3DGeo Develops RTM Solution for Complex Imaging Challenges

3DGeo

3DGeo Inc. (3DGeo) announced that it has developed and deployed a production-ready, high-end imaging application using Anisotropic Reverse Time Migration (RTM) to successfully image complicated structures such as oil-bearing sands trapped below complex salt bodies in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Brazil. 3DGEO has developed this tool to efficiently and cost effectively visualize prospects that otherwise would be invisible using conventional imaging techniques.

"Our commercial RTM solution is a next generation approach that unlocks the imaging challenges associated with complicated structures," said Dimitri Bevc, President of 3DGeo. "Developed and tested by our award-winning technology team, our RTM solution has been demonstrated in a production environment and produces superior results to conventional one-way wave equation approaches commonly used today. We expect that oil companies challenged by complex structures and subsalt targets will be able to use our new technology to significantly reduce exploration risk, enabling them to tap oil and gas from ever more challenging plays, while lowering the cost of production and providing faster delivery of oil and gas to the marketplace." 3DGeo's solution has been successfully used on both land and marine imaging projects.

3DGEO's RTM announcement comes on the heels of recently receiving two prestigious awards acknowledging its success in developing 3-D wave equation solutions for ultra deep and complex structures. In January, 3DGEO was named by the IEEE as one of its 2008 technology award winners for "Solving the Oil Equation". The IEEE award recognized 3DGeo's development of advanced algorithms to create cutting-edge, full wavefield imaging techniques as part of Kaleidoscope, the geophysical supercomputing project with Repsol YPF. The Kaleidoscope Project was designed to develop next generation seismic imaging technology, using new models and algorithms deployed on state-of-the art commodity clusters and hardware accelerated supercomputers.

In 2007, 3DGEO was named the winner of Hart's prestigious 2007 Special Meritorious Awards for Engineering Innovation. 3DGeo was selected for the award for 3-D wave-equation migration and illumination to image ultra deep structures.

This technology provides a much higher structural resolution and greater amplitude fidelity for use in oil-and-gas exploration in deep complex structures where conventional Kirchhoff imaging fails to provide an accurate structural image. 3DGeo is one of the pioneers in researching common image angle gathers technology and holds the patent (U.S. 6546339) for using the move-out of the angle gathers for computing the velocity update.


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