Imagine yourself standing on the moon looking at oil and gas exploration on Earth. All you can see are the major activities, the big picture. Geology, geophysics, surface geochemistry, and other exploration tools are working together. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Understanding synergy
The major activity taking place on Earth between all of these exploration tools is synergy. The root word of synergy, synergismus (New Latin), is from the Greek word, synergos, which means “working together.” However, the word synergy is used to describe the phenomenon of two or more discrete things not only working together but also interacting together to produce a result greater than expected.

Aristotle first described the effect of synergy in roughly 350 BC. Many examples of synergy in nature have since been observed, described, and marveled at in scientific articles such as “The Synergism Hypothesis" by Peter A. Corning, PhD.

What if Aristotle also had discovered a formula that made it possible to measure the effect of synergy on the interaction of two or more things like exploration tools? How useful would this formula be in oil and gas exploration?

Why the whole is greater
Something beneficial and almost magical usually happens in science when synergistic things, or “parts,” interacting together as a team generate a product, or “whole.” In oil and gas exploration each tool in an exploration program reveals more about geological conditions in the subsurface when data from an additional tool are combined with existing information. This phenomenon is the basis for synergy.

When exploration data are acquired on an oil and gas drilling prospect, the innate strengths of each of the exploration tools in the program reinforce or multiply the strengths of each of the other tools in the program as well as reinforce or replace the innate weaknesses. In this way, the ability of the integrated data from exploration tools to identify an undiscovered oil and gas field in the subsurface becomes disproportionately greater as each new tool is added to the exploration program.

In contrast, adding a sixth pulley to a pulley system will not cause the five pulleys already lifting a weight to each lift more weight. The work accomplished by six pulleys lifting a weight is equal to or less than, but not greater than, the sum of all of their separate contributions to the work. Pulleys offer a mechanical advantage but are not synergistic.

Pulleys, exploration tools
Pulleys simply allow you to lift a weight more easily by pulling with less force over a longer length of rope. For example, the pull or force needed to lift 100 lb with six pulleys is 16.7 lb. The length of rope to be pulled using six pulleys is six times the distance the weight is lifted. The mechanical advantage of a pulley system is equal to the weight lifted (“W” or 100 lb) divided by the lifting force or pull needed. In addition, the work (force x distance) required to lift a 100-lb weight 1 ft (0.3 m) always is the same regardless of the number of identical pulleys used. Pulleys do not create energy or quality.

However, when an additional exploration tool is added to a program, quality is created because the information generated by each of the tools already in the program increases in accuracy, clarity, completeness, and, thus, quality.

Graphs sum the parts
The graph of the cumulative percentages of the mechanical advantages of six pulleys appears to mimic the graph of a synergistic function because it is similar to an estimated graph of the effect of synergy on exploration tools. This similarity is logical because the benefits of the mechanical advantage from pulleys (and levers) closely resemble in magnitude the benefits of synergy. The results of implementing synergy and using pulleys are both almost magical.

Table 1 and the graph of pulleys based upon it is an attempt to indirectly measure the effect of synergy. The graph of pulleys is a discovery of a graph of a non-synergistic activity that could be identical to a graph of a synergistic activity. If this conclusion is correct, then the pseudo-synergistic graph of pulleys can be substituted for the estimated graph of all exploration data and be used to evaluate or predict the outcome of the work or proposed work of an exploration program.

On such a substituted graph, geology would have a value of 10% (or more), but the other five exploration tools would take the values of the second through sixth pulleys. The combined graph would require a revised table for technical support as a new graph of exploration data.

Measuring synergy
Measuring the effect of synergy is difficult but not impossible. An accurate measurement of the effect of synergy is important to all branches of science to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of numerous business activities such as oil and gas exploration.

What is not synergistic, such as multiple pulleys working together to lift a weight, is easier to measure than what is. Pulleys were studied because the results of using multiple pulleys are measureable, accurate, and well-known. On the other hand, the relationship of the number of exploration tools to the capture of scientific information is unknown quantitatively. If the graph of pulleys is at least an analog of a graph of a synergistic activity, then synergy can be studied quantitatively for the first time.

The graph of exploration tools was plotted using estimated values. This example attempts to explain what happens when exploration data is integrated. Comparing the graphs, the things studied change from identical pulleys to dissimilar and unequal exploration tools and from pulleys whose contribution can be measured accurately in a laboratory to exploration tools whose value or contribution to the whole can be estimated only. Therefore, the graph of exploration tools should be helpful even though it is based upon estimated data.

The average prospect onshore
If approximately 25% of the basis of the average prospect generated with two exploration tools is created by synergy, then why is synergy not being studied as intensely as 3-D seismic? If the contribution of geology to such an average prospect is 10%, geophysics 20%, and the potential effect of synergy 10% or ¼ of the total, the quantity of data supporting an average prospect only is 40% of what is possible.

Also, these two exploration tools have the potential for, but not the guarantee of, 40% of what is possible. If the exploration data from these two tools is not integrated fully, the false, misleading, and obscured clues in each dataset will not be recognized, and the potential benefits of the program will be only partially achieved because the contribution of synergy to the quantity and thus the quality of the prospect could decrease from 10% to 0%.

Three or more exploration tools
In the case of three tools, if the contribution of geology is 10%, geophysics 20%, geochemistry 10%, and synergy 25%, the quantity of data supporting a prospect is 65% of what is possible. Therefore, the quantity of exploration data, and thus the quality of a prospect based upon three tools is 62% greater than a prospect based upon only two tools. Who could have predicted this large difference without a graph of the effect of synergy?

An article in the March 2008 issue of E&P Magazine, “Shell finds new use for EM,” describes the success of adding a fifth tool, magnetotellurics, to an exploration program. This case study offers a good example of the value and effect of synergy.

Making graphs to quantify the effects of synergy for the first time is an innovation that has created new ways to think about oil and gas exploration and synergy. Future exploration programs can be planned in the light of this new quantitative model.

Future exploration programs
To efficiently and economically discover the conventional oil and gas fields remaining onshore in the US, future programs of three or more exploration tools should use the least expensive tool first and the most expensive last instead of the reverse, as is common today. First, conduct regional surface geochemical surveys, and then do subsurface geologic studies to attempt to explain the surface seep patterns found. Finally, acquire 3-D seismic surveys to provide enough data to elevate the quantity and quality of supporting evidence for a prospect to at least 65% of what is possible.

Nevertheless, the most important aspect of an exploration program is where to locate it. The giant conventional fields left to be found onshore in the Gulf Coast are located where oil companies deliberately have avoided drilling wells to comply with conventional wisdom about the regional geology.

The traps and reservoirs for these undiscovered fields are exceptions to conventional wisdom and, thus, difficult to conceive. If Wallace Pratt were alive today, he probably would advise to find these fields conceptually and then with exploration tools.

If Aristotle were alive today, he might advise that a more accurate way to indirectly measure the effect of synergy than using my graph of pulleys is waiting to be discovered. He once said, "Truth is so large that anyone can hit part of it, but no one can hit all of it."