The active listening of passive seismic events in a reservoir, also known as microseismic monitoring, has demonstrated value for operators in various onshore applications, including monitoring hydraulic fracture stimulations, steam injection tracking for bitumen mobilization, and CO2 injection for tertiary oil recovery. Now, geophysical services provider Microseismic, Inc. (MSI) is ready to move the technology offshore, as an event-detection and accident-prevention tool.
“Onshore or offshore, microseismic monitoring can help operators circumvent problems,” said Peter Duncan, president and chief executive officer of MSI.”I liken our technology to a stethoscope that is placed on the chest of the reservoir, which listens to the extremely low-energy microseismic events that take place during drilling, stimulation, or production. We then diagnose what these events mean for the reservoir, which allows the reservoir engineer to make more informed decisions.”
Listening from afar
MSI has differentiated itself by providing passive microseismic monitoring of assets at or near the surface, rather than monitoring from a single point downhole in an observation well, as is done conventionally. The company lays out an array of geophones, either on the surface in the case of its FracStar monitoring service, or buried just near the surface in the case of its Buried Array service.
Monitoring in this manner may not provide the same resolution of a microseismic event as downhole monitoring, but it does allow an operator to monitor events field wide and avoids the problems of limited viewing area, directional bias, and logistical limitations that are common to downhole methods.