Geological Assistant

A recent study * of 97 wells drilled in the UK sector of the North Sea from 2003 to 2013 showed that some of the major reasons for unsuccessful exploration were the fact that several of the prospects relied too heavily only on data (seismic DHIs and amplitude). Regional play-based work for setting and context were repeatedly missed, and pre-drill analysis was often excluded the full range of possible outcomes.

* C.Mathieu.MorayFirth–centralnorthseapostwellanalysis.Oil&GasAuthority,2015.

We have experimented with logic- based techniques for subsurface modeling, with focus on how the inherent complexity in geology such as spatial and temporal aspects can be formally captured and reasoned about using the strength of different formalizations. In particular, we demonstrated the use of abstraction and how formal modelling gives a precise and human-readable representation of domain knowledge. Further, we developed a mechanism to bring together the various models in a novel tool-based approach that constructs multi-scenarios to support geologically oriented subsurface evaluation. In this work, we combined techniques from knowledge representation with formal methods (mathematical approaches that support the rigorous specification, design and verification of computer systems) to the exploration domain.

This logic-based technology enables explorationists to express interpretive uncertainty as discrete scenarios with branches of potential alternative interpretations. With this approach, common-sense explorationist domain knowledge and rules of thumb are explicitly represented in the tools together with collected O&G data.