Title:Digital Geology Bringing the Geological Field Trip Into the Office Environment
Title:Digital Geology –Bringing the Geological Field Trip into the office environment
Duration: 4:45 minutes
Description:
Henk Jaap Kloostermanexplains the Digital Geology concept and demonstrates the associated exhibition at Shell’s Learning Centre in the Netherlands.
Digital Geology - Bringing the Geological Field Trip into the office environment Transcript
[Background music plays]
Instrumental music with light tones and synthesised effects.
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Against a white background, a matryoshka doll or Russian nesting doll displays towards frame-right. The wooden figure separates, top from bottom, to reveal a smaller figure of the same sort inside, which has, in turn, another figure inside of it, and this continues until there are five dolls of decreasing size displayed alongside one another in a diagonal rowagainst the white background, with text displaying in upper frame-left.
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Digital Geology Bringingthe Geological Field Trips into the office environment
Interview with Henk Jaap Kloosterman
[Title]
Global Learning Manager Subsurface
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
In Digital Geology, we bring the geological field trip into the office environment, using exhibits of real geology, like rock slabs, cores and fossils. We combine these with digital overlays, to provide hands-on reservoir characterization analysis underpinning key upstream business decisions. This is done at various scales of geological analysis, ranging from “basin-scale” to “grain-scale”, each with their associated workflow and related upstream decision.
[Video footage]
Henk Jaap Kloosterman standing front of doors towards iScope area, with a picture-in-picture of the Digital Geology schematic, followed by video footage of the doors opening and moving through the iScope area to the basin scale exhibit
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
Let me take you on a virtual tour along the various Digital Geology exhibits at Shell’s Learning Centre in Rijswijk in the Netherlands.Let’s start with the “basin-scale” exhibit. At this scale, exploration geologists analyze the geological evolution of large sedimentary basins through time and the associated processes of hydrocarbon formation and trapping.
[Video footage]
Footage of female Shell geologist turning around a large globe.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
For this, global datasets and plate tectonic reconstructions are used which show the development of depositional environments and plate movements through time which are crucial for the understanding of the development of petroleum systems and the formation of hydrocarbon reservoirs.
[Video footage]
Footage of moving through the iScope area interspliced with a still of staff looking interested at the basin scale exhibit.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
Once a basin has been identified, we zoom in further to the play scale at which we try to assess to the various play elements like the presence of hydrocarbon charge, reservoir development, as well as the presence of seal and structure, in order to arrive at a play map that defines how and where a play is likely to work. This could underpin the decision to acquire new acreage for example or to drill an exploration well.
[Video footage]
Footage of moving through the iScope area interspliced with a still of staff looking interested at the play scale exhibit.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
Once an exploration well has been drilled, the newly acquired data, like well logs, cores and fossils are integrated with the seismic data at the “environmental scale” to interpret the depositional environment, as this governs the overall reservoir architecture and therefore the fluid flow in the reservoir.
[Video footage]
Footage of moving through the iScope area interspliced with a still of staff looking interested at the environmental scale exhibit.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
A range of conceptual geological models are constructed that provide guidance on what type of field development would be appropriate and whether further data acquisition and appraisal is required, in order to arrive at robust investment decisions.
[Video footage]
Footage of moving through the iScope area towards the facies scale exhibit.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
Once an economic field development has been established and more well data has been acquired, it becomes important to predict in more detail the reservoir architecture and fluid flow away from the wells to optimize field developments.
[Video footage]
Footage of drilling a research well, followed by core analysis, two stills of the facies exhibit and video footage from students in front of the facies exhibit.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
This analysis is done at the “facies-scale” exhibit, for which a dedicated fully cored research well was drilled, together with the University of Barcelona and Schlumberger. The acquired core data is linked through augmented reality with log data as well as core description and interpretation results, for subsurface uncertainties to be captured in a range of 3D subsurface models that underpin the field development decisions.
[Video footage]
Footage of moving through the iScope area towards the grain scale exhibit.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
Once a field has been in production for some time, there are later field life decisions to be taken, such as the choice of secondary and tertiary recovery scheme. This requires a thorough understanding of the composition of the pore network, fluid properties, reservoir heterogeneity as well as porosity and permeability distributions.
[Video footage]
Footage of students in front of the grain scale exhibit.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
This analysis is done at the “grain scale” at which small scale heterogeneity can be analyzed on both clastic as well as carbonate rock slabs.
[Video footage]
Footage of moving through the iScope area into the iScope.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
Finally, the results of the analysis at the various scales can be visualized and integrated in Shell’s Virtual Reality Centre, the iScope. In this collaborative environment, multi-disciplinary teams can come together to jointly interpret and discuss the outcomes of the various analyses, to arrive at a common understanding underpinning effective business decisions.
[Video footage]
Video footage of presentations inside the iScope and close-ups of participants.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
The Digital Geology concept has proven to be an exciting, new and innovative learning approach for our young professionals.
[Video footage]
Henk Jaap Kloosterman in front of geological outcrop with an inset of the iScope.
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
It also serves as a platform that promotes collaboration between various disciplines within the company and provides a permanent exhibition of subsurface workflows and technologies.
[Video footage]
Henk Jaap Kloosterman in front of a slowly panning panoramic picture of a geological outcrop
[Henk Jaap Kloosterman]
The next steps are to acquire additional digital outcrop datasets like drone-footage and panoramic photographs to be included in the exhibits, to further enhance the virtual experience. Watch this space….
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Shell jingle.
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Shell Pecten centred on a white background, text displaying below.
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© Shell Global Solutions International B.V. 2017