Shell and Russian IT developers team up to focus on supercomputing for oil exploration
May 24, 2013
Shell, a global group of energy and petrochemical companies present in more than 70 countries, announced earlier this week that its Russian division has inked an agreement with Russian company Antel-Oil on joint research into ways of developing software to process 3D seismic prospecting data.
The agreement is reported to be Shell’s investment contribution to a Russian project called "Creation of supercomputer technologies for seismic prospecting on scattered waves," which will be realized by Technologies of Inverse Problems, Ltd., an Antel-Oil subsidiary and resident of the Skolkovo innovation hub outside Moscow.
The researchers will focus on developing new algorithms and software products designed to isolate a scattered component of seismic waves. The key objective is to create "new supercomputing methods for processing three-dimensional seismic data," which provide information contained in such a component, according to Technologies of Inverse Problems, Ltd.
From scattered waves the researchers want to learn where and how to explore and develop hydrocarbon deposits in fractured-cavernous type reservoirs—the deposits that cannot be isolated with the conventional reflection pulse based seismic prospecting techniques that oil companies use today.
The partners believe that the importance of their research is ever growing as international oil companies are gearing up for developing new hard-to-recover hydrocarbon reserves, including those in shale deposits.
The agreement is reported to be Shell’s investment contribution to a Russian project called "Creation of supercomputer technologies for seismic prospecting on scattered waves," which will be realized by Technologies of Inverse Problems, Ltd., an Antel-Oil subsidiary and resident of the Skolkovo innovation hub outside Moscow.
The researchers will focus on developing new algorithms and software products designed to isolate a scattered component of seismic waves. The key objective is to create "new supercomputing methods for processing three-dimensional seismic data," which provide information contained in such a component, according to Technologies of Inverse Problems, Ltd.
From scattered waves the researchers want to learn where and how to explore and develop hydrocarbon deposits in fractured-cavernous type reservoirs—the deposits that cannot be isolated with the conventional reflection pulse based seismic prospecting techniques that oil companies use today.
The partners believe that the importance of their research is ever growing as international oil companies are gearing up for developing new hard-to-recover hydrocarbon reserves, including those in shale deposits.