Digital collaboration – Can it accelerate discoveries in deepwater?

WesternGeco has been a prolific seismic player in the US GOM. Our history dating as far back as 1937 when the first marine survey started, and through 1976 when the first 3D survey was acquired. From this time to date, our understanding of salt tectonics and Deepwater exploration continues to grow. We’ve implemented advances in our technologies to enable the imaging of complex basins. Starting with a narrow azimuth, single-vessel mode of acquisition we grew to a full azimuth, multivessel operation. Along with our survey design, imaging techniques have also advanced to include Ref-FWI and LSRTM for better illumination beneath the salt. Model building is improved as subsurface understanding is enhanced and multidomain data increases. Finally, with the onset of OBN data we now have a new and improved reservoir perspective in the GOM. As of 2017, WesternGeco has been incorporating cloud-based technologies into its workflows to complement these advancements, such as machine learning for processing and interpretation to further accelerate our capabilities of hydrocarbon discovery. When CNH announced the deregulation of Oil and Gas exploration in Mexico, WesternGeco took its US “Deepwater” lessons and rapidly entered the Mexico GOM with the intention of helping the government and operators accelerate hydrocarbon discovery. With our technical and financial commitments, we accomplished the equivalent of what was done in US GOM in 7 years, in less than 3 years! Our new technologies combined with gravity and magnetic acquisition provided the foundations for integrated Deepwater prospectivity evaluation. Our experience and expertise in the US GOM, combined with fit-for-purpose technology, were the fundamental success factors in accelerating exploration activities and recent discoveries in Mexico. But it doesn’t stop here, our progress continues through digital transformation. Exploration is digitally re-invented, for faster updates of play and trap models at full resolution from basin to prospect scale. All these advancements are contributing to accelerate discoveries in Mexico and will have a big impact on the development of Mexico’s GOM.