Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to Energy 101 with Julie McLelland and Jacob Stiller. Join us on our mission to help raise the world's energy IQ.
0:00 Welcome back to energy Wanna One today we have Colton Dudley he is all expert matter and seismic a subject that is huge in oil and gas industry that we have yet to cover so as he has had so much
0:14 experience in his life currently a consultant let's see what he knows and can teach us today take it away
0:23 pretty sure you guys reached out to me and doing this smart this is my first podcast I've ever done so that I was Pretty I think it's taken about a while to get down here so sorry it took so long but
0:36 I've just been been busy the whole fifty miles from Austin
0:42 got Gotta tick Gotta take care of the clients that's for sure their number one priority so we'll have to gamely I hope so That'd be great doing fine right now but this is fun I'm looking forward to
0:53 this should be a lot of fun Yeah well let me sum up this episode in like one sentence seismic is basically like doing an ultrasound on the ground right Yeah they are going to do it we're just you know
1:07 instead of looking for Yeah instead of looking for broken bones were looking for things that hold oil and gas or any other reese resource in the ground right now that might be at the seismic data is
1:19 like a Swiss army knife for any resource business you know if you're looking for oil if you're looking for gas you're looking to put C O two in the ground lithium whatever odd it's it's a good Swiss
1:31 army knife tool to really fine whatever structure geology or what Hobby in the ground help you best extract or put in resource whatever way your businesses whatever resource your company's gone after
1:46 right so that OH okay so hot the jump on but Yeah it is just it's just like an MRI it's literally the same thing love analogies on the show to I actually I would Say is it like a baby a baby Yeah I
2:03 know I was actually Gonna just say like how does it work when you mean how does it work i mean how do we go get it or how do we use it all of it as long as there's time or for exactly
2:14 so the way that it's collected that I've always described it to people actually the way that you collect it and whether it's useful is that I always describe it as trying to find a start on the wall
2:24 so everyone knows that a start on the wall for the most part depends on what house you're in it might be sixteen inches might be twenty four inches but you know what's on that wall somewhere so
2:33 instead of taking a nail which would be like a well and literally just going hitting it on the wall everywhere a really good way to find a stud at least back then you could tap on it with your hand
2:44 you know there's areas on the wall that sound really hollow and there's areas that sound really hard well if you go on the wall it's a lot cheaper to go and tap your wall with your hand instead of
2:54 just hitting one hundred nails in the wall that's what they used to do two degrees very simplistically so instead of that you can have someone go out there and tap your hand all over the law or
3:04 contract or whatnot and when they find the stud you know you're only going to take hopefully by two nails to find it right while that's really a viola seismic data is that all the studs in the wall
3:16 are the structures the geology or whatever is that you're trying to find actually it's in oil and gas or you're looking for fluids not necessarily looking for the rock you want to find a rock that has
3:26 the fluids that you're looking for the fluids at the end of the day when you go onto the seismic survey and you're using swell seismic waves to look at the sub surface helps you find the studs lot
3:37 faster helps find the Anti clients helped you find the fault tribes helps you find the reservoirs the Pump C O two into your whatever whatever resource you're dealing with that's really the value
3:46 behind it it's a lot cheap it's a lot cheaper than shooting seismic data go going get it from someone then just drilling you know a million dollar well or hack a well that's in the Gulf Coast That In
3:58 a one hundred million dollars SWat cheaper to pay a guy like me to help you D risk it before you go out there and just spend a ton of money and that's how it used to be before like the nineteen
4:08 sixties that's really how it used to be they used to just go out and poke holes in August that used to be they're still wildcat nowadays but that was while true wildcat and I guess for a blocker a
4:19 better way to describe it so as most of the data collected now and you're just reading it for people it depends on the project I've been on a lot of a lot of people call me to do because they just
4:31 don't know what's out there I I've worked for a lot of people that they just they just they don't want they don't know the cost of the data they dunno if it's been shot they don't know if it's new
4:41 they don't know if it's all they know if they can get a better price for it it really depends on the company
4:48 I worked for a company that we went as far as winning into his is she much shed I dunno if I it a shed like his Building because he knew he had a three d in there in a flash drive or fly was a big
5:02 hard drive but he's like I think it's in there I went there's a three D in there you don't even know what's in there and he goes no no one else has this three D and as far as I know it's in his shad
5:12 well it's not as in his shed cause we went and looked but he lasted Yeah so you just have to redo it
5:20 three D o three so right Mr up back a little bit so like I said in in the before like the nineteen sixties they just used to go drill oil wells all over the place now that the Geos had an idea of
5:35 where stuff was but they really needed to get the the lateral and vertical vary a bill or resolution in the sub surface to really look to nowhere to go so the first lines of the first data that was
5:48 ever collected was two D seismic and what two D seismic as it's just it's just like a one dimensional picture of the subsurface so if I came out here right now and I know Projector screen is if you
5:59 pulled a projector screen up from the sub surface thoughts what like a two D line is you could literally pull it up and like Yeah I don't know if you Guys could pull
6:11 tech now Jacob I was going to I Wish I could describe what it looks like but it's probably a lot better is pull up a picture I know you think it's going to look very sexy I don't really understand
6:22 what that what is that telling you let me see how quick it looks like I could have just gone and drunk the line when you look at seismic data itself from coming from your God's standpoint does not
6:34 look like this beautiful you know picture of the Grand Canyon I wish it did it would be a lot more fun but the way that seismic data is typically portrayed when you interpreted that is what it looks
6:46 like and honestly that's a big reason why we get paid for what we do right is that it's it is it does take a talented skill set over lots of experience and time to look at that stuff and give
6:57 companies an idea of you know where oil and gas is so great example of that data right there do you see in the data where it's peaked like that just very generally it's like that Yeah oil and gas
7:09 reservoirs still today actually still very common today that's only a section of that right so you're looking at it in one degree that is essentially an upside down bowl so if we had we had a book
7:22 this is your Bowl Hell yeah this is an upside down bowl right so that picture out there if you took a section in between this view caught this and how that's what you're looking at okay but let's say
7:36 that section the bomb and we're still unlike the description of like what two decides is let's say that cut through there that cross -section through there is right here that is the only place that
7:48 you know where that hump is right through looking at that you don't know if you're on top of the hump you don't know if you're on this side of the hump you don't know if you're on this side of the
7:56 hump Two D Seismic Data you really only know a two D picture of what really is a three d thing in the subsurface Gotcha you don't know Yeah so originally unlocked nineteen sixties when they did data
8:09 that's that's literally what your deliverable would be from accompany as you'd get one line now down the road they said well let's not just do one line let's do another line let's do another line
8:19 let's do another line and so if you shot a line here this is the highest part shot a line here this is the lowest part you go over here this is the lowest part oil and gas and most things in the world
8:30 are trying to move to low pressure if you're down there at twenty thousand feet it's trying to come out because it's so much pressure down there so everything is going to migrate to the very top so
8:40 you want to drill a well right in the top and to a degree that's where three D seismic for lateral airway to get to it came about they said well we're shooting all these two D lines why don't we just
8:50 do a ton of 'Em and SLAM them together so we know right where that points at and so if the difference between two D and three D s two D is just a bunch of pieces of the puzzle whereas three d you get
9:01 to see the whole dang thing nonetheless you get a much better idea of the size of the feature whatever you're looking at the risk the amount of oil and gas or whatever it is down there that you're
9:10 looking for so that's the difference between two D and three D if that's yeah hopefully that makes some sense so how does the whole process work from like gathering the data who gathers data how did
9:22 they gather and then when you interpret at you is is there like a program for that like you use Yeah and and is there like technology now where like AI can do all that I save it save as it let's just
9:35 keep my timeline perfectly let's actually put ourselves like on the ground and talk about like basically what you said and then we'll get to so how is the data collected like how is how are they going
9:48 and knocking on the trout and Yeah so and that's that's like literally what they do is they they they have these giant trucks they're called the fun way to say is I don't if they're called Thumper
9:57 Trucks Yeah Thumper trucks because they felt the ground but when you go out and see these trucks they'll have like two three four of them out there at least in a lot of land acquisition stuff that
10:07 I've done and they'll have these trucks and this has just landed it's completely different well it's it's different offshore but the obvious trucks that drive around and they have this giant plate on
10:17 them and you go out there and they set it on the ground and just goes
10:21 and just sends seismic waves into the ground and those waves go down into the ground they bounce off the rocks where we have acoustic changes in the rocks and when they hit thy interface and the
10:33 difference between two rocks that wave comes back up and it's recorded in a geo phone it's the same thing as when you hit your hand on the wall and you're listening for that hollow sound or you're
10:43 listening for that hard sounds the exact it's to a degree it's the exact same concept you are listening for that rock that is most likely going to hold The resource that you're looking for it's the
10:54 exact same concept but that's what they do is they send these trucks out there they slam into the ground those waves go down they come back up and the record on what's called a jio phone slots the
11:04 acquisition part of it and that takes a whole that's actually not my back's protest at all that takes a very specialized skill set to go out and do that once those guys collect the data and the Geo
11:15 phones may have it stored on hard drives and whole kit and caboodle they go to a processing shop and those guys once again you have guys that are very talented in designing the survey correctly and
11:27 you have guys that are very good at processing the data correctly I'm an interpreter I'm the guy who looks at that and helps integrate all the walls and everything like that once the processors get it
11:39 they take it and they do all their work to make the image pretty like that that's what they do is they take the very raw data and make it look to where you can interpret it and get an idea of what
11:49 does the ball look like down there i Dunno It's kind of like a spreadsheet and just making it like pretty with like a letter Font Yeah it's like taking a spreadsheet make it into a picture you know
12:00 when you take a picture on graphic Yeah right you take a picture on the phone it's just a bunch of honestly it's just a bunch of numbers in a spreadsheet but it takes coloring it and doing all that
12:10 stuff and putting it together that really makes a nice photo and then once the photo gets there you know you're on your phone you can do whatever you want thing put a sticker on it or grab it or
12:18 whatever you know guys like me what we do is we're good at taking that data and helping oil and gas companies really figure out what's down there you know that's just a ball is the bowl made out of is
12:28 the bowl made out of granite or is it made out of clay and you can tell that from the waves Yeah but I won't tell you unless they pay me so Yeah but each leg pattern can say like oh that is where
12:43 there's some oil that's where there is some other the other certain rocks and certain fluids how a certain acoustic signature to them so one way that I've described this people is that if if Jacob
12:54 went into another room right now and took a fork and hit on a wine glass I guarantee you know what that is and you don't have to see the rock or the wine glass you do you just know what a wine glass
13:06 sounds like a scott that very distinct ping noise to it right but you could walk in the room and it's a whiskey glass you don't you know it's made out of glass that Yukon ago that's pie wine glass you
13:18 walk in there it might be a little bit different of a glass so on companies when I worked for companies and they say well what do you think is down there might be if they're let's say they're working
13:27 on some kind of ball and they say what do you think the bulls made out of well there's multiple rocks that do sound like the same thing but I can tell you with pretty good certainty what it's not I
13:38 know that that wine glass isn't made out of concrete concrete doesn't sound like that well most concrete doesn't sound like that but I know that a wine glass or Martini glass or whiskey glass sounds
13:48 like that and then from there you start slicing it up more and more and you get to a point where this is what I think it is understanding the regional geology is also Super important you can get an
13:59 idea that you know if you go up to the north side of America in Canada as opposed to I Dunno somewhere different context of the geology is also Super important you know you know there are certain
14:10 areas where there's just going to be certain types of rock though but all that plays together into figuring out what's down there denote as Guy's an expert because at that analogies is just
14:23 good you've got improv hat balls he's got the
14:28 like I love it that everyone take now does exactly what one for sure that they know the team that I'm a fan of representing Yeah Okay so your Duty is basically you get a bunch of slices and then
14:44 that's your thirty like is it it's like saying a pet like Twenty four pictures equals a second of video right it's it's almost exactly Yeah I actually Haven't I haven't really thought about it that
14:54 way blas riot it's like like stop that's a good knowledge of mine once yeah like two D sizes gate is like a photo and then when you shoot three D it's like a video right they actually do have seismic
15:05 now where they're shooting it and they don't do this too much on shore but they they definitely do it more offshore although shoot a seismic survey like every three months and so you get to see part
15:18 one of the coolest things I saw as they shot actually it's becoming pretty common now as though when they pump C O two in the ground dot fluid is moving in time so they'll shoot a survey at one point
15:30 and then they'll come back and shoot one like three months down the road and you can see where that's moving in the sub surface every like three months which is really neat most of the time companies
15:40 I'll do that costs money but like with everything else if it's helping you make better decisions down the road The company is going to pay for it but you Gotta make sure you can prove that value
15:51 improved the case for it did a market that is forty seismic they do Yeah forty two time -lapse seismic cars what they what they called out for the most part Yeah I mean it makes sense as a great
16:03 buzzword but it makes sense yeah the time lapses little bit Sexier than forty but I don't sell it necessarily like that Yeah so you mentioned these hard drives you know storing the data like what does
16:16 does this data look like what are like me some of these file names like or is it just I mean it's all ones and zeroes but like Yeah what does it look like and like what what literal file sizes are we
16:27 talking about like what does a picture of the seismic look what does it three D project look like how big are these files they're massive and they're huge so we're we're talking most most datasets
16:38 what I deal with are terabytes of files so I I always carry a terabyte harddrive with me no matter What Anywhere I Go I have a tear actually I think it's actually I think it's three terabytes that I
16:51 have now and the Reason I do is if there's ever a chance that I'm with someone and they have that data and they're willing to let me have some of it I'm going to have that with me never going to not
17:01 pass up that opportunity but they're huge so these datasets and that's just after it's processed you know when they're initially getting the data it's even bigger data Yeah they filter out the noise
17:13 they filter out stuff that doesn't work but those datasets are huge ah you know they're they're probably getting into the tens hundreds of terabytes type of data storage it is massive how big these
17:25 datasets are and they don't get there they're not getting smaller if anything they are getting bigger the surveys are getting tighter they're getting larger they're collecting deep all the time so
17:38 it's huge it's terabytes and terabytes of data and certainly cannot put it on a flash drive Yeah maybe the old Data you can but all the new stuff certainly not if we go back to you talking about the
17:51 like glass analogy and stuff like that like when your when your interpretation interpreting the data like you're not actually listening to something you're like looking at waves like visualization
18:03 like what are you actually looking at where you're where your ton of difference are are you actually listening to something know oh Yeah I've I've actually had to explain that someone before when
18:12 you're looking at size me cause you look at is like this is sound it's not like you're mit listening to music it's you're taking the music and processing it to where you can it's like lyrics you're
18:22 taking the process in and like looking at it so those soundwaves you're taking well they're seismic waves different
18:31 seismic waves are I mean that's what actually travels through rock that's kind of what it's designated as the mechanical wave mechanical waves anything that travels through media light waves and X
18:40 -rays don't need water Rock or anything to travel to mechanical waves do anyhoo seismic waves and saw what was what was your question again like like I'm picturing you there listening to something or
18:53 like looking at what looks like wave forms are actually looking at what the correct we aren't actually looking at like a course that picture we're not really lists interpreters are not listening to
19:06 the data now the guys that do well actually no one listens to the data the Geo phones record the waves and then the processing guys just take the data and make a picture out of it so correct when
19:18 we're looking at that data we're not we're not listening to it the only person that's listening or the jio phones the Geo phones listen to the data and then we take that process it make a picture out
19:27 of it so no you're not there you're not like in a sound room trying to listen to anything you're kinda just interpreting what the soundwave looks like but it certainly doesn't look like a wave former
19:38 oscillator machine or something like that it always the data all for for the work that I do the data always comes looking like the image that you showed are the traits colorful are they all black and
19:50 white on the client the color bars are extremely important but they need to be taken with great care because the the color bar can help convey information very well but it can also help can also help
20:07 steer someone away from what they really need to know I was a nowadays for the most part most people do not look at seismic data in black and white and they usually color it that data is usually
20:19 colored like red and blue or might be blue and red and some people still look at it in black and white because that's what they're used to but for the most part I I use colors quite a bit because it
20:30 helps it helps convey the information better a lot of times you're speaking with people that are in upper management or speaking people that haven't dealt with seismic data lot so color bars help
20:40 convey information better It can also help push him away from it south to be very careful with the color bars there's chapters in books that talk about color bars of seismic data so it's pretty
20:50 important but you can't let it get away from ya Yeah I feel like there's the advancement of technology that whatever tools y'all you'll use that help like read all this and I feel like there is like
21:05 there's the equivalent of using like cheaper tack with like not so accurate results so like for example shooting for eighty P on like a camera from two thousand like a camcorder a bear to like R eight
21:18 K cinema camera and so like I feel like there's companies that choose a route somewhere in that range of tools Yeah I've used that analogy analogy basically so I'm assuming like the most advanced
21:29 stuff like bakes into color somehow and is like smart tech I dunno like is that is that kind of what you see that's depends on how much you want to pay the tamer to contain the lion I mean there's
21:40 there's a bunch of different ways to orange you can I've worked on projects where I worked on project with paper seismic that I've I'm not kidding I've literally taken a picture with it on my Phone I
21:52 went to home depot or home depot office depot got it printed out was terrible resolution all I had but I interpreted it and sent it to the person I said I think this is what happening what's happening
22:03 down there and I have literally got jobs like that before so whatever the client needs for a product at the end a you gotta do what you absolutely can to provide that anyhoo back to your comment there
22:17 are programs that are quite cheap you can do it as many ways as you want you can take a picture of your phone and I've go get it printed out in color with colored pencils which has tons of value now
22:27 I've done that multiple times or you can pay for a program to interpret it and they're not cheap some of these programs are very well north of twenty thousand dollars per year they're very expensive
22:40 so when you work with clients it's great that sometimes they provide it sometimes they don't just have to make that owner is a bit bit as a you have to make that decision as a business owner are you
22:49 willing to take that client on and pay for that to do the work but for the most part most programs are not cheap to interpret Seismic data they are costly they cost money and they are very complicated
23:01 they take years to get good at you know my program that I'm very good with right now's program called Kingdom and it's kind of an industry standard program but it's taken me years to get good at it
23:13 takes a long time to learn those programs to deal with that type of data so science your question Kinda Yeah is a fascinating industry it's like it's like it's very easy to understand but also
23:26 incredibly in the weeds and I don't even stand a chance there but I wouldn't say that because of your value doing what you guys are doing right I don't know how to do this Yeah I was just learning
23:39 about Asio the other Day I have no idea what that is I just learned that term like literally a week ago oh you're kidding I was like what is that like well how are people finding you and I went I
23:48 dunno that's the point of the mouth but there are ways to do it it's like okay Yeah I mean you Guys are just as good as what you're doing as I AM it it doesn't might not seem that way cause you guys
23:58 work in oil and gas indirectly directly but everyone's got their own values just in a different flavor Yeah I'll leave the seismic work to you yeah so another dumb question is you know You're you're
24:10 going down there shooting the fine oil and gas but you're obviously the waves are hitting all kinds of shit so like you're seeing like gold dinosaur bones like how crazy have like what do you see what
24:21 have you heard what have you seen yourself anything crazy like never see dinosaur bones dinosaur if you ever saw bone and nonetheless a dinosaur they're not crawling around down there anymore they
24:32 were a long time ago but
24:35 there's been some found in Midland Dinosaur bones on the surface fossils what will you can i'll put it this way you definitely cannot see you definitely cannot see fossils of seismic data that's for
24:47 Damn sure
24:49 but it's all a resolution prob if we had better resolution we probably could but that'll never happen but know when we're when we're down there looking not your question was about looking for certain
24:60 fossils or features or a like it'd be other like rare Earth minerals you finding them on purpose an accident I dunno like like I was saying earlier seismic data is a Swiss army knife you know you can
25:12 you can use it to do multiple I mean you can use for or finding oil and gas finding lithium finding gold you can use it for trying to figure out certain things in the soil and the sub service for
25:24 putting buildings on the ground it can be used for tons of industries tons of reasons it just depends on what is it that you're really trying to do down there and is it worth paying for and most
25:37 people do not call me define Stuff like that the ground
25:43 however there are there are geophysicist get paid out there to do stuff like G P R I'm sure You Guys have heard of GBR before so GPCR they take it's like a lawnmower and they just push it on the
25:54 ground and it's got extremely high resolution you can find pipes that big like six feet deep that big you can find the same concept it's going to it's the exact same concept okay the problem we can't
26:09 the the main reason we can't see that Stuff down deep is we get noise and the Earth is a great filter so it attenuates it kills the energy going into the ground so we lose resolution that way you're
26:21 looking at stuff that's ten thousand feet deep it's only going to be such great resolution so Crazy Yeah I would I would have my own I would have there'd be a lot more value in seismic data if we
26:33 could see pipes down there but it's always a it's always a resolution problem with seismic data I know You're trying to find your Best You know Typical Resolution I work with this stuff it's seventy
26:46 five feet that's your resolution that's at least to see the top and bottom of something detectable in resolution not the whole conversation we could get into probably not on this podcast but Yeah I I
26:59 mean
27:01 when you're looking for certain rocks down there they like I said earlier they they sound like certain things and it only takes some one that's really looked at a lot of data to really know what they
27:11 look like down there whether it's you looking for limestone sandstones lithium clays holding lithium fractured rock holding geothermal water you know whatever it is back to your point back to your
27:25 question sizing data can help you see all of that it just it just hopefully it's it's worth paying for the company to see what they're trying to see down there and sometimes it's not there Plenty of
27:39 companies that have worked without seismic data have been successful it just depends on the company and the resource let's maybe compared to coring or other like exploration industries right so coring
27:53 they kind of are like let's not gas let's literally drill until we you know certain parts of the Earth and you're like a seismic seems like a more or less messy way where you just kind of scanning it
28:06 like what else is out there when it comes to exploration what's better or are they both necessary how does that work I think in terms of cost all depends on the company too that depends on the
28:16 resource so in oil and gas that the nice thing about oil and gas as it's it's typically a continuous fluid you know if you find a reservoir that to a degree that that thing is completely continuous
28:30 that fluid is down there so there's well logs you know when you drill a well they have these tools they have these measurement devices that you can figure out what's down there and it's very they'll
28:44 they have when they drill a wall there's a hole in the ground and they stick what are called tools down there and they'll send acoustic waves down there they'll send radioactive material down there to
28:54 help measure the rock better but like in the lithium business and you cannot map lithium with seismic data you can map the rocks that are more likely to have lithium that you cannot book reserves book
29:09 resources things like that on just seismic data but it can help you really nail down the rock that has that resource so back to your point we were talking about corrine you know in the mine in the
29:18 mining business if you're looking for gold silver lithium what have you you do have to drill a lot you'd have to correlate cause you can't really see gold or C silver or C lithium with well logs or
29:32 seismic data you know the rock that is more likely to have it In the geologic environments that might hold that you know you're not you're probably not going to find a lot of oil in Hawaii
29:45 just not not going to be there and you're not going to find certain types of resources in certain areas that's geologic context you just need to know generally where that stuff sought for gold and
29:57 silver and lithium you do have to typically core because you have to be able to go measure that silver that gold and whatnot directly from the rock and get a good idea of the you know parts per
30:08 million that are actually in that core but that's a tough question to answer a lot of times because it really depends on the company depends on the resource but seismic data is another tool to help
30:21 direct what you're looking for ISIS's that too is not the tool that you want to pay for at the time sometimes companies would rather spend more money on coring as opposed to shooting seismic sometimes
30:32 they don't but the companies that do want to spend money on seismic usually they give me a call and I help them make that decision alright let's get back into oil and gas Stuff i guess so like we
30:44 always talk about how like wireline coring and seismic is kind of like not needed as much as like the data's out there and it does I mean you don't need to update what underground it's it's been there
30:56 for millions of years I don't think anything's changed in a few decades or whatever Yeah how does that actually work I mean did is it is seismic like kind of going away is it depends on the project
31:07 just like all my previous comments really depends on the prod size mix never going to go away and the reason it's not as cause if you're in an area that's extremely data rich true you might not need
31:18 it if you're an area that is not data rich or deeper you're right the rock has always been there it's not the rocks knock on it for the most part the rocks not going to change down there but you know
31:30 a lot of companies back to oil and gas like right now great example Great Great Great example A lot of the exploration right now well I wouldn't even say it's exploration it's more it's definitely
31:40 development the Barnett Shale I'm sure You Guys have heard that in the Permian that rock is deeper it's deeper it's had a longer geologic history there's less walls that have penetrated it a lot of
31:54 companies I've been working for has been that formation and it's because there is less there's less rock there's less wells there's less data that has ever drilled that rock and sometimes you do need
32:05 seismic data to fill in the gaps where those wells are generally as you go deeper it's more expensive there's just less well there's less data there's not more data as you go deeper there's last and
32:16 sometimes you do need seismic data to fill the gaps in a lot of cases you need seismic data to fill the gaps you might have a well that's drilled in one spot I've worked projects where
32:28 I've had a well actually it was In the Permian base for the Barna I've had areas where companies were drilling walls were the next closest well for that formation five miles away and they're going to
32:39 put a fifty million dollar project together and their closest well to drill those wells are five is five miles away so a lot of times to say you know what we're going to spend money on the size needed
32:53 cause we want to understand the risk before we draw those walls and some companies they don't do it and sometimes it bites them and sometimes it doesn't it's just it's a decision whether the company
33:03 wants to spend the money or not but seismic data will never go away because anywhere where you don't have enough well data to decrease your risk most companies will go to seismic data to help decrease
33:16 that risk and make a better decision it's just when are they going to pull the trigger you don't know generally if companies are five miles away they'll They'll give us a call but it just depends Okay
33:28 Let's talk about offshore your image said multiple times is kind of sounds like you have experience off shore not really okay very little you know about it I do alright I do I do know about offshore
33:39 data and offers geophysics to a degree but I've haven't worked directly in offshore much and it is definitely a different it's definitely a different environment but in terms of your question earlier
33:52 like collecting it and everything the only differences is you don't use a truck to go out there obviously the ship and the ship has they have this machine that dunno exactly all the machine work spot
34:07 they've they probably compress some kind of air or vice versa and they let that go off in the ocean and then that's your source that's your energy that goes down or Stephanie ocean they they actually
34:20 pay people to go out there and do surveys on on marine and animal life to make sure they avoid that as much as possible i just mean like also interfering with The soundwaves Yeah this is getting a
34:31 little bit outside my expertise but I assume most of those animals are on a far different frequency than south than seismic waves are so I don't get the aguas Oh Yeah
34:44 it's going to be beyond and analogies but yes it's like a dog whistle I mean we can't hear but they can I think it's to a degree the same thing out there that none of the noises out there really are
34:57 I'd say for the most part they're they're either not going to cause a problem where we've gotten good enough processing them to where they're not an issue we know how to get rid of 'Em Yeah Yeah So I
35:08 Haven't I Haven't worked Offshore to I know plenty about the business it's it's the the projects off shore a lot bigger and there are a lot larger in general like the wild thing is that I think there
35:21 is a reservoir recently that BP found that was in South America it I think it literally covers it's wild it covers It covers like the six ten loop that's how big it is insane that's the Reservoir I
35:34 dunno if that's really what holds oil and gas is about Guyana know a well maybe I don't really know but I read an article about it recently there are reservoirs literally it's literally the size like
35:46 the six ten loop or something like that it's massive the all the majors are out there yeah right now whereas you know something like that on sure it's there not that they're not really that caught
35:55 you're not going to find East Texas Oilfield anytime soon I mean I wouldn't be I mean we've been surprised before keep your eyes on Hawaii but
36:06 Yeah so Anyhoo I don't know other than that it's typically just bigger projects in terms of interpreting it it's about the same type of work it's a lot more data the datasets are not hundreds and
36:20 thousands out there it's like tens of thousands of square miles that you're looking up so it's it's just bigger it's just a lot Bigger bigger projects more money more risk things like that so if if
36:30 there are these weird boats essentially like replicating sonar waves and put it in some kind of way that's just hitting the grant the bottom of the ocean though like how's it going under the ocean
36:42 floor thorough when it hits the ocean for you you do lose some of the wave does travel along the ocean floor some of it does reflect off the ocean for B you do get some of the energy that keeps going
36:53 it keeps going through the rock and then it'll hit it'll hit some kind of boundary and come back up and then it'll it loses energy of some of the soundwave or the seismic wave you have some of the
37:05 wave that hits it and reflects back some of the wave keeps going and then it'll hit the next layer and bounce back up and it'll hit the next layer and bounce back up and there's a whole bunch of these
37:14 waves literally traveling everywhere and they're recording it but the processing guys are they're pretty they're pretty Darn good at Knowing What's real and What's not Yeah but it's expertise Yeah
37:27 Yeah it's definitely a yeah it's a skill set to process that data that's why you have interpretation geophysicist like me and you're processing geophysicists definitely two very different skill sets
37:39 but they're both also very valuable so let's go back on land and talk about you said seventy five feet earlier like that's as deep as it sees basic no seventy five feats the this is generally speaking
37:52 depends on everything's general and it depends seventy five feet is like your vertical resolution so if you're looking at a limestone rock in the surface you can see that formation or you can resolve
38:07 it the correct term you can resolve it if it's seventy five foot thick so if it's seventy feet thick you can see the top and the bottom of it now don't want to I want to make sure I make a comment on
38:19 this podcast there is a difference between resolution and detectability and it's one thing to see something it's another thing to actually see the top and the bottom of it resolve in the full figure
38:30 of it now you're not going to see something that's like five to fifteen feet generally you can but if you Gotta be a lot shallower and the properties of the rock ought to be kind of perfect and the
38:45 generally speaking your resolution down there where people look for oil and gas Yeah if you're looking anywhere I dunno fifty to one hundred fifty feet but it depends on the quality of the data it
38:55 depends on how deep you are depends on a whole bunch of factors but that's why we get paid to do what we do is that we help companies figure that out of what they can expect down there and sometimes
39:08 sometimes you have to do the best you can do determine that you can model it you can do a whole bunch of things but generally speaking knots thoughts about the resolution you're getting you're
39:18 certainly not getting every six inches like jar with a wall log or literally every millimeter like you are with core data or something like that thus the resolution that you're generally dealing with
39:28 though I mean I would I was interested in the AM like technology of it all now so do you use AI or like is there any yeah what do you how like what are you doing so anytime we can take AI to help US
39:42 process or interpret it better than Great I'm not worried I'm not worried in the slightest about AI taking geophysics jobs or anything away it's just going to help our do our job way fast I use AI
39:53 constantly there's caught there's programs that are coming out with AI tools that you know Colton doesn't have to take two weeks to interpret an area now I can do it in a week or half week or a day so
40:06 the AI tools that help us do our job faster it can it can never really replace us because it's every single time I've used tools they always got some kind of noise that you Gotta fix and there's
40:17 there's just no replacement for someone giving their opinion and really doing The work it's it's never going to ever really be that tight
40:26 in terms of where I think things are changing or the technology behind it I'm excited for the costs to go down so I think the AI is going to help decrease the costs a seismic data which is going to be
40:38 to die for onshore seismic data is generally speaking it's like fifty bucks at acre plus or minus thirty dollars and I know that windows very big but it depends on how much you buy and it depends on
40:51 how new and old it is if someone's going to buy the oldest data and buy a thousand square miles of it you're going to get a good price but if you buy the most expensive and you want ten square miles
41:01 you're going to pay that eighty dollars an acre so it depends on what you want to pay I am most excited for the AI in terms of process and interpretation to decrease the cost because then more
41:13 companies are going to buy the data which gives US more work and helps us find more resources in the future so while that AI is helping US automatically reprocess data it's going to help Us
41:24 automatically mount false better going to help us automatically find the balls whatever it is it's going to help look for resource faster hopefully D cross causes seismic data that's that's really
41:36 what I'm I'M most excited about because getting companies to get over that hurdle of buying seismic data is really tough and you Gotta be really good at convincing them that the value is there to
41:49 invest because it is they've got tons of money to spend on drilling wells or paying people or or whatever and you've got a convinced the case to buy that data so if we can decrease that costs make it
42:02 available and that's that's really where I I hope it comes in the future and doing AI and utilizes best we can is going to help us do that Yeah no I feel like AI not even helping you like with the
42:16 seismic but like with the storage and organization of it all I mean which was kind of like what collide does for oil and gas would at least like the using AI to help read through files and stuff cause
42:28 like we're talking you talking about terabytes of data entered a terabyte in hand so like Yeah Ai is helping you there too already Ah yeah actually as a matter of fact seismic data can be hair pulling
42:41 to load
42:43 not hired bowling Yeah right but most decisive data nowadays is relatively easy to load but in terms of finding data and I mean even loading it I'm sure AI in comp in programs that companies are
42:59 building is just Gonna help you load it better it's tough to load it's also tough to find but even now like you said I think in terms of storing it in terms of finding in terms of loading it
43:12 interpreting it processing it the whole kit and caboodle AI is going to help us do it just faster and better i Don't I don't think it will ever replace it it's just they need someone to walk us out
43:22 early they need someone to tame the beast it's just you're going to be able to tame the beast a little bit faster so I agree with yod on the more the more and more either we can get built into
43:31 programs and processes the faster the staff can go Hell Yeah take Us over robot overlords I Hope I hope not it won't
43:40 happen with some vocabulary okay we read you got a bunch of words off what was it his consulting company yeah and your linkedin page and let's see if we learned anything you know the first one already
43:51 looks promising so I'm Gonna just be like what is this and then you you're really good at your analogies and your responses so you should have that expertise or wrap it up and good thirty seconds so
44:02 many cars time
44:04 essays off of this alright I'm Gonna say it what is time depth interpretations when it comes as Isaac right so this is something we didn't get into but that picture that you looked At Seismic is
44:18 recorded in time snot depth so when they're when they're recording data it is a sound it is a wave that's traveling through the ground but when it's traveling it's going to take one second or half a
44:31 second to bounce off a rock and come back up so it it is recorded in time that's what it is now you do a lot of stuff with time day to be can drill a date and you can drill a well in time you can't go
44:43 out someone and say well it's about one second deep they're going to be like what does that mean right so a lot of times we get paid to take that data that's recorded in time and convert it to depth
44:55 so companies can get a better idea on what it costs to get down there and actually the A big reason we do Dep to just get the idea of how much oil and gas is down there you can get a spatial idea of
45:05 how big the reservoir is a lot of times they want to know the thickness of it or some other parameter and the only way to do that is is to get your seismic data that is recorded in time and converting
45:14 it into depth and we get Big part of my Job is to get it into depth correctly that can be very simple and it can be extremely complicated so there you go alright pass that pass our one for one out
45:28 about fault interpretations obviously we take underground things like fault earthquake stuff like that as it kind of like that Yeah so I guess also be another picture that you put up one of the one of
45:39 the famous outcrops at least in Nevada is is does the does the nineteen fifty four fault in Dixie Valley and when it happened literally the entire basin so you're looking from a mount range to a
45:55 mountain range the entire base and at least one side of it literally collapsed about six or seven feet and so when you walk up to it it is literally it's like this it's literally just a wall and that
46:07 whole side of it just fell and that Dixie valley fault terms of what You're asking for we are looking for those all over and seismic data and it depends on the project a lot of times in conventional
46:20 type reservoirs the old school stuff while Caddy which they still do now plenty of it those faults will trap oil and gas and it's very common in the Gulf coast that that is the trapping mechanism to
46:31 where oil and gas is not trying to get out of the ground anymore it's just stuck there with unconventional a lot of the fault interpretation is when you drill a well and they want to avoid it for Geo
46:42 hazard reasons so when you drill a horizontal well you want to stay in the rock that has the oil in it and or the gas in it or both if you drove through a fault that's you know I was look Isleta made
46:55 a powerpoint this week of a fault that we mount that was five hundred feet so it's literally if the rocks right here right over there it's five hundred feet deeper thought is a huge risk for accompany
47:05 actually there's no company would probably drill horizontal well with if the next side of it was five hundred feet deep but if it's thirty feet deep they could probably get by it or thirty foot of
47:14 offset whatever you'd like to call it so it turns a fault interpretation there is your answer and at least I'm not showing you the analogy but when you see that picture you'll know it I like showing
47:26 pictures on the podcast visual learners helpful Gotta think about them or let's do a few more that's an interesting velocity modeling EU philosophy and he promised
47:42 he didn't promise but it's so funny like you literally have a list of all these like words put together like I dunno what any of this output or a chai you're providing them are like what is sure
47:57 it is I mean it's you can definitely put it in a chart but how can I swear I've lost modeling very simply it is the it is the pathway it is the product in which you need to provide to get the data
48:11 from time into depth What is what it is to it to describe it in Layman's terms every rock has a speed to it so if you send a sound wave through it every rock has like limestone is pretty Darn fast
48:25 like a wave can travel through limestone at a certain speed a wave travels through water at a certain speed a wave travel through Lava rock at a certain speed generally speaking this is not exactly
48:38 how it works you have to model all of that to get the data in one measurement domain to the other so if you're going from feet per second meters per second you've gotta multiply it by something to
48:51 make it into the other measurement your last model is like your pathway to go from time to depth of seismic data that's pretty good frigate Yeah I might do it one more okay post stack inversion of air
49:09 last one I actually think that one's easier than velocity modeling to be honest
49:15 that image that you hot up earlier that is not his reflection data is the the term it is the it is
49:24 you're looking at the top I Gotta step back but once once one second from that post -DOC seismic inversion in the simplest form I can describe it is
49:36 you are looking at the rock you are looking at the internal properties of the rock and not necessarily the top and the bottom of it so that data that you looked at there if you cant get into a little
49:49 bit more you are seeing the top of your Guys is building and the bottom of your building that you're not seeing the people that work at collide in the middle out is what inversion is is you are
49:59 looking at what is the inside of the rock what is the porosity what is the gas what's inside of that rock and I will keep it at that Yeah In analogy all sum up this whole podcast with an analogy
50:15 seismic is like that picture of homer Simpson where he's skinny but he has all the clothes pins holding his fat behind him have it so easy describes size making like A and like a blanket term and
50:28 you're like boom there it is but behind the scenes it's also insanely in depth and crazy and seismic it's like okay that's homer that and then it's like post stack and version it's like nuts we
50:42 certainly try to clean it up a lot better than Homer Simpson's back fat
50:47 that's what color bars for exactly no good analogy gross analogy but good analogy
50:56 article i see a lot of fun