Passive microseismic – direct hydrocarbon sensing with minimal environmental impact

Abstract

A method for directly detecting hydrocarbons with minimal environmental impact is presented here with deployment examples from a recent Canning Basin project. To maintain their social license to operate, oil and gas explorers and producers must seek to reduce their environmental footprint and regulatory authorities are required to reduce impact to an acceptable and as low as reasonably practical level. This creates a window of opportunity for advanced, disruptive technologies, which avoid dry holes and shorten the appraisal and development timeframe, while minimising the impact on the environment. Low-frequency seismic is such a technology and here we describe its onshore application, we also briefly touch on the offshore application. Passive microseismic surveys are well known in engineering geology and seismology; however, in the oil and gas industry it is a relatively new geophysical area and their usage is increasing every year. Passive microseismic surveys are a solution both for exploration, de-risking near-field step-outs and siting infill wells in oil and gas accumulations. During August–September 2021, passive seismic data was acquired in the Canning Basin of Western Australia for Buru Energy. The author (Helen Debenham) was on site for the deployment and shares here details of the successes and challenges of data acquisition in the remote desert regions of Australia.