PanGeo Subsea announces significant funding award for Acoustic Zoom® development

St. John’s, NL CANADA

PanGeo Subsea announces significant funding award for Acoustic Zoom® development

PanGeo Subsea announced today that it has been successful with its application to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Atlantic Innovation Fund (AIF) for funding for the development of its Acoustic Zoom® technology. The amount is significant, up to $3.0 million over the next three years. The announcement was made in St. John’s by the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Minister Responsible for Newfoundland and Labrador.

A technology development and service delivery company specializing in 3D and 4D subsea acoustic imaging, PanGeo Subsea delivers solutions that mitigate risk and create value for oil and gas, offshore renewable energy and other industries including mining and military applications. Its set of technologies includes the Acoustic Corer™ and Sub-Bottom Imager™, both available to the market.

The Acoustic Zoom® is the most recent of its innovations and is an example of the next generation of geophysical technologies. The deep earth telescope will generate high resolution acoustic images five to ten times greater than conventional 3D and 4D seismic. It is directly related to the use of radio astronomy rays to study distant galaxies, but using acoustic rather than electromagnetic energy.

“The petroleum industry is adopting new techniques to improve the imaging and resolution qualities of seismic methods, especially in the marine setting,” said Dr. Jacques Yves Guigné, Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer for PanGeo Subsea. “The foremost of these is the adaptation of a range of time-lapse (4D) protocols. The primary stimuli for 4D applications are improved product recovery and enhanced production safety through anticipation of injected fluid breakthroughs. The development of the Acoustic Zoom® is a culmination of more than 25 years of research in the area of acoustics”.

The Acoustic Zoom® technology offers the potential for a dramatic improvement in the resolution and focusing abilities for 4D surveys. The method uses a purpose designed array of receivers and transmitters on land or on the seabed to enable strategic angular steered beams to capture images of a specific portion of the reservoir.

Moya Cahill, President of PanGeo Subsea, indicated that while the funds are directed to the Acoustic Zoom® development, the whole company benefits from the growth this will bring to our organization. “The demand in the industry for more confidence in the geotechnical parameters of the seabed is increasing. Acoustic Zoom® can reduce the cost, scheduling and logistics involved with 4D seismic imaging, including reductions in the amount of equipment, data acquisition time, as well as the time to compute and interpret seismic results. We expect our technology to become an important tool for permanent reservoir monitoring applications.”

ACOA’s Atlantic Innovation Fund encourages the commercialization of research in Atlantic Canada and has been a key driver for many Atlantic Canadian businesses, universities and research institutions. It has enhanced Atlantic Canada’s reputation for innovation and, through the success of the projects it has funded, the AIF contributes significantly to the region’s research and development capacity and its economic performance.

PanGeo Subsea’s corporate headquarters and technology development are located in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, with business development and operations offices in Norway, Scotland and Denmark. The company has a research partnership with the University of Bath, United Kingdom. For more information visit www.pangeosubsea.com.

Media contacts:
PanGeo Subsea:
Catherina Kennedy, Manager of Corporate Affairs and Human Resources,
+ 1 709 749 1419, ckennedy@pangeosubsea.com

Backgrounder
PanGeo Subsea Acoustic Zoom®

The petroleum industry is adopting new techniques to improve the imaging and resolution qualities of seismic methods, especially in the marine setting. The foremost of these is the adaptation of a range of time-lapse (4D) protocols to improve pore fluid characterization in reservoirs under production. The primary stimuli for 4D applications are improved product recovery and enhanced production safety through anticipation of injected fluid breakthroughs. However in 4D imaging, gathering and analyzing information in order to monitor the changing fluid flow in a reservoir is a time consuming and expensive process. Traditionally, seismic information is gathered periodically by firing towed sound sources and sensing the reflections. The data is processed to determine reflectivity changes over time as water replaces oil in a reservoir. In the marine environment the arrays of sources and receivers are towed behind large survey vessels in overlapping patterns.

One of the major limitations of current marine 4D surveys is that the resolution at reservoir depths is often too coarse to be able to focus the seismic attributes to a specific compartment or feature of the reservoir. Acoustic Zoom © is a novel technique that offers the potential for a dramatic improvement in the resolution and focusing ability for seismic 4D surveys.

Acoustic Zoom™ is a very novel high resolution method which uses steered beams on reception and on transmission to produce images with higher definition than what can be attained with conventional seismic techniques. Acoustic Zoom offers the potential for a dramatic improvement in the resolution and focusing ability for 4D surveys. The method uses a purpose designed array of receivers and transmitters on land or on the seabed to enable strategic angular steered beams to capture images of a specific portion of the reservoir. This is directly analogous to the use of radio astronomy arrays to study distant galaxies, but using acoustic rather than electromagnetic energy. The Acoustic Zoom techniques of arraying and beam forming can be used to image at high resolution complex subtle structural features of the reservoir and surrounding geology (e.g. faults, stratigraphic inhomogeneities). Identification of near surface geohazards e.g. shallow gas, hydrates, sediment liquefaction is an important contribution from its potential use. An important application from a perspective of reservoir management could be in the localization of the seismic attributes used for reservoir fluid characterization capturing a volume that is much smaller than is possible with current technology.

Acoustic Zoom can reduce the cost, scheduling and logistics involved with 4D seismic imaging, including reductions in the amount of equipment, data acquisition time, as well as the time to compute and interpret seismic results. We expect our technology to become an important tool for permanent reservoir monitoring applications.

Contact for technical information
Dr. Jacques Yves Guigné, Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer
+ 1 709 749 8951, jguigne@pangeosusbea.com www.pangeosubsea.com