March 13 (Tuesday) - Petroleum Technology Forum

Abstract:

Time-lapse “4D” seismic technology, pioneered in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s as a series of EOR monitoring field pilot tests, has become a well-accepted reservoir management tool.  The technology first gained major commercial success in the North Sea during the late 1990’s. Evolving business forces are now expanding the application of 4D seismic to new geographies, reservoir geologies and production mechanisms.  4D seismic advances are also being driven by increasing interaction among geophysists and petroleum engineers, improving the monitoring of reservoir processes.  Qualitative interpretations of colorful time-lapse anomalies are being replaced by quantitative inversions of 4D seismic data to produce accurate maps of fluid saturations, pore pressure, temperature etc. in physical engineering units with uncertainty analysis.  Advances in the technology are delineating reservoir compartments, flow paths/barriers and the fluid-flow properties of faults.

Biography:

Dr. David E. Lumley is the Chief Scientist and co-founder of 4th Wave Imaging Corp., an advanced seismic imaging technology company focused on time-lapse 4D seismic monitoring of reservoir production and other subsurface fluid-flow applications, based in Southern California and Houston (www.4thwaveimaging.com). Previously, he was a Senior Staff Research Scientist at Chevron’s R&D Lab. David has approximately 20 years of experience in the petroleum industry, including geophysical R&D and operations positions with Chevron, Arco and Mobil, and as a crew leader on marine seismic vessels with Western Geophysical. His areas of technical expertise include advanced seismic imaging, inversion, and time-lapse monitoring of subsurface fluid flow. He currently holds an adjunct appointment as a Consulting Professor at Stanford University (Ph.D. 1995), and teaches a course in the new CiSoft program at USC’s Petroleum Engineering department. David was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 1998-99 and an SEG-AAPG Distinguished Lecturer in 2000-01.  He is the recipient of many “Best Paper” Awards and the SEG Karcher Award for his pioneering contributions to the development of 4D seismic reservoir monitoring technology.  He is the Principal Investigator of several NSF and DOE research projects, and has served as an adviser to government research panels for the National Academy of Sciences.

Richard Finken, Forum Chairperson: 562-570-3961 or by email richard_finken@longbeach.gov