BP said it has identified more than 200 million barrels of additional resources at its Atlantis field in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico by using the so-called Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) seismic imaging technology.
Geophysicists at BP’s Subsurface Technical Center have enhanced the clarity of images collected during seismic surveys, particularly areas below the earth’s surface that complex salt structures previously obscured or distorted. BP scientists designed a new algorithm and used BP’s Center for High Performance Computing to produce a more accurate image of the salt formation.
As a result of this early success, BP now is deploying this technique to fields elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico as well as in Azerbaijan, Angola, and Trinidad and Tobago.
“This technological breakthrough has essentially allowed our team to find a new oil field within our existing Atlantis field,” said Bernard Looney , chief executive of BP’s global upstream business. “Given the overwhelming success of this project, we are now deploying this technology across BP’s global operations.”
“This innovation again shows that BP remains at the forefront of advanced seismic imaging and digital technologies,” said Ahmed Hashmi , BP’s head of upstream technology. “The new technique has produced the best images of this reservoir that we have ever seen.”
The sharper seismic images mean that BP can drill new development wells in deepwater reservoirs with higher confidence and accuracy, the company explained.