Exploring New Ideas

An Industry Insight with AOA Geophysics

What will the next generation of oil and gas exploration techniques look like?

“When prices are lower, innovation in geosciences may be the only way of controlling costs”
-Adrian Digby, AOA Geophysics

Whatever the oil price, there will always be a demand for effective geoscience support for exploration. Higher prices are inevitably linked to higher-risk exploration, and this higher risk - be it the expensive search in deeper water for reserves, the tapping of unconventional gas in oil shales or just the continued search for smaller and less readily defined plays in already producing basins - all require our geoscience abilities to keep pace with these changes. When prices are lower, innovation in geosciences may be the only way of controlling costs, by increasing effective exploration - as occurred through the 1990s with the arrival of 3D seismic surveys.

AOA Geophysics Inc. specializes in reducing exploration risk by exploiting underused, undervalued and innovative geoscience techniques, and adding value to conventional exploration activities by integrating and hence using, all available data. These techniques include electrical, magnetic and gravity surveys, high-resolution seabed mapping for seeps and geotechnical purposes and groundbreaking innovations in land seismics.

The company was started by research scientists and still has that inquiring ethos - a charicteristic that has put AOA in the forefront of the development of controlled source electromagnetic (CSEM) acquisition technology. Along with AGO - now sold to Schlumberger - AOA helped bring the concept of CSEM to mainstream exploration, and CSEM is now considered as a valuable tool for oil exploration companies to extend their knowledge of an exploration prospect before incurring drilling costs. However, given that the understanding of and integration of CSEM data with other exploration data and its full utilization still needs support, working with a trusted partner is critical.

"Our knowledge and experience of these scientific fundamentals is now offered as part of our consultancy services," explains Adrian Digby, Director of Business Development at AOA. "While research may be our background, practical application is our strength. With both our exploration and our geohazards business streams, we continue to pursue practical solutions rather than just academic excellence, to decrease costs and reduce risks for our oil company clients."

Three current fields of continued development are potential field data, seabed seep exploration and land seismic services. "With potential field data - magnetic and gravity surveys - we felt there was the need to bring this important data to a wider audience and not just the limited number of industry experts using this data," says Digby. In response, AOA has developed the Quick Study, a presentation format of geo-referenced maps to support new basin ventures. To date, over 60 of these custom-designed surveys have been produced. "We are now looking to provide a similar service but on a multi-client basis, through our publication partners AAPG," he continues. "We anticipate having 10 completed this fall and made available through AAPG's Data Base service."

Seabed exploration is another area of expertise. "Our contribution to reducing risk for deepwater exploration - and in particular, the real challenge of identifying the existence of hydrocarbon systems within frontier basins (not something traditional 2D or 3D seismics reveals) - is best illustrated by the recently completed Indonesian mega-survey," says Digby. The survey included 400,000 sqkm  of high-resolution multi-beam seabed data for 10 unexploited offshore basins. The data was used to identify and classify seabed seeps for geochemical coring, and the phenomenal success ratios in the surveys shows how significant the application of geoscience knowledge to survey design, survey control and interpretation is in reducing costs and improving exploration success in deepwater environments.

"We are now applying the same innovative thought processes to land seismic acquisition," continues Digby. "We have developed ways of widening the frequency range of seismic sources, avoiding the orientation bias of geometric surveys, and lowering the costs and environmental impacts of seismic surveys in general by employing a series of innovations."

These improvements will be felt, for example, in shale exploration by identifying fracturing orientations and densities more effectively. The same goes for coal bed methane. The wider frequency range will also allow both shallow and deep conventional targets to be effectively imaged in a single survey. "The cost and time saving elements of our new survey designs will benefit all existing land-based seismic programs. The environmentally beneficial impact of avoiding dynamite or vibro sources will, we believe, be felt positively throughout the survey industry.

"AOA will continue to ask whether there is a better way to approach all of our geoscience services," concludes Digby. "And this thinking has repeatedly proved, over the years, that the answer is, 'yes, there probably is'."