Is there any room for gravity in petroleum exploration? Let’s open the door again!
Sergey ShevchenkoSIS Exploration, 29 Harborne Street, Wembley, WA 6014, Australia. Email: sergeys@sis-exploration.com
The APPEA Journal 60(2) 761-764 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ19195
Accepted: 16 March 2020 Published: 15 May 2020
Abstract
The seismic method has been thriving in the oil and gas industry for decades. Technological progress in acquisition, processing and interpretation have made it practically the only geophysical method used for petroleum exploration. Unfortunately, gravity, as a pioneering geophysical method appears to have been completely forgotten in Australia’s oil and gas industry. Most of the gravity data in Australia were collected in the 1960s and 1970s. Only government agencies and a few exploration companies have conducted gravity surveys in petroleum basins since that time. Australia’s mostly flat terrain, economical aspects of the gravity method such as low cost and the ability to cover vast underexplored onshore basins in the country, all seem to be positive factors indicating that this method should be commonly used as a part of petroleum exploration. Given the petroleum industry is currently trying hard to make exploration more economically effective, this may be an opportunity to revive the gravity method in petroleum exploration.
Keywords: economically effective petroleum exploration, integration, interpretation, leads, seismic, structure.
Sergey Shevchenko graduated with BSc from Tashkent University in the former Soviet Union and currently is a PhD student at Curtin University in collaboration with Michigan Technological University. He has full-circle experience in exploration and development for the oil and gas industry and has worked in over 15 petroleum basins worldwide. He started his carrier as a potential field geophysicist, then he worked as a seismic interpreter and at later stage as a QI geophysicist. He has worked for DownUnder GeoSolutions, Cooper Energy, TransAtlantic Petroleum, Incremental Petroleum, Arc Energy, Monitor Energy, Woodside Petroleum, Department of Mines and Petroleum of Western Australia and CGG Exploration Co. His key skills and interests are seismic interpretation, reservoir characterisation (AVO and inversion applications) and potential field methods (gravity and magnetics). He is a Geophysical Consultant/Director of SIS Exploration Pty Ltd and a member of PESA. |
References
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Norvick, M.S., (2004). Tectonic and stratigraphic history of the Perth Basin. Geoscience Australia Record 2004/16.
Shevchenko, S., (2017) The interpretation and integration of old seismic with new gravity data — an example from the northern Perth Basin. PESA News, Issue No 146, April/June 2017, pp. 42–47.
