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Sandstones & Clastics

Helping you make critical decisions in sandstone reservoirs

Solving Your Toughest Subsurface Challenges

Clastic reservoirs and sedimentary deposits are prolific, being found across every continent around the world. Formed through weathering and erosion of the Earth’s surface and followed by subsequent transportation and deposition, clastic reservoirs form in many environmental settings. Whether in a desert environment, or on the continental slope in deep water offshore, each setting dictates a unique set of characteristics and depositional styles that in turn determines the distribution, lateral and vertical configuration, rock composition, and fabric. Through burial and associated diagenetic processes, clastic rocks undergo lithification, after which they may become either conduits, barriers, or containers that host and trap fluids in the subsurface.

For millennia, humans have explored for resources (water, hydrocarbons, noble gases, etc) trapped in clastic reservoirs. Early efforts identified and focused on structural traps, created by tectonic processes. More recently, and with improved subsurface imaging techniques, stratigraphic traps have become an increasing focus in exploration activities.

In all cases, clastic reservoirs present unique geoscience and engineering challenges in terms of their vertical layering, lateral heterogeneity and fabric, which all have first order impact on containment and production potential. After decades of hydrocarbon extraction from sedimentary basins worldwide, asset teams continue to grapple with development of reservoir models capable of accurately predicting containment potential, past production and projecting future yields or stored volumes with precision. The majority of initial reservoir models constructed struggle to achieve even a 50% alignment with actual injection and production data.

In the Oil and Gas industry, this discrepancy has profound implications leading to the unintentional abandonment of valuable reserves. In other industries, this presents potential safety and environmental risks. Geologists and reservoir engineers have diligently sought more refined clastic reservoir models. These models aim to offer enhanced insights into the distribution, thickness, three-dimensional geometry, connectivity, and vertical and lateral variations in properties such as facies, porosity, saturation, permeability, flow barriers, and drainage within their respective reservoirs and aquifers. These same properties and models are vital inputs for carbon sequestration, geological disposal and other subsurface storage activities, which are crucial in the ongoing global pursuit of a low carbon ecosystem.

More recently, the geothermal potential of deep clastic reservoirs has been recognized. The same challenges with vertical and lateral heterogeneity exist and need to be quantified in order to profitably extract energy from geothermal reservoirs.

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Unlock valuable insights and optimize solutions throughout the project life cycle

Well and Seismic Interpretation
Identify and characterize distinct rock formations to reconstruct the subsurface history and identify potential reservoirs and formations of interest.
Unlock comprehensive, well-based petrophysical insights
  • Save time and rapidly process tens or thousands of wells using advanced batch and multi-well processing flows
  • Avoid errors and automatically edit and condition poor-quality well logging information in poorly consolidated or adversely affected zones
  • Understand uncertainty using advanced probabilistic petrophysical workflows
  • Improve integration using a comprehensive library of clastic-specific petrophysical and rock physics workflows 
Interpret with confidence
  • Calibrate well and seismic data using advanced methods for conventional and broadband seismic datasets
  • Improve efficiency by identifying and searching for specific seismic signatures of clastic reservoirs based on rock physics and AVO modeling
Deliver greater value from legacy and modern seismic and reveal geology
  • Enhance amplitude fidelity and thin clastic layer detection through comprehensive seismic data conditioning workflows
  • Minimize acquisition and processing artifacts to reveal subtle stratigraphic signatures
  • Improve auto-picker and interpretation accuracy through targeted noise removal
Build the geological framework and gain subsurface insights
  • Reduce time spent on manual structural interpretation using automated fault extraction workflows to rapidly identify structural framework
  • Confidently extract stratigraphic features and interpretations using novel 3D interpretation methodologies
  • Gain deep insight into paleo-depositional environments by removing structural deformation and faulting displacement
  • Identify and extract fractures and discontinuities associated with clastic depositional styles, differential compaction or burial history
Quickly appraise and rank features of interest for storage volume
  • Execute volumetric calculations on identified structures
  • Rank features according to gross rock volume
Reservoir Characterization
Leverage reservoir characterization to acquire detailed insights into rock and fluid properties, enabling well-informed decision-making with the latest technology.
Communicate effectively across disciplines
  • Establish relationships between seismic and layer-based geological properties of interest
  • Derive and work with 3D/4D petrophysical properties through calibrated sandstone and clastic-specific rock physics transforms
Optimize seismic data for advanced predictive workflows
  • Increase the seismic signal in noisy data using advanced 3D/4D data conditioning workflows
  • Identify problem areas fast using novel 2D, 3D, and 4D seismic quality control algorithms and workflows
Integrate well data and seismic information to identify crucial facies and flow units with interactive tools
  • Screen regional play fairways using robust relative and deterministic inversion workflows that deliver answers fast
  • Identify the clastic depositional environments and play fairways, and rank leads and prospects using Bayesian probabilistic analysis
  • Extract sub-seismic resolution information that drives improved understanding of complex stratigraphic relationships and potential flow barriers and compartments
  • Construct multiple scenarios and realizations that deliver detailed models and uncertainties ready for engineering and simulation workflows 
Increase drilling success rates through improved target selection
  • Incorporate risk and uncertainty throughout the entire workflow
  • Identify connected stratigraphic bodies and associated in place volumes for ranking of the drilling inventory
Well Planning
Optimize well design to ensure a successful and efficient drilling program.
Identify drilling targets
  • Evaluate exploration, appraisal, production, and injection wells based on maximum porosity, permeability, reservoir connectivity, and drainage potential
  • Mitigate against anomolous pressure zones in isolated sandstone and areas with mechanical instability
  • Detect and avoid drilling hazards related to thin hard streaks
Optimize well trajectories
  • High fidelity thin layer detection and resolution ensures highly accurate geosteering design
  • Improve well life expectancy and production rates while avoiding water cuts by identifying potential shale barriers and baffles within the reservoir section.
Fine-tune well economics
  • Optimize bit selection by delivering engineering the calibrated 1D well geological and elastic property prognoses and uncertainties

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