Paradigm™ Customer Newsletter, Vol.2 Ed.2 May 2009

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Dear Valued Customer, We at Paradigm are in "high-pitch" preparation mode to deliver a product portfolio we believe will meet your E&P software needs better than anything before it. Paradigm™ Rock & Fluid Canvas™ 2009 | Epos™ 4.0 will be the largest synchronized software release in Paradigm history. Incorporating over four years of planning, design and development, Rock & Fluid Canvas 2009 carries the cumulative signatures of valuable customer feedback and continual Paradigm innovation in seismic processing and imaging, interpretation and modeling, and seismic characterization and formation evaluation. In anticipation of the forthcoming release, Certain Vision is giving you an early glimpse of some of the new technologies and product enhancements that will soon be available. Last issue we covered Paradigm™ Epos™ 4.0 and VoxelGeo®; this month we focus on Paradigm™ Sysdrill® 2009 and the new technology of anisotropy 3D Tomography. If you or someone you know should be added to the Certain Vision mailing list, please let us know. And, as always, we welcome your comments. Best regards, Cynde Hargrave Chief Marketing Officer. Paradigm™ SKUA® 2009 released! With this release, the SKUA 2009 workflow expands SKUA capabilities into the interpretation field by linking the interpreter and modeler roles. SKUA 2009 includes Interpretation Modeling, a new solution offering the first, truly integrated workflow between seismic and geologic interpretation and modeling. The new package is designed to help interpreters, modelers, and reservoir teams merge seismic interpretation and SKUA UVT-based modeling to enable better interpretation. The 2009 release also includes Stratigraphic Interpretation Modeling, based on SKUA technology, which provides unique tools to concurrently perform stratigraphic interpretation, geochronological modeling and to perform 2D seismic paleo-restoration. Another key feature of this release is the availability of multi-core modeling capabilities which effectively reduce computation time by a factor of eight. Additionally, SKUA 2009 offers Engineering Modeling, a new solution to provide unbiased flow simulation grids in any structural or stratigraphic setting. The Engineering Modeling solution provides a collaborative environment enabling geoscientists and reservoir engineers to efficiently develop geologically coherent production forecasts and better control development risks. Learn more about Paradigm SKUA 2009 on the product page here. Paradigm™ EarthStudy 360™ recognized at the 2009 Edison Best New Product Awards™ Paradigm EarthStudy 360 has won Bronze in the Energy & Sustainability category for the 2009 Edison Best New Product Awards™. EarthStudy 360 is a breakthrough solution for generating full azimuth (360) images of the subsurface from seismic data recordings, providing geoscientists with new data structures and visualizations that can indicate the presence of undiscovered hydrocarbon reservoirs or better understanding of a mature oil field. The method is applicable to the most challenging geologic environments in the subsurface, including subsalt exploration in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. EarthStudy 360 technology is designed to give oil companies more confidence in using seismic images to make safe and successful drilling decisions. Established in 1987, the EDISON AWARDS™ have honored some of the most innovative companies, business leaders, and products in corporate America. They symbolize the persistence and excellence personified by Thomas Edison and honor innovation and innovators. The Edison Best New Product Awards™ are among the most prestigious accolades honoring excellence in new product development, marketing, and innovation. They identify new products and services that excel in marketplace innovation, marketplace success, technological innovation, market structure innovation, and societal impact. Paradigm™ Sysdrill™ 2009 released! Sysdrill 2009 was officially released April 14th 2009 and is now available to our customers on the download tab of the Customer Support Site. If you want to learn more about the new functionalities that this release offers, continue on reading or go to the Product Update section. Do you wear many hats? Paradigm has created a special bundle from the new release of Paradigm SKUA 2009.  Designed for the reservoir modeler/geoscientist who wears many hats - performs multiple functions. Through step-by-step workflows, you can create accurate, unbiased, and geologically realistic reservoir models, facilitating the investigation of alternative scenarios and the quantification of uncertainty in hydrocarbon volumes for reliable development planning and reserve evaluation. Contact a Paradigm representative to learn more about this discount. Offer ends 30 June 2009. Introduction to Anisotropy 3D Grid Tomography A tomographic solution for updating subsurface velocity and anisotropy parameters from seismic migrated data is an extremely challenging problem. The solution is non-unique because many combinations of anisotropic-velocity model parameters can fit the data equally well. The tomography equations linearly relate travel time errors along specular rays to subsurface anisotropic-velocity model parameter updates. The rays are traced from dense subsurface reflecting points up to the surface with different reflection angles and azimuths. In practice, the travel time errors are measured from the non-flatness of migrated events along offset or angle domain Common Image Gathers. The aim of the tomography is to find the optimal set of update parameters that minimizes the travel time errors globally in a constrained, least-squares manner. Thus, the derived parameters should yield geologically plausible models, resulting in flatter output gathers after  migrating the data with the updated velocity model. Paradigm™ GeoDepth® 3D Anisotropy Tomography is a brand new technology that will be released on Epos™ 4. This system has been designed to optimally handle large models with complex geology, such as those currently explored in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico [...] To read more about this exciting new technology, click here. Paradigm Sysdrill 2009 New Features The new Paradigm™ Sysdrill™ 2009, launched March 17th at IADC in Amsterdam, is the only commercially-available, single-application, well planning and drilling engineering solution on the market. Sysdrill 2009 enables drilling engineers to design wells quickly, safely and accurately. It delivers improved ease of use, increased workflow efficiency, enhanced data input/output management and improved reporting. Sysdrill 2009 also includes several new calculations to improve engineering analyses. Some of the most significant product enhancements relate to the use of geological surface files throughout the application. This includes a new Surface Import Wizard which allows efficient import of multiple geological surface files in a single operation. Once imported, these surfaces are available to all wellbores defined within a given field for use in 3D visualization and, for the first time, 2D plots. Sysdrill 2009 also allows automatically calculated formation intersection depths to be displayed in engineering results graphs. One specific benefit of this feature is the ability to interactively update casing seat positions with respect to particular formations within the enhanced Casing Seat Selector [...] To read more about all the new features and enhancements of Sysdrill 2009, continue here! Recent Events Saudi & Kuwait Technology Meetings During these 2-day meetings, Paradigm showcased High Order Workflow (H.O.W.) on various topics; to name a few, H.O.W on Imaging in Local Angle Domain, Next Generation Azimuthal - Anisotropic Tomography, Fast and Accurate Automatic Fault Interpretation & Modeling and a sneak peek on the technology direction for 2009. Technology meetings in Saudi took place April 12-13 followed by Kuwait on April 15-16. For these meetings, we were happy to have Duane Dopkin, Senior Vice President of Product Management as a special presenter. Upcoming Events  Watch for more technology meetings happening at your location! Paradigm is planning a Technology Meeting in Oman towards the end of May and one in Cairo around mid-June. To know more about these events and what's happening next, contact us. Meet Bouchra Arabi Tell us about your role at Paradigm I am a consultant for Paradigm GOCAD® and SKUA®. My role involves providing support, training courses and evaluation. I am based in Cairo, but I travel a lot between Egypt and Libya for user assistance. When and why did you choose to come to Paradigm? I joined Paradigm in October 2008. Before this, I was in the Dubai office for a 3 months internship. I wanted to join Paradigm because I like the spirit of the team, the flexibility in my work, and the things I am able to do with the software are compatible with my studies and my background. To continue reading about Bouchra, click here. A Unified Drilling Solution Includes Well Planning, Drilling Engineering, and Geosteering Doug Gilmour and Rob Innes, E&P Daily News, March 2009. Neural Network Technology for Reservoir Property Predisction from Seismic Data (Russian) Tatiana Malyarova and Roman Kopyonkin, Nefteservice, March 2009. Visualizing 3D features in 3D seismic data Huw James, First Break, March 2009. EarthStudy 360™ - Detailed Seismic Analysis at Subsurface Image Points Digital Energy Journal, March 2000 Unique Solutions - Creating High-Precision Subsurface Models Konstantin Smirnov, Tatyana Malyarova, and Tatyana Olneva, Oil & Gas Eurasia, February 2009. Exploration Interview: John W. Gibson, CEO, Paradigm  E&P, February 2009. A visual data-mining methodology for seismic-facies analysis: Part 1 - Testing and comparison with other unsupervised clustering methods Iván Dimitri Marroquín, Jean-Jules Brault, and Bruce S. Hart, Geophysics, Vol. 74, No. 1, January/February 2009. A visual data mining methodology to conduct seismic facies analysis: Part 2 - Application to 3D seismic data Iván Dimitri Marroquín, Jean-Jules Brault, and Bruce S. Hart, Geophysics, Vol. 74, No. 1, January/February 2009. Paradigm EarthStudy 360™ Zvi Koren and Duane Dopkin, Drilling & Exploration World, January 2009. (continued...) For users with no access to detailed geological surface files, a new Local Formations feature allows the definition of a simplified geological model using oriented planes. Fig. 1: Well planning within a 3D model using the new curtain feature. The ability to import stacked triangulated surface files to both Sysdrill 2009 and Paradigm Geolog® 6.7 allows a more efficient geosteering workflow in which a common 3D model is loaded to both applications. The well is then planned and engineered against the 3D model in Sysdrill, and the trajectory sent to Geolog for construction of the geosteering section. As drilling progresses, changes to the geosteering section can be applied to the 3D model in Geolog and imported to Sysdrill for projection ahead of the bit on a stratigraphically correct basis.  Well planning functions have been extended to support the latest requirements of the industry, including new constant tool face and flat turn well planning profiles, new target management features, enhanced comments handling and automatic calculation of the trajectory Directional Difficulty Index.[...] Fig. 2: New interactive traveling cylinder plot with color-coding based on collision risk factor The Project Ahead module contains a new Nudge/Steer projection type, implemented to meet the specific requirements of well trajectory adjustment when drilling horizontal wells. A new Curtain View page has also been implemented to allow the nudge/steer projection and surfaces to be viewed in 2D (Fig.1). The Curtain View can be displayed as Section, Distance Out Along Well Path and Measured Depth representations. The Clearance Calculation dialog contains several new features to help illustrate collision risk. This includes color-coding within the results summary spreadsheet based on defined Clearance Factor Risk Limit values and a new interactive traveling cylinder plot (Fig.2) that can be scrolled to different depths on the reference well. Fig. 3: Updated casing design interface showing multiple custom load cases and results summary The Casing Design Analysis module has been significantly enhanced to include new Formation Squeeze and Tubing load case types. API connection modeling and independent design factors for connections are now also supported. The interface has been extensively redesigned for more efficient management of inputs and presentation of results (Fig.3). Other engineering updates include a new Friction Factor Sensitivity analysis, improved pump modeling, an enhanced hydraulic circulating temperature model and improved multi-fluid cement definition. Several new features significantly reduce time spent on data entry. These include the new QuickWell feature that allows basic data set-up to well level within a single, wizard-based interface and the new Input/Output Wizard that provides a standard interface for managing import and export of key data sets in common, third-party data formats. All reports now include high resolution graphs and are written to Microsoft Word (or other RTF editors/viewers) for easy incorporation into the drilling program. The Sysdrill 2009 release is the result of a major development effort based on the customer requirements and demonstrates our continued commitment to the drilling software market. For more information, please refer to the Sysdrill™ 2009 Release Notes, the Sysdrill 2009 Help System or contact info@pdgm.com. (continued...) The wide azimuth seismic surveys used in the exploration process provide information about the anisotropy velocity model parameters within the sediment layers and also enrich the information recorded from reflectors in the vicinity and below the complex salt bodies which are dominant in these areas. Fig. 1: QC display in 3D Canvas of events automatic picking on a depth migrated image using the ImagePick. GeoDepth Tomography uses a specially designed infrastructure for High Performance Computing (HPC) which can optimally run on large computing clusters with many nodes (Paradigm Parallel Framework - PPF). Unique methods for automatic picking of reflecting events were developed to improve the efficiency of the tomographic workflow. The resulting picks are stored in the Pencil Database, a new repository where picks along with associated attributes such as dip and azimuth of the reflecting surfaces, surface ID, residual velocity and more, are kept. Tomography consists of two main stages: building the tomography matrix and then solving it. These two stages are performed separately. Starting with a background, isotropic (or anisotropic VTI/TTI) velocity model, a migrated image and migrated gathers, the tomography workflow consists of the following steps: Automatic event picking in the migrated image domain: ImageDAC enables users to extract three different volumes: Dip, Azimuth and Continuity-Factor, which all define the reflecting surfaces and their orientation. ImagePick enables users to extract coherent reflecting surfaces (continuous or not) (see Fig.1). The reflecting points are stored in the Pencil Database. Ray tracing is then performed from these points to acquire surface(s) with different opening angles and azimuths.   Automatic event picking in the migrated gathers domain (multi-azimuth gathers): Residual Moveouts (RMO) are automatically picked at the pre-defined Pencil points. Two types of RMO data are supported: Parametric of second and fourth order Vectors corresponding to one RMO value per trace Multi-azimuth RMOs are fully supported by the system.   Creating the Tomography Matrix using the PPF based anisotropy ray tracing: This stage is the most time-consuming part and is fully optimized to be run on clusters with many nodes. The actual size of the Tomography Matrix grows by a power of six with the size of the grid and can reach hundreds of Gigabytes for typical grid intervals of a few hundred meters. GeoDepth Tomography can handle such sizes using a unique iterative approach. The Tomography Matrix can be constructed using all the information about the anisotropy Thompsen TI parameters: axial velocity, ε and δ.   Solving the Tomography Matrix with different geological constraints: The inversion of the Tomography Matrix can be performed many times with different geological constraints applied independently to each geological layer. For example, no update in the water layer, constant update in salt bodies and constrained lateral and vertical variations within the sediments. Smoothing along background horizons can further provide geologically plausible updates. Note that the Tomography can simultaneously invert all the anisotropic parameters. Fig. 2: Pre-stack visualization of depth migrated offset gathers in 3D Canvas for QC of automatic per-trace RMO picking. Each step of the Tomography is supported by rich quality control tools that can be displayed from Paradigm 3D Canvas (image and gathers domains - see Fig.1 and Fig.2), Velocity Navigator and Probe™. In summary, the new 3D grid tomography represents an extremely large research and programming effort by the GeoDepth team. In comparison to the existing tomography, it provides added strength in subsurface parameter estimation including anisotropy and also an enables an added capability to run large problems on computer clusters. The new tools for automatic picking of reflection surfaces and for picking RMO on gathers also make the tomography more user-friendly and productive. Allon Bartana Project Manager - GeoDepth Meet Bouchra Arabi (continued) What do you like best about working and living in Cairo? I like the office in Cairo. The country manager, Sally Fahmy, gives me a lot of advice since I'm still new to the industry. The office is well organized and I like to work with the users who have helped me adapt to the Cairo lifestyle a lot. Cairo is a nice city. It is upbeat but at the same time tranquil when you want it to be. What special interests outside of work do you enjoy? I like travelling....And see different places, different countries and cultures. It's interesting to learn how different each place is even though it's just across the border. If it's a wonder world, the world is a wonder! What is your favorite phrase, or word, that motivates you? What does not kill me, makes me stronger. (Nietzsche F.)   Comments on the newsletter   I  Contact us