Beneath the Subsurface

Join Jaclyn Townsend, Alex Loureiro Ph.D. and Gabe Rolland in this discussion on the IAGC's Ghost Net Initiative.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 00:00 - Introduction to Ghost Net Initiative (GNI)
• 01:20 - Dangers of Ghost Gear & Marine Life
• 03:07 - Origin of the GNI at IAGC
• 04:16 - Get Involved!
• 05:15 - Positive Impact of GNI
• 06:21 - The GNI KPI & Supporting the Initiative
• 10:53 - Has Ghost Net Changed Marine Operations?
• 12:17 - Minimizing Marine Impact
• 13:34 - Centralizing the Effort

EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE

• GNI at the IAGC
• GNI  Reporting Form

Join Jaclyn Townsend, Whitney Eaton, and Gabe Rolland as they discuss the growing need, quantification, and evolution of ESG.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

00:00 - Intro

00:52 - The Rise of ESG to Normalcy

05:07 - ESG is important to... Everyone

07:14 - Regulating the Metrics and Conversation

09:08 -  The Big Footprint (Emissions)

14:17 - Quantifying ESG

16:50 - The Asset-Light Advantage

20:14 - Unpacking Social and Governance

26:07 - Expanding Partnerships: Industry Groups and Academia

30:46 - Supply Chain & Vendors

EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE

• TGS’ Sustainability Page
• UN Global Compact
• UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Task Force on Climate Related Disclosures
• Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
• CDP
• IAGC

Join Jaclyn Townsend, Tanya Herwanger, and Carl Neuhaus as they discuss the changes that this year has brought to businesses, people, and our industry.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

00:00 - Intro

01:17 -  Virtual Relationships & Getting Personal

07:04 - The Growing Gap: Remote Limbo

13:32 - Remote Work & Teams

17:17 - Disconnection & Culture Shifts

19:34 - Innovation Challenges - Define the Problem

24:55 - Simulating the Virtual Water Cooler

27:02 - Relieving the Anxiety

34:46 -  A Way Forward

37:45 – Conclusion

EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE

Building Productive Relationships

• New Rules of Dating (Virtually)
• Virtual Sales amid COVID-19 and after
• 5 Ways Sales Teams Can Adapt During COVID-19
• Mastering the Virtual Practice: Why Your Clients will Prefer Virtual Meetings

Work-Life Balance

• How to Dramatically Improve Work-Live Balance
• Forget Work-Life Balance: It's all about Integration in the age of COVID-19

Online Gaming and Teamwork

• How online gamers' participation fosters their team commitment: Perspective of social identity theory
• Does trust promote more teamwork? Modeling online game players teamwork using team experience as a moderator
• How I Use Online Games to Skyrocket My Remote Team's Productivity

In the final episode of Beneath the Subsurface Season One, we're focusing on Well Data Products and the full gamut of subsurface intelligence that can be gleaned from leveraging Well Data with Seismic. Caroline Brignac sits down with Jason Kegel, Ted Mirenda and Katie Fearn for a deep dive into the evolution of well data and how it’s used in today’s workflows.

EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE

• Production Forecasting
• Completion Data
• Well Data Products
• Interpretation Products
• Well Production Data
• Global Well Data
• US Basins

TABLE OF CONTENTS

00:00 - Intro

01:42 - Evolution of Well Data Products at TGS

03:25 - Production Data & it's Uses

07:38 - Production Data and Thesis Work

09:09 - Longbow: A Well Performance Visualization Tool with Analytics

12:08 - What is Well Performance Data Used For?

15:04 - Validated Well Headers & Interpretation

20:26 - Well Logs and Production Data for Students, Interns & Early Career

22:30 - Historical Production and Well Data

24:43 - The Marriage of Seismic and Well Data: Interpretation

26:48 - Historical Data and Microfiche?!

29:44 - What About Offshore Well Data Products?

34:34 - How Much Gulf Of Mexico Data Does TGS Have?

39:00 - Seismic or Well Data... Why Not Both?

40:20 - Analytics Ready LAS Data (ARLAS)

43:49 - Eye Opening Data for Early Career

48:48 - TGS Projects & Careers

51:37 - Conclusion

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Caroline:

00:12

Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that explores the intersection of geoscience and technology. This is Caroline Brignac from the well data products group at TGS. In This episode we'll explore our well data products and how they prove to be critical datasets for any exploration and development program. So go ahead and we'll get started with introductions for today's podcast. We've got Jason Kegel with us. Jason why don't you to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Jason:

00:39

Sure. My name's Jason. I work with the geology group here at TGS. I'm a geologist I've been here for six years. I work pretty closely with our well data products and our seismic products.

Caroline:

00:50

Awesome. Thanks Jason. We also have Ted Miranda with us. Ted, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Ted:

00:55

Sure. Thank you. Caroline. Ted Mirenda. So I'm with TGS. Well, data products group. I've been here for 10 years now. A primary task was to bring production data to TGS and commercialize that product. It's been a lot of work and exciting.

Caroline:

01:12

That's awesome. I'm really excited about having Katie with us. She's a production geologists for a super major. Katie, welcome. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience with TGS.

Katie:

01:21

Thank you, Caroline. I am a recent graduate school graduate and I loved my time at TGS where I got to use Longbow and R360 and then I carried those things that I had learned and into my schoolwork in grad school and it's been awesome.

Caroline:

01:39

So Katie, you started with us as an intern, correct?

Katie:

01:42

Correct.

Caroline:

01:42

That's awesome. Well, we're really excited to have you here and talk a little bit about what your experience with TGS, our products and how you use it in the industry. So one thing that we know a lot about TGS is that it's known as a seismic company. However, TGS offers a wide range of other products such as products in well data. Ted, would you mind telling us a little bit about the well data products division and how it's evolved over time?

Ted:

02:07

Sure. I guess we can step back to 2002 when TGS officially acquired a little company called A2D that gave A2D's the resources to further go out and I believe in acquire Riley's electric log inventory. So that led to the largest commercial well log library. Other resources that TGS provided or enabled was the ability to digitize hard copies and raster logs to LAS. And that library has grown over time where I came into play now 10 years ago after growing the LAS library TGS made the the decision to what's next with well data, well, let's bring in production data. That's when I came into mix. We started building our production data library up. It's been a long challenging project, but it's really paid off. One of the things that critical decision we decided to do was not acquire any production data assets, but build that data from the ground floor up. That meant more work. But in the long run, it's a more valuable product.

Caroline:

03:25

So when you talk about production data, what exactly are you talking about and what does that look like?

Ted:

03:30

Well, we're talking about the full historical production record of every well in the United States. So when you think about different pieces of information that our clients use and need what the well has produced, the reservoir fluids captured from each wellbore is about as important a piece of information as you can have going forward. So we capture that information, really important to tie it to the proper wellbore and a really detailed well header record. There's a lots, a lot of other processes that we do with that as well to then provide the data to our clients.

Caroline:

04:16

So we know that we have, Jason has some experience as well as Katie with this dataset. Would you mind telling us about how you guys use it in your role in the industry?

Jason:

04:25

Sure. So I know at TGS we use the production data quite a bit, looking at our different mapping projects we have. So when we look across the entire, especially United States and look for new areas to shoot on shore seismic, we like to have a really good background information on what companies are actually producing, how much they produced in the past. Can a lot of times tell you where the, where the new plays are and it's always been said that where you found oil before you'll find oil again. And that's been proven over and over again. When we look at the Permian basin, which has been producing since, you know, the 1910, 1920s and today it's one of the biggest basins in the world and we're still finding oil there. So it's nice to really see those historical records of production and where people have gone. On top of that, the Longbow database gives you completion information so you can start really seeing where exactly within the geology has been drilled and how they have done it. So you can get some engineering insight into that as well. Over the years at TGS we've brought all that together to really start looking at new areas where clients want to go and where we can start bringing them seismic.

Caroline:

05:34

So Katie, we knew that you started off as an intern here at TGS a few years ago and we know that you worked with Jason on his team to help sort of guide where we'd go next with our products. What was your experience with the production dataset and Longbow?

Katie:

05:48

So I used the production and information during my project, both at school and at during internship to help me understand the reservoir better so that I could clear up any uncertainties that I was curious about. So for example, I use production data during my time at school to help me understand if there was any reserves left that were not taken out.

Ted:

06:19

Yeah, I know a lot of our clients then use that data to look for bypass opportunities. Another one of the many capabilities of leveraging production data. Jason talked about moving into the completion data side of what we call completion data. Kind of led that evolution. You know, horizontal drilling, unconventional tight reservoirs, fracking, I mean that led to a whole new need for different attributes captured about a well record. So we identify those pretty early on. I had been collecting those and now provide that kind of information to our clients. Not just perf intervals. What is the, what is the producing interval subsurface depth, but the length of the lateral that's being completed and produced correlating production rates, any U R S 2000 foot laterals, another way to really do better well economics and evaluation of assets. So it's, it never ends, you know, the data needs are constantly evolving and changing as industry changes and we follow that path.

Jason:

07:38

So Katie, you said that you use some of our production data with your thesis work, correct. And that was in the, in Louisiana, the Tuscaloosa Marine shale, right?

Katie:

07:47<

In this episode of Beneath the Subsurface we're focusing on Latin America and how the recent Spectrum acquisition has enriched and expanded TGS' data library. Erica interviews Richie Miller and David Hajovsky, our experts in this prolific region. We'll explore the hottest regions in the South Atlantic margin as well as the bidding climate in Brazil and the path forward for data and technology investments.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

00:00 - Intro

01:20 - Geopolitical Climate in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil

07:12 - Frontier Activity in Latin America

10:28 - G&G Technology Applications

12:22 - Equatorial Margins

15:02 - Investments in the Region

16:47 - Brazil Bid & Licensing Rounds

19:58 - Identifying Leads

23:54 - Data, Beyond Seismic - Geological and Geochemical

26:38 - Old Technology, New Applications, New Techniques

30:00 - Predicting New Plays

34:27 - Conclusion

EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE

• Learn more about TGS in Latin America
• Santos Basin Project Expansion
• Brazil Multibeam and Seep Study Project

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Erica Conedera:

00:00

Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that explores the intersection of geo science and technology. From the software development department here at TGS, I'm your host, Erica Conedera. This episode we're focusing on Latin America and how the recent Spectrum acquisition has enriched and expanded TGS' data library. As you'll hear, Spectrum brings not only a strategic library of seismic data, but also a team of proven and qualified experts in Latin America. We'll explore the hottest regions in the South Atlantic margin as well as the bidding climate in Brazil and the path forward for data and technology investments. I'm really excited today to be in the studio with Richie Miller. He ran things in Latin America for Spectrum and David Hajovsky, our VP of Latin America. So we're here today to talk about how the spectrum acquisition is adding value to our library of data in the Latin America region. So to start off Latin-America is a huge region. There's plenty of geographic diversity there. What are some of the hallmarks of the industry in this region?

David Hajovsky:

01:20

Yeah, well, I think first off, I guess, thanks for having us on here. It's a pleasure to sit here and kinda talk about something that I know Richie and I have both been working on for for a number of years now. I think for me, when I look at Latin America one of the big pieces is the kind of geopolitical ups and downs. You see where markets open markets close and it makes it complicating and interesting when it comes to trying to find the right way to invest there. I think a good example of that is Mexico. It's a market that had been closed off to foreign investment for over 70 years. And during the energy reform, it opened up and you had a lot of multi-client activity both from a spectrum and TGS. And now under the new administration you're seeing things take a turn in the other direction. So it's, it's interesting to kind of see how these things evolve and go and how it makes us manage and be very insightful about our business and how we make our decisions.

Richie Miller:

02:21

And I think we're still real positive on Mexico. It's a huge footprint and the government's indicating they, over the next couple of years, they may move forward again. Like industry wants, it's a great opportunity there. And, we're, we're in a great position.

David Hajovsky:

02:37

Yeah. And I think when you look in Mexico as an example on that, we're still seeing, despite some of the political rhetoric, when, when a more nationalist government gets in office, the exploration that's currently moving forward is still moving forward. You're still having seismic shot, you're still having wells get drilled. So that momentum is still carrying through. And, and that's the thing about our business. It's a long term business. So everything there, we typically ride out all political cycles. So it's just a matter of timing on how that happens.

Richie Miller:

03:07

Yeah. And it's even longer for the, for our customers in the E&P world, they, they look at, at, at decades where we seem to be tied into a four to six, eight year cycle similar to Argentina. I mean, in Mexico, we have an election coming up in Argentina. But the talk to the, our customers, there's not a big concern. We may see a government flip there but it's longterm we're positioned for it. And I think it'll work out just fine.

David Hajovsky:

03:37

Yeah, I think that brings up a, I mean we were both down in Buenos Aires for the ABG international conference. It's a conference of petroleum geologists and certainly I would think we both agree the, the views and the rhetoric coming from all the oil companies there who are our clients was very favorable, very positive on kind of longer term investment outlook. So this makes us feel optimistic about the region. And then just the business in general.

Richie Miller:

04:03

Yeah, that's- and companies like Shell and Chevron, et cetera. They've been in country for quite a long time when there was a different government in place and different price controls. They're the same companies that came in and picked up blocks offshore. Not Chevron, but Shell was pretty aggressive. Yup.

Erica Conedera:

04:22

What do you see happening with round two in Argentina?

Richie Miller:

04:25

A round two is, is pretty exciting. So we have an election coming up. First elections actually late October. The way that's gonna work. If no one gets a majority, then there'll be a runoff in November. We understand from the government that they're going to announce this round the first week of November to open up in April and close in October. That works out real well for us because it hits this budget year cycle for our customers that are looking for some end of year deals. We've had the data that we'll be ready in February that's going to be in the Colorado basin that will be on that round. After the first round, we've seen more interest from, from industry that have come in and, and picked up some data. We even with the uncertainty in the election, we think round two is going to be a bigger, a bigger deal than round one, which was obviously a huge deal for the Argentinian government.

David Hajovsky:

05:22

I think it's one of the things that it's an observation we have, that on that initial round. A lot of the players that end up participating are companies that have some sort of presence in Argentina already. You have a few new players that come in from the international space. But once you get that hub and you have some of that acreage, it makes the investment point that much lower. So as you move into around two companies that already have an established position are able to be more aggressive as they go forward. And because of the success of round one, we're also introducing more international applicants coming into to attract it. So it kind of builds up on itself, builds a scale that we need. And I think that kind of goes to a lot of the rationale behind the, the merger between Spectrum and TGS is prior to this, TGS would not have had the same type of conversations or the same position. But Spectrum has done a fantastic job of understanding the above ground environment and understanding the below ground potential and moving on that and allowing us to, to now work together and try to build a, a better position.

Richie Miller:

06:21

What the ministry has indicated is they've put sectors out that cover the Colorado basin, the deep water area of a Southern area of Argentina as well as the ultra deep of the Northern and Southern parts of Argentina. So they've asked for the E&P business or industry to nominate specific areas. And a real positive thing for TGS is we've got that area completely covered with new data. It's really the only data that's out there to, to help with this round. It's just in this round. So they've also asked us to do some of our G&G work and, and nominate areas based on what we think is prospective. The good thing about our businesses is everybody has a different idea on prospectivity and that's why we see different companies bidding on different areas. And that works well for us.

Erica Conedera:

07:12

So looking at other countries in the region, certainly Brazil has had a lot of activity, but what other countries do you guys have eyes on right now?

David Hajovsky:

07:18

Well, I mean, a big piece of the market for, for both Brazil- I mean for TGS and Spectrum was Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. These are the big kind of established markets where you have a lot of investment already from our client's side and kind of justifies us being there

In this episode of Beneath the Subsurface we turn back time with Daniel Orange, our ONE Partner for multibeam technology and seafloor mapping - and incredible storyteller - and Duncan Bate, our Director of Project Development in the Gulf of Mexico and Geosciences. Dan takes Duncan and Erica on an expansive journey through time to meet a special variety of archea that dwell in the impossible oases surrounding sea bottom vents. We also explore the relatively recent discoveries in geoscience leading to seafloor mapping and how seep hunting offshore can enrich the exploration process today.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
00:00 - Intro
03:35 - What is a seep?
09:06 - The impossible oasis
11:45 - Chemotrophic life
24:15 - Finding seeps
26:51 - The invention of multibeam technology
30:11 - Seep hunting with multibeam
32:48 - Seismic vs. multibeam
34:43 - Acquiring multibeam surveys
44:32 - The importance of navigation
46:20 - Water column anomalies
49:12 - Seeps sampling and exploration
56:23 - Multibeam targets
59:12 - Multibeam strategy
1:03:11 - Reservoir content
1:06:44 - A piece of the puzzle
1:10:21 - Conclusion

EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE

• Learn more about TGS in the Gulf of Mexico
• Otos Multibeam

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Erica Conedera:
00:00:12
Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that explores the intersection of Geoscience and technology. From the Software Development Department here at TGS. I'm your host, Erica Conedera. For our fourth episode, we'll welcome a very special guest speaker who offers a uniquely broad perspective on the topic of sea floor mapping. We'll learn about the technology of multibeam surveys, why underwater oil seeps are the basis of life as we know it and how the answer to the age old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg is the Sun. I'm here today with Duncan Bate, our director of projects for the US and Gulf of Mexico. Do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself Duncan?

Duncan Bate:
00:00:56
Sure, yeah, thanks. I basically look after the development of all new projects for TGS in the, in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm here today because a few years ago we worked on a multi beam seep hunting project in the Gulf of Mexico. So I can share some of my experiences and - having worked on that project.

Erica:
00:01:15
Awesome. And then we have our special guest star, Dan Orange. He is a geologist and geophysicist with Oro Negro exploration. Hi Dan.

Dan Orange:
00:01:24
Good morning.

Erica:
00:01:25
Would you like to introduce yourself briefly for us?

Dan:
00:01:28
Sure. Let's see, I grew up in New England, Texas, so I went to junior high school, just a few miles from where we're recording this. But I did go to MIT where I got my bachelor's and master's degree in geology, then went out to UC Santa Cruz to do my PhD and my PhD had field work both onshore and offshore and involved seeps. So we'll come back to that. And also theoretical work as well. I had a short gig at Stanford and taught at Cal State Monterey Bay and spent five years at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Again, pursuing seeps. I left MBARI and started working with the oil patch in 1997 and it was early days in the oil industry pushing off the shelf and heading toward deep water and seeps were both a bug and a feature. So we started applying seep science to the oil industry and have been doing that for oh, now 21-22 years.

Dan:
00:02:32
The entire time that I was at Embargin, and working with the oil patch. And in fact, ongoing, I do research for the US Navy through the Office of Naval Research. It started out involving seeps and canyon formation and it's evolved into multibeam seafloor mapping and acoustics. And that continues. So in the oil patch I was with AOA geophysics, we formed a company AGO to commercialize controlled source EM sold that to Schlumberger. And then we formed an oil company, Black Gold Energy, that would use seeps as a way to, go into oil exploration. And we sold that to NYKO, since leaving Black Gold with Oro Negro. We've been teaming with TGS since 2014 so now going on five years mapping the sea floor, I think we just passed one and a quarter million square kilometers, mapping with TGS as we mapped the sea floor and sample seeps, pretty much around the world for exploration.

Erica:
00:03:35
Awesome. So let's begin our discussion today with what is a seep, if you can elucidate that for us.

Dan:
00:03:41
So a seep is just what it sounds like. It's, it's a place on the earth's surface where something leaks out from beneath. And in our case it's oil and gas. Now seeps have been around since the dawn of humanity. The seeps are referenced in the Bible and in multiple locations seeps were used by the ancient Phoenicians to do repairs on ships they use as medicines and such. And in oil exploration seeps have been used to figure out where to look for oil since the beginning of the oil age. In fact that, you know, there seeps in, in Pennsylvania near Titusville where colonel Drake drilled his first well, where Exxon, had a group of, of people that they call the rover boys that went around the world after World War II looking for places on the Earth's surface that had big structures and oil seeps.

Dan:
00:04:39
Because when you have a seep at the sea floor with or on the Earth's surface with oil and gas, you know that you had organic matter that's been cooked the right amount and it's formed hydrocarbons and it's migrating and all those things are important to findings, you know, economic quantities of oil and gas. So seeps have been used on land since the beginning of oil and gas exploration. But it wasn't until the 1990s that seeps began to affect how we explore offshore. So that's seeps go back to since the dawn of humanity, they were used in oil exploration from the earliest days, the 1870's and 80's onward. But they've been used offshore now since the mid 1990s. So that's, that's kind of, that seeps in context.

Duncan:
00:05:31
But it's actually the, I, the way I like to think about it, it's the bit missing from the, "What is Geology 101" that every, everyone in the oil and gas industry has to know. They always show a source rock and a migration to a trap and a seal. But that actually misses part of the story. Almost every basin in the world has leakage from that trap, either, either directly from the source rock or from the trap. It either fills to the spill point or it just misses the trap. Those hydrocarbons typically make their way to the surface at some point-

Dan:
00:06:04
at some point and somewhere. The trick is finding them.

Duncan:
00:06:08
Yeah, that's the seep. And thus what we're interested in finding.

Erica:
00:06:12
As Jed Clampett from the Beverly hillbillies discovered.

Erica:
00:06:15
Exactly.

Dan:
00:06:15
I was going to include that!

Erica:
00:06:19
Yes.

Dan:
00:06:19
Jed was out hunting for some food and up from the ground came a bubbling crude. That's it.

Erica:
00:06:27
Oil that is.

Dan:
00:06:29
Black gold.

Erica:
00:06:29
Texas tea.

Dan:
00:06:30
That's right. So that's that seep science. So today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about seep communities offshore because what I hope to be able to, you know, kind of convince you of is if oil and gas leak out of the sea floor, a seep community can form. Okay. Then we're going to talk about this thing called multibeam, which is a technique for mapping the sea floor because where you get a seep community, it affects the acoustic properties of the sea floor. And if we change the acoustic properties of sea floor or the shape of the sea floor with this mapping tool, we can identify a potential seep community and then we can go sample that.

Dan:
00:07:14
And if we can sample it, we can analyze the geochemistry and the geochemistry will tell us whether or not we had oil or gas or both. And we can use it in all sorts of other ways. But that's where we're going to go to today. So that's kind of, that's kind of a map of our discussion today. Okay. So as Duncan said, most of the world, he Duncan talked about how in- if we have, an oil basin or gas basin with charge, there's going to be some leakage somewhere. And so the trick is to find that, okay. And so, we could, we could look at any basin in the world and we can look at where wells have been drilled and we can, we can look at where seeps leak out of the surface naturally. And there's a correlation, like for example, LA is a prolific hydrocarbon basin. Okay. And it has Labrea tar pits, one of the most charismatic seeps on earth cause you got saber tooth tigers

In this episode of Beneath the Subsurface we introduce our Geoscience and Data & Analytics intern teams for our summer internship program. Erica kicks off the episode with Jason and Sri talking about how the programs have come about and changed overtime here at TGS, how they select and recruit for the program, and the scope of the projects that the internships tackle this summer. Erica then spends time with both teams of interns discussing the experience in the program, what they’ve learned, and everything they’ll be taking away and applying back to their studies and upcoming careers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
00:00 - Intro
00:50 - Team Leader Segment with Jason and Sri
01:09 - The Geoscience Internship Program
04:42 - The Data & Analytics Internship Program
07:29 - Advice for Program Applicants
11:54 - Data & Analytics Intern Team Introductions
13:32 - The D&A Summer Projects
15:18 - Lessons Learned Pt. 1
17:20 - The TGS Internship Experience Pt. 1
20:24 - Future Careers
21:41 - Advice for Future Interns & Reasons to Apply Pt. 1
24:34 - Valuable Take Aways Pt. 1
26:01 - Geoscience Intern Team Introductions
28:36 - The Geoscience Summer Projects
31:33 - Lessons Learned Pt. 2
33:14 - The TGS Internship Experience Pt. 2
34:12 - Advice for Future Interns & Reasons to Apply Pt. 2
39:28 - Valuable Take Aways Pt. 2

EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE

• ARLAS
• SALT NET
•  TGS DATA LIBRARY

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Erica Conedera:
00:12
Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that explores the intersection of geoscience and technology. From the Software Development Department here at TGS, I'm your host, Erica Conedera. This time around, we'll be chatting with our newest batch of intrepid students in TGS' dynamic and immersive internship program. As you will hear, they are a diverse group of future innovators from around the world. They bring with them a wide range of skills and interests and work together to collaborate on exciting real world projects. We'll start our conversation today with a quick introduction from the leaders of our internship program. I'm here with Sri Kainkarayam, the data science lead and Jason Kegel with the geoscience team who heads up the geoscience intern program. And we're going to talk a little bit about the internship programs. Jason, how has this program changed in the last five years?

Jason Kegel:01:09
When we first started the program, I want to say 2013, 2014, it was out of the Calgary office in Canada. The interns there were mainly from some of our Calgary schools nearby. And then it started to grow 2014, 2015 to include some of our Texas schools, UT, Baylor, University of Houston. As it's grown, we've decided to add more projects and more sort of interesting work to the projects. We've also been able to bring on some of our original interns into roles within the company. So over the last five years, I'd say the biggest thing that's grown is the, the number of interns. So in Calgary, when this first started we had one intern and then that same intern came back a second year and we brought another one on. And then we got one in Houston. And then as that grew, we had a couple in Houston and a couple in Calgary.

Jason: 02:09
And then the past couple of years we've had four each year. So we had four last year and four this year. So we've really been able to sort of guide new projects around that to where we can really include their schoolwork and what they're doing in their university work with what we're doing here at TGS and hopefully build a sort of cohesive project for them to work on. And that's sort of the struggle with a lot of internship projects that we've done over the past years is to incorporate what they want to do as students and as interns and as their career grows, with what we'd like to see them do and encourage them to do within TGS.

Erica:
02:49
Does that go into the consideration of which interns you end up picking, what their specialties are or what they're looking to do with what you need?

Jason:
02:58
No, not necessarily, a lot of the times the interns, so for example, last year we were working very closely with a couple of schools that we wanted to bring data into. So some of our production data our Longbow group into with the University of Lafayette. So we were working really closely with a few professors out of that school and a few professors with UH. So we had recommendations from the professors themselves with students that they thought might work nicely with us with - in terms of their knowledge of data already and their knowledge of well log use and seismic, so they can kind of jump in running without having to learn too much in the beginning, without too much of a learning curve. So in aspects of that, and that's, that's more that we look for. So the, the professors we're working with, along with how long it will take them to, to get up and running with things.

Jason:
03:51
Our current group of students is sort of a more advanced set of students who are working on their PhDs or in their later years of their master's degrees. So they've already seen a lot of these areas and worked with a lot of the data. So we do look for sort of more advanced students now, whereas when we first started the program, we were, we were happy to get anybody, some people that were not sure if they were going to be geoscientists, but you know, we're in the geoscience program with their bachelor's and that was okay too. I think we still got a lot out of having them here, working with us. but as we've grown, we've been putting them on more and more advanced projects and they've really been able to help out.

Erica:
04:29
Cool, sounds like they've added a lot of value.

Jason:
04:30
They definitely do. And it's nice to have sort of fresh faces around in the summertime and, and it really, really fills in for everybody that goes on vacation in the summer.

Erica:
04:39
(Laughter) Right? Awesome.

Jason:
04:39
The office doesn't seem so empty.

Erica:
04:42
Awesome. So for the data analytics team, the internship program is new. I think this is your first batch of interns, correct Sri?

Sri Kainkaryam:
04:57
Yes. So the data science team started sometime around November, 2017 so this is, although this has been our second summer, this is our first batch of interns that are projects, both, trying to test out novel algorithms, novel approaches, also try and apply ideas from high performance computing to building workflows, and also try and build sort of, user interfaces or ability to, deploy these for various users. So, there are broadly three buckets in which these projects fall into. And, it's an, it's, it was an interesting time looking for an intern because data science as, as a domain is, sits at the intersection of sort of three, broadly non intersecting sets, right? So geoscience, computing as well as machine learning or deep learning and folks having adequate background in all three of them, they sort of fit the -the mold of a good intern.

Sri:
06:02
So it was in some sense was a little hard initially to try and find an intern. So I think we have a talented group of interns working on two of the broad offerings that we have right now. One of them is Salt Net, that is trying to interpret salt bodies from seismic images, and one is called ARLAS that is curve completion and aspects of petrophysics that can be done on, on wells that are available in an entire basin. So, it's, it's been four weeks into the internship program and the interns, the interns are pretty smart. They're motivated and it's been a fun experience so far.

Erica:
06:43
Is it a 12 week program in total?

Sri:
06:46
It's around a 12 week program. Some of them I think are here for a little longer than that. So, one of them is, trying to build a tensorflow port of our salt network flow because tensorflow community comes with a bunch of advantages such as, like, ability to deploy, it also comes with a JavaScript library called tensorflow JS that that makes it easy to do machine learning in the browser. So we want to make use of that infrastructure and the community built infrastructure. And that's one of the reasons why, one of the interns is spending time trying to build, trying to put our workflow in onto tensorflow.

Erica:
07:29
So if you guys had some advice to give to people looking to get into the internship program, would you have anything you'd want to let them know?

Sri:
07:37
So from the perspective of data science internships, given that how fast the field is moving, especially for students looking for data science internships in, in the space of oil and gas, the first and foremost thing is having an ability to understand various aspects, various various sources of data or aspects of data in the upstream domain. Because, just to give you an example, somebody who's worked on deep learning of natural images throughout, the moment you try and apply similar algorithms onto seismic images, it's a completely different domain. So, what are the, what are some of the assumptions that you can make? And that's where havi

In the second episode of Beneath the Subsurface we pick back up with a deep dive into onshore seismic technology in unconventional plays. Wayne Millice, Mike Perz, and Jason Kegel dig through seismic technologies, pre-stack seismic attributes, acquisition developments, and our predictions for the future of seismic and the unconventional realm. Erica Conedera, your host, new to the onshore seismic world, explores the challenges and sometimes over-hyped solutions with onshore acquisition and processing with our guests.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 - Intro
1:51 - Onshore TGS History
2:35 - Acquiring Onshore Data
5:00 - The Migrated Stack
7:28 - Resolution: The Bug Bear of Processing
8:38 - Pre-stack Migration
9:55 - Pre-stack Attributes; The Good and the Bad
12:05 - Pre-stack: The Secret Sauce
13:48 - Noise, Noise, Noise
15:38 - The Future of Unconventionals; ARLAS, AI, and ML
18:35 - Joint Study with FracGeo: Pre-stack Depth Migration
20:39 - Analytic Ready LAS (ARLAS) and velocity Models
24:33 - Acquisition Technology; Surface and Subsurface
27:10 - Azimuthal Sampling - AVO and Velocity Inversion
28:22 - The Q Problem (Anelastic Attenuation)
30:08 - Frequency Problems
35:21 - Interaction with Acquisition and Processing
37:42 - The Future of Seismic in Unconventionals
41:24 - Conclusion

EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE:

• Advances with Land Seismic for Characterizing Reservoirs Workshop with Christof Stork, Mike Perz, Bruce Hootman, Rodney Johnston
• ARLAS and tgs.ai Subsurface Intelligence 
• A Candid Look at the Value of Pre-Stack Depth Migration for Unconventionals with Mariana Roche Davies at Geophysical Society of Houston 
• TGS Data Library

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Erica Conedera: 00:12 Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that investigates the intersection of geoscience and technology. In our second episode, we'll deep dive into seismic technologies, pre-stack seismic attributes, acquisition developments, and our predictions for the future of seismic and the unconventional realm. From the software development department here at TGS. I'm Erica Conedera, your host and complete newcomer to the world of onshore seismic. I hope you'll find our discussion today as informative and enjoyable as I did.

Erica:
00:45
Um, so let's start with introductions to my left.

Jason Kegel
00:49
Yeah. My name is Jason Kegel. I've been with TGS for six years. I'm a geologist. I've worked on almost every one of the onshore US seismic programs that we have.

Erica:
00:59
Awesome.

Wayne Millice:
01:00
I'm Wayne Millice. I'm the gray beard of the group. I've been with TGS only about 11 years, but are, sorry, eight years. But I've been in the business about 35 years I'm the VP of onshore multiclient. And I'm here to hopefully teach some people about the value of seismic in our business.

Mike Perz:
01:19
I'm Mike Perz. I am the director of technology and the onshore group. So I'm responsible for looking after all matters technical in support that group. And I'm not quite as gray bearded as the gentleman sitting to my right, but I have been in the industry for about 25 years. So I'm kind of blondish with whisps of gray, I guess you'd say. (Laughter) No spring chicken.

Erica:
01:42
Awesome. So let's kick off the discussion for today. If you will Wayne by giving us a brief description of TGS' involvement in onshore.

Wayne:
01:51
Sure. TGS was primarily an onshore-offshore company. Up until about 2011 and 2011, we started the onshore business, January I believe, if I remember correctly. And that's how long I've been here, since January, 2011. In 2012, we acquired a company called Arcis in Canada that gave us an instant library of about 15,000 square kilometers in the western Canadian sedimentary basin. And in 2012 we started our first project in the US. And, we have you a since grown the library from the initial 15,000 square kilometers or so until about a 34,000 square kilometer based our database based in the US and Canada. So it's been a, it's been a fun run and it's going well.

Erica:
02:35
Awesome. So Mike, can you take it over for seismic technology? What do we do with the data once we get it?

Mike:
02:44
Sure. So the first thing that happens is that data has to be processed and I always like to call a seismic processing the Rodney Dangerfield of the E&P chain. And the reason I say that is as you might predict, it gets very little respect, certainly in terms of the almighty buck and the price, the price point's

Wayne:
03:04
Very little budget.

Mike:
03:05
Yeah, very, very little budget. And it's kind of ironic because as Wayne and I have discussed a lot, it's the seismic processing step where we have maximal client engagement usually during the course of a multi client project and reputations are won and lost on the processing. But again, very little dollar value flows with it. I don't fully understand why the valuation isn't higher, but it's a problem that I certainly can't fix. So we kind of, in a way, we try to almost leverage that fact that it's a fairly, fairly cheap technology and we take it very seriously at TGS. So with that preamble about why it isn't the most highly valued element of the, of the chain, let's talk about some of the key outputs from processing. So the thing called the migrated stack is probably the single most important processed attribute in an unconventional play in say, offshore environments like the Gulf of Mexico seismic technology is no one buys CEO's of a big oil companies as an important de-risking tool for say sub salt plays the, in the case of unconventionals, I would not say that seismic has that same kind of universal traction whereby everybody in the c suites on down know about seismic. Nevertheless, it is gaining a lot of momentum.

Erica:
04:34
And when you say unconventionals, can you elaborate on that?

Mike:
04:38
Yeah, I'm talking actually we're all going to be restricting the scope of this discussion to the shale plays onshore shale plays. In a, well North America primarily, primarily

Wayne:
04:50
Our primary focus on probably the Permian and the scoop and stack too. But there are several, several basins in the, in the US market that you could consider unconventional.

Erica:
04:58
Okay.

Mike:
05:00
Right? Yeah. So back to this business of the migrated stack, it is well accepted that it's a very useful thing in unconventional, development. And the primary reason for that is it helps in a delineating landing zones for the lateral wells and also geosteering and hazard avoidance. And I don't know, Jason, if you wanted to expand on a geological perspective of why those things are so important in the, in the depth domain. With seismic, you can start really understanding how to land your wells and doing geosteering in the unconventional world. That's one of the most important things that people are doing right now with their seismic.

Jason:
05:41
Geosteering in particular and finding these landing zones has been important because these reservoirs are, we're looking for is the conventional reservoirs can be anywhere from 10 to 50 feet, which is a lot of times right around the [Clears throat]. The area of seismic resolution, what we found to be more difficult is sort of calibrating everything together. So when we have the data, so calibrating the well logs, the tops, some of the understanding the differences in the different tool parameters your measured while drilling tool parameters versus your after drilling parameters and how that relates back to a depth calibration has been very important in the seismic industry. bringing all those things together to geosteer real-time to actually find these landing zones has been something that a lot of different softwares have attempted to do. And bring this into a multi-client aspect where the operator can instantly get a depth to calibrate and volume that they can geosteer on or look at their regional area of interest onshore has been very different than offshore seismic, which has traditionally had that depth migrated volume to begin with.

Wayne:
06:53
I can expand on one thing that Jason said too when we're talking about regional views on the petroleum systems. So our TGS has a strategy to date has been to get assets that are contiguous within these, with these within these basins so you can understand the regional view of it or of an oil producing basin or hydrocarbon producing basin. So it's important in our opinion that we get a large regional view. That's why you'll see you somewh

In the inaugural episode of Beneath the Subsurface, we delve into the exciting realm of AI and Machine Learning as a blossoming new part of the energy industry. Arvind Sharma and Robert Gibson discuss and debate the impacts of disruptive technology, the importance of robust data libraries when building AI solutions, and the future of our industry with AI and ML solutions. With your host for the episode, Erica Conedera, we explore the factors that pushed our slow moving industry to this tipping point in technology and where it could be leading us. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
0:00 - Intro
1:03 - Factors that brought AI to O&G
5:32 - Job creation with AI
12:05 - Career paths and team compositions in the industry
15:30 - Industry pain point solutions with AI and ML
21:32 - Clouds, open source and democratization
24:24 - Kaggle and crowdsourcing Salt Net
30:51 - Kaggle challenges with Well Data
33:58 - Catching up with silicon valley
36:49 - Approaching solutions with AI
44:18 - Disciplining data and metadata to get to the "good stuff"

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Erica Conedera:
00:00
Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that investigates the intersection of geoscience and technology. And in our first episode, we'll be diving into the dynamic field of AI and machine learning as it relates to the oil and gas industry. We'll be discussing the impact of disruptive technology, the importance of robust data libraries when building AI solutions, and exciting possibilities for the future oil and gas. From the TGS software development team. My name is Erica Conedera. And with me today are Arvind Sharma, our VP of data and analytics, and Rob Gibson, our director of strategy, sales, data and analytics. Thank you gentlemen for being with us today for our first episode.

Rob Gibson:
00:48
Glad to be here.

Arvind Sharma:
00:49
Thank you Erica.

Erica:
00:51
So let's start our discussion today by talking about the factors that brought the industry to AI and machine learning. Why now? Why not sooner? Why not later?

Rob:
01:03
Well I'll start. Um, so thank you for the introduction, my name's Rob Gibson. I've been with TGS for almost 20 years now. And in that time, the thing that I have kind of seen over the 20 years in this company, , and probably another eight or nine in the industry, is that we've always been a little slow to adopt technology. And I come from the IT side of the world, software engineering, database design - so from my perspective, it's always been a little bit slow to bring in new technology.

Rob:
01:34
And the things where I've seen the biggest change has been fundamental shifts in the industry, whether it's a crash in oil price, or, or some other kind of big disruptor in the industry as a whole, like the economy, not just our industry but the entire economy. But in middle of 2014 with the current downturn, that's really where I finally started to see the big shift toward AI, toward machine learning, towards IOT in particular.

Rob:
02:00
But it seems like it took a big, big change in the industry where we lost hundreds of thousands of people across the industry and we really still needed a lot of work to get done. So technology has been able to kind of fill in the void. So, even as the downturn happened, we kind of started to level off at the bottom of the downturn and that's when companies started to see that we really needed to inject some more technology to get those decisions made. So generally speaking, I would say that this industry has been a little slow to move to adopt technology even though the industry has got a lot of money to invest in those kinds of things.

Arvind:
02:34
Um, so thank you Erica for that question. And, I'm going to slightly disagree, more broadly, I agree with rob that um, oil and gas industry is historically a little slow in adopting technology, but, the reason I think is a slightly different, I think a oil and gas work in very difficult area where we need to have very robust proven up technologies to work. And in general, we wait a little bit for the technology to prove itself before adopting into, um, more difficult areas. So if we look at a little bit historical view, um, we have been on the leading edge of technology for a very long time. Um, some of the early semiconductors were built by your physical, um, companies. Um, then, as we moved to, PC revolution, we started actually PC, um, we started to actually pick up PCs into office very quickly, not as good as the silicon graphics people, but, soon afterwards, and then when the technology evolution started happening more in the silicon valley, then we started to regress a little bit. We continued on the part of what we were doing, whereas there was a divergence somewhere between mid nineties where silicon valley started to actually develop a little bit faster and we started to lag behind. And I think as Rob said, that, 2014 was a good time because at that time there was a need for us to adopt technology to increase our efficiency and, fill the gap that was created due to capital constraint. And as well as fleeing of, some of the knowledge base, employees - from our sector.

Rob:
04:39
That's a good point on the technology side because you said that we kind of diverged away from where silicon valley really took off in the mid nineties. I entered into the industry in '94. So for me, my entire career has been that diverging process and just now it feels really good. Like we're finally catching up, not only catching up, but we've got customers, we've got employees who are sitting inside of the top tech companies in the world sitting at Google's facilities, even though they're an oil and gas company, sitting and working with Amazon, with Oracle, with IBM, with all these top names. And yet they're doing it in collaboration with the industry. Where in the past, it was almost like the two things were somewhat separated and now they are on a converging path. They've got the technology, we've got the data, at least in our space. And those two things coming together is kind of the critical mass we need to see some success.

Erica:
05:32
So on that note, what kind of jobs do you think are going to be created in the future as the industries continue to convergence?

Rob:
05:40
You know, that's a, that's a great prognostication. I mean, it's kind of interesting when you look back at like airbnb and Uber and those kinds of things. Nobody saw those coming and nobody knew what that was going to look like five years into their business, not to mention 10 or 15. I think that's what we're looking at in the oil and gas industry as well. We still have to find oil and gas. We still have to explore. We still have to be technologists, whether it's IT technology or G&G technology, we still have to operate in those spaces. But the roles may be very different. I'm hoping that a lot more of the busy legwork is a lot easier for us to work with and it has been historically, but we're still going to have to do those core G&G jobs. I just don't know what they're going to look like five years from now.

Arvind:
06:29
I mean the way I see it is that it will be high-gradation to, like it will be more fulfilling jobs. The future jobs hopefully will be more fulfilling. So because a good portion of the grunt work, the work that everyone hated to do, but they had to do it to get to the final work, like final interesting work. Hopefully all those things will this machine learning and AI and broader digitization will help alleviate that part. And even whether you are technologist, whether you are a geologist, whether you're a geophysicist or whether you're a decision-maker. Like in all of those, um, you will start moving from the low value work to high value work. The technologist who was looking into log curve, they will actually start evaluating the log curve rather than just digitizing it. And that's, in my view, it's a more fulfilling job job compared to just doing the mundane work. And I, so that's the part first part is that what kind of job it, my hope is that it will be more fulfilling.

Arvind:
07:43
Now the second is how many and what type of job, um, as Rob said that, the speed at which this is moving, we, it will be very difficult for us to do the prediction. Is that like if we sit here and say that they are, these are the type of job that will be created in five years, we'll be doing a disservice. We can actually make some guided prediction in which there will be need for geologist or geophysicist or petrophysicist and other people to do in what form will they be a pure geophysicist or a geophysicist who is a has a lot more broader expertise, a computer science and geophysicist working together. Those are the kinds of roles that will be needed in future because for a very long time we have operated in silos because it's not just technology is changing is the way we work is also changing is that we have operated in silos that we develop something, throw it over the fence. They, they catch it most of the time and then actually move into the next silo, and so on and so forth. Is that what-

Rob:
08:58
You hope they do anyway.

Arvind:
08:59
Yeah. I hope that they do anyway, but so that's t

David Hajovski and Erica Conedera welcome you to Beneath the Subsurface, a TGS original podcast. Our mission is to provide our listeners with insights into the current climate of the energy industry through expert voices talking about the biggest topics in E&P, geoscience, subsurface data and technology. If you enjoy listening to erudite experts nerd out and debate about the energy industry, you're in the right place!

In this introductory episode David and Erica introduce themselves and the concepts of this show:

• Our goal is to provide insight into the current state of the energy industry through expert voices talking about the most impactful topics that will affect our energy future.
• Every episode will be formulated to touch base on specific and relevant E&P topics as well as invite our listeners to contribute ideas on future topics of discussion…topics that matter most to our listeners.

We'd like to invite you all to listen, subscribe, and engage with our community at Beneath the Subsurface - where our community of listeners can talk freely about science, technology, and the people behind the industry that drive it's growth and development.

Beneath the Subsurface is a TGS Original Podcast brought to you by TGS, the world's largest provider of subsurface data. At TGS, we provide global subsurface data products and services to the energy industry through our investments in multi-client data projects in an array of basins worldwide ranging all the way from new-entry frontier markets to established, mature basins. Our extensive library portfolio services the entire upstream life cycle from exploration through the appraisal and development stage.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

David Hajovski: 00:01
Hello listeners, welcome to Beneath the Subsurface, a TGS original podcast. I'm your host David Hajovski I'm a Vice President here in TGS and excited to be bringing you the introductory episode of our podcast series.

Erica Conedera: 00:16
And from the TGS Software Development department. I'm Erica Conedera, a QA engineer and fellow geoscience enthusiast. At TGS we provide global subsurface data products and services to the energy industry, through investments and multi-client data projects, and frontier, emerging, and mature markets worldwide. Our extensive libraries include seismic, magnetic and gravity data, multi beam, coring information, digital well logs, production data, interpretation, and advanced imaging services.

David: 00:49
TGS has joined the podcasting realm to present the industry with our unique perspective of the E&P market trends and demands as well as ask the questions that you, our listeners, want the answers to. Moving forward, our goal is to provide insight into the current state of the energy industry through expert voices talking about the most impactful topics that will effect, all of our energy future.

Erica: 01:12
Every episode will be formulated to touch base on specific and relevant E&P topics as well as invite our listeners to contribute ideas on future topics of discussion, topics that matter most to our listeners.

David: 01:25
So if you're in the energy industry, or just interested in listening to erudite experts, nerd out and debate about subsurface data acquisition and management, artificial intelligence, machine learning and its growing role in our world, new and exciting technology applications or even just the upcoming acreage offering and its implication for exploration. You're in the right place.

Erica: 01:45
On behalf of TGS and myself, I'd like to invite you all to listen, subscribe, and engage with us at Beneath the Subsurface where our community of listeners can talk freely about science, technology and the people behind the industry that drive its growth and development.

David: 02:01
Beneath the Subsurface is a seasonal monthly podcast. Each episode will come out on the first Tuesday of every month and our pilot season will comprise of six episodes running from May to October. Bringing unique insights from various energy experts. So with that,

Erica: 02:19
thanks for listening. Stay tuned,

David: 02:21
and let's enjoy the show.