Land seismic with a million channels – HP and Shell
Feature Articles, Feb  20  2010 (Digital Energy Journal)

- Shell and HP are collaborating to develop a new seismic sensor technology which could make it feasible to do seismic surveys with over a million channels

Shell and HP have announced a collaboration to develop a seismic sensor technology which could make it feasible to do seismic surveys with over a million channels, compared to the tens of thousand channels common in land surveys today.

The new sensor, developed by HP, has a moving mass which is part of a tiny silicon chip (see photograph). So it can be much smaller, lighter, more sensitive and with a lower power consumption than conventional geophones.

The sensor uses MEMS (micro electro mechanical system) technology which was originally developed for the ink jet printer.

Many of us have ink jet printers in our homes and we know that the cartridges can get very expensive. What you might not know is that the cartridge has a tiny machine in it which vaporises a thin layer of ink that acts like a piston which ejects a droplets of ink onto your paper at 15 metres per second

This capability to develop these tiny machines, developed by HP Labs working together with HP’s Imaging and Printing group, has been adapted to create the tiny sensor. HP Labs has been working on MEMS technology for 25 years, and has been working on new sensors for the past 5 years.

HP and Shell did not reveal the specific terms of the deal, but it does not seem likely that the technology will be available to the general industry, at least not initially. The MEMS technology is proprietary to HP.

Wim Walk, manager of Novel Geophysics Measurements with Shell, suggests that Shell might like to use the technology just for itself for a few years before making it available to the industry, probably through one of the existing seismic technology vendors.

HP's technology was first recognized as a potential breakthrough innovation for seismic applications by Dirk Smit, now Shell's Vice President for Exploration Technology, when visiting a Shell nanotechnology conference for academics and industry specialists in 2008, Mr Walk says.

HP is now working to customize the sensor for seismic surveys, based on Shell’s requirements.

The technology draws on other areas of expertise at HP, such as battery technology, wireless communications and the ability to store and manage large volumes of data.

HP envisages that the sensor could be used for many applications other than seismic, including bridge and infrastructure health monitoring, mine exploration and earthquake monitoring.

The sensor is 1,000 times more sensitive than other “high volume” products on the market, HP says, and can offer a broader frequency bandwidth.

Better seismic surveys

The biggest impact the sensor will have, Shell anticipates, is to make it cost effective to do seismic surveys with a much higher channel count (ie with a great deal more recording points), perhaps over a million channels, says Shell’s Mr Walk.

With one channel per sensor, and the sensor being wireless this would allow a variety of topologies from a density of one sensor every 10 metres on a 10km by 10km (possibly rolling) grid to a survey over a much larger area with sensors laid less densely.

Because the sensors are much lighter than conventional recording systems, have no cables and use less battery power, they can be deployed much more quickly, there is less weight to move around, less personnel are needed to do a survey, and ensuring the batteries are fully charged is not so much trouble.

If the overall seismic survey can be done faster, then it can be done at lower cost, which makes it plausible to commission more seismic surveys. If the survey can be made with a higher channel count, then it could provide much higher resolution seismic images.

All of this leads to the ability to find and image reservoirs with more accuracy, and find more oil with less drilling risk.

There are also environmental benefits to the technology, Mr Walk says. Because the sensors are wireless, there are no cables, which need to be laid very carefully to ensure they don’t cause safety hazards or environmental damage. Also, with less equipment to transport, there are much fewer truck movements required.

Current seismic surveys can use 500 tonnes of equipment and need some 200 people to deploy, Mr Walk says.

To do a bigger survey than that with existing technology, “you can’t just multiply that by 10,” he says – ie it isn’t really feasible to do a survey with 5,000 tonnes of equipment and as many as 2,000 people. You need to look for better ways of doing it.

Although it has not yet undertaken any surveys with the technology, Shell has already done a lot of modelling as to how it could be done, with different topologies (structures for laying out the sensors and recording seismic in different directions).

“We think this will represent a leap forward in seismic data quality that will provide Shell with a competitive advantage in exploring difficult oil and gas reservoirs, such as sub-salt plays in the Middle East or unconventional gas in North America,” said Gerald Schotman, executive vice president, Innovation/Research and Development, Shell.

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