Seismic imaging is almost like taking an ultrasound of the rock beneath the waves. Analyzing it is akin to a radiologist seeking clues in an ultrasound or X-ray -- a process that is itself being transformed by AI. But exploring underwater is much more laborious than analyzing the human body. Oil companies sometimes take seismic images of hundreds of square miles of rock, accumulating terabytes worth of data to analyze. To harness all of that information, they're working with some unusual partners. One leader in the field is Houston-based Bluware, whose software uses concepts from the videogame industry, and is backed by the venture capital arm of oil major Shell.
Bluware says it saved an oil company $170 million when its software identified a geologic fault at an offshore location where a company had planned to drill a well. AI also recently led to a major deepwater oil discovery, said Judson Jacobs, who leads a group that researches and consults with producers on oil-production technology at S&P Global Commodity Insights. They weren't willing to identify the oil companies involved, for competitive reasons.
Eventually, that mysterious find in the ocean's depths could take a place in the history of oil. Rusty horse-drawn tank wagons at the Drake Well Museum in Titusville, Pa., mark the start of the oil age in 1859. The new age might be represented by an object much more mundane, but infinitely more powerful -- say, a hard drive or a seismic image. Just don't expect anyone to talk about it for a while. Even as AI reveals secrets hidden underground, the oil companies using it aren't quite ready to reveal theirs.
Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 29, 2024 21:30 ET (02:30 GMT)
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