While major companies spend millions on multicomponent research, a small band of mavericks is ready to start shooting surveys.
Once in awhile I get wind of new companies trying different things, and if I think the things they're trying are interesting enough, I might decide to write about it. One such company's press kit crossed my desk the other day.
I must admit I was skeptical about the press release, which breathlessly promised that this company's "technological breakthrough," an acquisition and processing method for 9-C multicomponent seismic, could have an "enormous" impact on the oil industry. We editors read enough press releases that we tend to get a little jaded. So I called these folks and asked, "What are you doing that everyone else isn't doing?"
The answer is an interesting one. The company, Vecta Exploration, was founded by a diverse group of individuals, including John and Robert Beecherl of the Dallas Beecherls who founded Texas Oil & Gas; Tom Coffman, three-time president of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association and founding director of the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council; and Allen Gilmer, a former Marathon geophysicist who co-invented the company's multicomponent tool along with several well-known scientists at the University of Texas' Bureau of Economic Geology.
So what does this tool do? Acquisition-wise, nothing much different than other 9-C tools. It uses multicomponent geophones to take seismic measurements, and it employs a shear-wave source to produce and record shear waves separately from compressional (p) waves.
Processingwise Gilmer claims to have the tool that makes the difference - a software transform that isolates and captures a very clean shear wave generated by the shear-wave source. This shear-wave section is separate from the p-wave section, making comparison easier, and Gilmer claims it gives highly useful information about stratigraphy. In fact, in testing over a field with solid well control, the tool was able to discern all of the sand sequences except for one that was only 4 ft (1.2 m) thick.
The proprietary transform has a patent pending on it.
Does this matter in a world where most of the big bucks are offshore and in ever-increasing water depths? It could. Vecta Exploration plans to distinguish itself from the pack by being almost a hybrid between a service company and an oil company. It's not going to offer this acquisition and processing as a simple fee-based service; it wants a piece of the action when the results indicate the presence of previously invisible stratigraphic traps. But it's also not out leasing up acreage all over the world. It's actively seeking partners with basin-specific experience to offer up a share of their assets in return for technology that might make those assets more valuable.
So far the new company has targeted North America, running through the list of the US Geological Survey's 508 recognized oil and gas plays and narrowing that list to about 250 that have some component that will make this technology applicable.
This brings up the amusing image of Gilmer trying to explain some rather complex geophysics to a bunch of crusty old independents, but Gilmer and Coffman are sure their strategy is sound. "As an industry we've had limited success using 3-D on stratigraphic interpretation because so many variables affect the p-waves," Gilmer said. "This technique answers or constrains several of the rock property variables so that you get much closer to the answer for stratigraphic interpretation."
The company hopes to drill its first well by this summer. If the concept is successful, it begs the question of why a tiny US company was able to beat the megamajors and service companies to the concept.
"We decided to step away from the academic jealousies that seem to exist around multicomponent - we don't have a dog in that fight," Gilmer said. "All we're interested in doing is finding oil and gas."
For more information, visit www.vecta-exp.com.