-estimate of saturation before looking at individual wells. Oliver Torres Senior Geomodeller – Geostatistician

You have touch a sensitive issue. In general terms some recommended procedures when integrating information from different sources & different supports (scales) are:

Exam answer No4

What did the nuclear

physicist have for lunch?

Fission chips!

.........I’ll get my coat


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- Normalisation - Calibration ON A SAME WORKING SCALE By consequence I am agree with you that the right procedure is to upscale the J functions to the working grid before any calculation. I've seen some projects where J functions calculated from logs (higher res) are used directly on geological working grid cells (lower resolution). This same 'QUICK' or 'SIMPLE' procedure is perform sometimes for deriving permeabilities on final models of the geological working grid via Por-Perm relationships calculated from logs (old school practice). I've seen also porosity vertical trends calculated from petrophysicists that have been input directly to the working model ( house of horror). Then about your question of How often is this done? Personally I would say quite often. Russell Cooper Geologist at OXY Permian

J Functions are not upscaled. IP has a routine that converts Archie based saturations to a J Function. Prefer to use core plug capillary pressure curves which are transformed into height above FWL vs. Sw. Since a J Function requires capillary pressure, porosity and permeability variables in its calculation, prefer to generate the dependent properties first in the fine scale model, calculate J Function with respect to these properties and then calculate oil saturation. For the coarse scale model to emulate the fine scale, standard upscaling is required for porosity, permeability, oil saturation, net to gross and whatever additonal facies/rock type properties you have. If you want to check, you could recalculate Pcow, J, and So on the coarse model using the upscaled Por and K, but recommend using the upscaled values as derived from the fine scale model for simluation. I would like to understand the logic in upscaling a J Function. Dan O'Meara President, O'Meara Consulting, Inc

For simplicity, let’s consider fours scales when it comes to saturation issues –core, log, geocellular, and simulation. Admittedly, the demarcations between these scales can be blurry, especially when we hear of friends at Aramco running billion cell simulation models. Typically, J Functions are derived from capillary pressure curves measured on cores or are calculated from porosity, permeability, and saturation logs. In either case, there is a necessary upscaling in order to use them for calculating saturations in fine or coarse scale geological or flow simulation models. So, if your “fine” scale model were at, say, the resolution level of the logs (half

"When you smell an oderless

gas, it is probably carbon

monoxide"

Exam answer No5

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foot) and your J Functions were calculated using logs, then you would be okay with using these J Functions in your fine scale model. However, you would still be faced with the problem of matching the saturations calculated by these J Functions to your saturation logs (in general, you can never match log data with simple functions). But that is an entirely different issue. At least, you would be using the J Functions at the right scale. However, when most people mention a “fine scale model”, they are referring to a geological model that has upscaled (or lumped) several log measurements into its cells. For example, the cells may be a few feet thick, thus upscaling several log measurements into a cell. The assumption that the J Function to be used on these cells is the same as the one derived from logs or from the lab is a leap of faith. There is no reason to expect them to be the same. In fact, we have investigated just this sort of problem and find that the upscaled “J” values as calculated from the upscaled porosity, permeability, and saturations often do not fit on the original J Function. As you might expect, the poorness of the fit is determined by the heterogeneity of the upscaled cell. In fact, a nice way to determine whether your upscaling is attempting to homogenize cells that are very heterogeneous is to look at the degradation of the upscaled J Function from its finer scale. If none exists, then you are okay. Suppose you have a fine scale model at the log level of resolution, then you could do as Russell suggests above and upscale this model to a courser scale by using “standard” upscaling. Most people would agree that volume weighting of the porosity and that pore volume weighting of the saturations are reasonable upscaling methods. However, I am not so sure that we have “standard” ways of upscaling permeabilities. Oftentimes, software programs offer you arithmetic, power model, harmonic, or geometric averaging and if that’s not enough you can use tensor methods. When I see a lot of choices like this, I have to think that there is no “standard”. But, let’s accept that we can upscale at least the porosity and saturation. This begs the question of how you will ensure that the simulator initializes to the same saturations as in your coarse scale model that serves as your input. Dennis Thomas Senior Geologist at DeGolyer and MacNaughton

Just a quick comment on the heterogeneity problem. If you can’t keep the cells small enough to overcome this problem you can try building a lithofacies curve to segregate rocks with varying poro/perm relationships. Then you can bias the upscaling to the lithofacies and get more consistent results. You loose almost half your data in some cells but for the facies that wins the “most of” contest, you get a better fit of the resulting upscaled Swj with the log Swj. This is based on the idea that you have individual J functions for each lithofacies. Steve Flew Technical Manager - Field Development & Production Services at Schlumberger

Sadly, all too often I come across core derived J functions that the users (often REs) expect to work at the coarser, much upscaled sizes.

Exam answer No6

“There are two suns, aren‟t

there? One here and one abroad?”

Jonathan Greening - footballer

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As several have mentioned above, this is a very sensitive, and critical issue – it’s the 'elephant in the room' in my mind - everyone harks on about QC of porosity histograms, and getting the volume fractions right for the facies and then lightly skips over the scale (and lets bring net into this too) issue of both perm and saturation. Trying to explain that maybe tensor perm is fine for flow calculations but some form of averaging is required for 'rock quality' (ie SCAL assignments in the general form), and you're met with more blank stares. Explaining to engineers why core perm is not the same as their upscaled perm can be a very frustrating event (I don't think the same issue applies with the volume term on poro, and net poro if net is handled consistently). I sat in a model handover today - poro had been upscaled, but err, we've got a new phi-k so we'll just apply it in the upscaled model directly, do a kvkh=0.1, and oh yes, we use a J function to initialise the Sw.............. What are we missing? - why isn't every model builder, at any scale, worried about this?

3. Bridge

BRIDGE is an electromagnetics plug-in for Petrel, one of the industry’s leading geological and geophysical integration platforms. The launch of BRIDGE has brought long awaited electromagnetics functionality to the standard PetrelTworkflow.

We are very pleased to announce a new release of our Bridge CSEM interpretation software!

Bridge is a Petrel plug-in which expands the exploration workflows in Petrel. This facilitates unique integration of electromagnetics with seismic and other subsurface data. Bridge is developed using the same standards for the user interface as in Petrel, and intuitive menus and buttons make it easy for Petrel users to learn to use the functionality. Tool-tip help systems on all Bridge windows together with the Bridge Getting Started manual and the Bridge training course, makes it straight-forward to get started using the software.

Our goal is to offer a complete workflow for geophysicists and explorationists to model, visualize, interpret and integrate electromagnetic data. With the inclusion of EM forward modeling, you can now model the EM response based on your resistivity understanding of the subsurface. The Bridge interpretation loop then sets up a much improved workflow for comparing modeled EM data and measured EM data.

"The moon is a planet just

like the earth, only it is even

deader."

Exam answer No7

“New technology is common,

new thinking is rare”

Sir Peter Blake



Bridge is the software for de-mystifying electromagnetic data. This gives you a unique opportunity to get started working with the CSEM data and technology. Future versions will see exciting new functionality within EM modeling and EM inversion - watch this space! ;-)

Contact us if you want to see a Bridge software demonstration, or want to receive more information.

Best regards from Paul Hovdenak, Manager Software Portfolio

[email protected] +47 98230340

Electromagnetics in exploration? It should be everyone’s cup of tea!

The Bridge workflow

The new Bridge version is taking another step towards consolidating the Bridge interpretation loop. By providing tools for comparing measured data and modeled data, the user can greatly improve the understanding of the subsurface resistivity and better analyse measured EM anomalies.




Interpretation of EM data requires EM attribute analysis, EM forward modeling and EM inversion

Bridge version 3.0 - new functionality

The new release is now available for download. Below is a short description of some of the new functionality, in addition to a listing of all new features. The detailed Release Notes will be sent to all Bridge users in a separate email. 2.5D EM forward modeling New modeling tool - simulation of EM responses from 2D earth-resistivity models. The 2D models are extracted from 3D resistivity grids built in Petrel, and may be saved and displayed as 2D seismic sections.

2D resistivity model line automatically extracted from a 3D model.

Extended plane layer EM modeling options New options to edit the model set-up, and to change the color bar displays. The plane layer model can also now be converted to a well log for display in the Petrel Well Section window.

"A fossil is an extinct animal.

The older it is, the more

extinct it is."

Exam answer No8



Normalized electric magnitude created from modeled magnitude. Anomaly strength indicated by the color bar.

Data QC - activate/deactivate data points New options to better eliminate data points with errors or noise. The setting can be done in a recursive way for all frequencies or channels.

Listing of all new features - 2.5D EM modeling - Plane layer model editing - Color table editing of plane layer models - Plane layer model editing; merging, splitting - Convert plane layer models to a well log - Automatic phase unwrapping of modeled EM data - Optional phase unwrapping for imported EM data - Option to set modeling line direction - Import & export of survey design grid - Import& export of EM data without measurements - Parameter based deactivation of data points - Recursive deactivation/activation of data points - Extended Bridge format to include active/non-active flag for each sample - Line response display; option to use CMP positions - Switch of display of deactivated data points - EM window short cuts to more easily switch to other frequencies - Changed licensing & check for updates

Exam answer No9



See the Bridge Getting Started manual for all the details

Bridge - trial installation

A trial installation of Bridge is available free of charge. Contact [email protected] for receiving information on downloading and installation.

Bridge supports Petrel 2009.1 and Petrel 2009.2, for both 32 bit and 64 bit PCs. The upcoming Petrel 2010 will also be supported when it is released later this year.

Bridge - client feedback

There are now 20 oil companies and service companies using Bridge, and at Blueback Reservoir we have received some excellent and very encouraging feedback.

“With BRIDGE we rapidly get an overview of our EM data in a very user-friendly manner. Together with our own proprietary analysis techniques, we can now speed up even further our workflows for evaluating EM prospects. Bridge is a tool with a great potential in making EM data more accessible and usable to the geosciences world.” said Dr. Jonny Hesthammer, Vice President Technology at Rocksource.

”Bridge is a software tool with a great potential, lowering the threshold for letting explorationists/geophysicists start to visualize, understand and interpret CSEM data. At the Det norske we finally have a tool to ensure we get maximum return on our investments on CSEM data acquisitions.”, said Ole Christensen geologist at Det norske.

Exam answer No10



http://www.icbse.com/goto/http:/img268.imageshack.us/img268/3421/funnyexamanswersicbsecou.jpg



4. Blueback Opportunities Blueback Reservoir provides consulting services and software products to the oil and gas business. We focus on exploration and reservoir characterization and operate on a global basis.

Geologists/Geophysicists/Reservoir Engineers/Data Management Consultants

We are looking for the above positions to supply our customers with consulting services within Reservoir Engineering, G&G and Data Management.

Qualifications:

For the RE/G&G positions – more than 4 years of experience from E&P/Service/Consultancy companies

A good knowledge of industry standard software (Petrel, Kingdom, RMS, Eclipse) is required

Proven Geo-modeling experience is highly advantageous

Positions are based in the UK, US and Norway, but a degree of mobility is expected as Blueback Reservoir is serving customers worldwide. Our list of projects includes Europe and North Sea, South-East Asia, Middle East, South and North Americas and Africa. We offer a highly competitive remuneration and benefits package including an excellent bonus scheme

Would all applicants please send a CV and covering letter for the attention of [email protected]

Fin

“Water is composed of two

gins, Oxigin and Hydrogin.

Oxigin is pure gin. Hydrogin

is gin and water”

Exam answer No11


march 2010 the geomodeling network newsletter

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