Collaborating in the Metaverse for Successful Subsurface Reservoir Characterization

Abstract

With increased pressure on energy companies to reduce costs whilst also planning more complex wells with lower carbon emissions, companies worldwide are always looking for ways to be more efficient & successful in their subsurface reservoir characterization. Improved collaboration across the traditional gaps in the Exploration & Production (E&P) disciplines is an important way to achieve these goals. In this paper, we review the vision of the Metaverse, a fully realized digital world that exists beyond the one in which we live and continues to exist even when we do not interact with it. The Metaverse has some key technological concepts that potentially provide a roadmap to help deliver desired improvements for reservoir characterization collaboration. The first is through an immersive three-dimensional world that can bring together people from remote locations to collaborate in one space. The second is through the realization of a Subsurface Digital Twin. We review where we are and what can be achieved with current technologies using our own research and development as examples, and we postulate on how these technologies will be improved in the immediate future.