Global Microseismic Services, Inc.
Global Geophysical Services has expanded its suite of services to include passive microseismic acquisition, processing and interpretation for the hydraulic fracture monitoring and mapping market. Global Microseismic Services will leverage the many synergies between Global Geophysical's land seismic data acquisition, multi client seismic programs, data processing with geophysical technology, and integrate these capabilities for clients to Gain InSight with the most cost-effective and highest quality microseismic services offering in the industry.
3D seismic, geosteering and hydraulic fracturing rank amongst the most important technologies for the development of unconventional resource plays. All of these technologies are now routinely utilized together to produce the synergies allowing economically exploitation of what was “just” source rock a few years ago. 3D seismic and microseismic are now prerequisite technologies to modulate the large drilling and completions costs associated with these plays, and to tune horizontal well spacing and orientation to achieve optimal drainage in these challenging reservoirs. Hydraulic fracturing is often the largest expense in the development of an unconventional well, often twice or three times the drilling cost. Optimizing this investment is paramount to profitably develop most unconventional deposits.
Global Geophysical’s RG-3D Reservoir Grade™ (RG3D) seismic provides a mechanism to extract actual rock properties such as Poisson’s Ratio and Young’s Modulus; key input parameters to the critical step of fracture modeling. With insight, a much-improved fracture model incorporating the spatial variance in rock properties from the seismic data will yield more effective and consistent hydraulic fracture treatments.
Larry Scott, Vice President of Global Microseismic Services, says “Microseismic has proven to be the single best indicator of the length, azimuth, height growth, and complexity developed in a hydraulic fracture treatment and can validate these treatments are in fact doing what the model indicates. We finally have a reliable feedback loop to assess the effectiveness of the single most expensive well operation.”
Global Geophysical has built an impressive franchise of multi client programs that provide insight throughout the major unconventional resource plays in the United States. Global Microseismic Services further increases the value of this RG3D seismic database with a new microseismic monitoring network, being installed in an ongoing program of sonde emplacements coincident with licensed surface 3D data, and through provision of microseismic frac mapping results on a multi client or contract services basis. Global grids begin with a local assessment of the relevant hole depths and sensor spacings required to achieve maximum signal-to-noise ratio and accurate event detection, prior to field wide installation of the sensors. Global Microseismic’s monitoring network provides continuous recording and real time capability, and will leverage the company’s own nodal system, the AutoSeis High Definition Recorder.
Global has built a proprietary processing solution that leverages a generation of mature data processing algorithms from the E&P Services division, incorporating anisotropic velocity fields from surface seismic, and uniquely supports the interactive and transparent QC of the intermediate processing. The coincidence of RG3D seismic and the related 3D velocity field improves microseismic event localization and enhances the ability to confidently monitor every frac in the field. A post-frac ‘leave-behind’ 3D viewer displays stimulation data curves as well as microseismic events. The viewer is also able to display contextual seismic and horizon attributes, readily available from Global’s multi client data library.
“The engineering and geosciences challenges associated with typical unconventional resources plays shifts the focus from the long standing question of ‘where to drill’ to ‘how to drill more effectively,’” says Duncan Riley, President of Global Microseismic Services. Microseismic monitoring is a unique avenue to integrate geology and geophysics with the stimulation and completions disciplines. Harvesting the wealth of information derived from long offset, broad azimuth 3D surface seismic data is only logical. Exploiting the synergy of 3D seismic and microseismic data in a multi client business model completely differentiates Global Geophysical from any other provider in this space.
Richard White, Global Geophysical’s CEO says, “Coupling high quality 3D seismic surveys, often on a multi client basis, with shallow grid-based permanent microseismic arrays allows us to exploit synergies of our technology and core competencies and deliver unprecedented value to our customers.”