STATOILHYDRO and US group Tierra Geophysical are to jointly develop seismic imaging software intended to improve the Norwegian petroleum company’s ability to assess exploration and production targets in areas of complex geology. Tierra has spent years optimising its “finite difference propagators” – a family of algorithms – and combining that with StatoilHydro’s imaging expertise and experience is considered to be an “ideal marriage of complementary skills and technologies”.
StatoilHydro project manager Rolf Helland said: “The development of these tools in collaboration with Tierra Geophysical is an important component in our strategic effort to increase our capability to determine improved, reliable images in complex geological settings with large velocity variations. One of the key criteria in such projects is fast imaging turnaround time, and this will be achieved using the finite difference core from Tierra.”
StatoilHydro will commercialise the software developed during the project, the first result of which is highly optimised reverse time migration (RTM).