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Geosciences

At what exact depth are the hydrocarbons located? How big is it? In this huge stack of sedimentary layers, which ones contain hydrocarbons? What is the total volume of hydrocarbons and how much of it can be produced?

To answer some of these questions, the affiliates call on the CSTJF, particularly on our Geosciences staff, who are true modern-day explorers.

Together, geoinformation engineers, geologists, reservoir engineers and geophysicists make up the geoscience chain. What is their pursuit? To detect and locate recoverable hydrocarbons anywhere in the world, using unique in-house technological resources and the center's cutting-edge know-how.

Revealing and understanding the invisible: at the heart of the CSTJF's expertise

The discovery and development of hydrocarbon deposits is based on the analysis and interpretation of oilfield data. Our geoinformation engineers are in charge of the full life cycle of the data, from its acquisition, positioning, qualification, processing, organization and retention. They build integrated reservoir models from seismic, geological and well data.

Geologists are responsible for understanding and predicting how oil and gas basins function in time and space. Their objective: to characterize the elements that make up a hydrocarbon system - the source rock that generates the hydrocarbons, the reservoirs that trap them, and the caprocks overlying the reservoirs, that act as tight lids that seal-in the hydrocarbons at depth. The discipline of geology plays a key role in the oil industry, from acreage acquisition to production.

In the chain of geoscience expertise, the next discipline is geophysics – one of the CSTJF's areas of excellence. Using seismic techniques that study the reflection of acoustic waves in the ground, geophysics is the discipline that first "reveals the invisible": the reservoir. The data acquired are used to make a 3D model of the envelope of oil traps and their internal architecture.

PANGEA III, an extraordinary tool at the CSTJF

CSTJF teams build seismic images of increasing complexity, using head-spinning volumes of seismic data that require colossal computing power to process. For this purpose, we have one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world at the CSTJF – Pangea III. With it we can compute faster, increase the resolution of seismic images using increasingly sophisticated algorithms designed in-house, and reduce uncertainties. Owing to our HPC (High Performance Computing) resources, which are constantly being perfected through active R&D, we are revolutionizing seismic imaging and reservoir simulation. Our reservoir engineers use computer analysis and modeling to estimate the productivity of discovered reservoirs and make recommendations to operations regarding the number, location and type of wells to drill. In so doing, they help petroleum architects optimize the development scheme for these fields.

 

PANGEA III, TotalEnergies' supercomputer at the CSTJF

SISMAGE: unique interpretation solutions

Based at the CSTJF, Sismage-CIG is an integrated geoscience and reservoir suite that acts as “accelerator”, bringing real added value to the work of our geoscience staff. Sismage-CIG is the historic “in-house" platform shared by all the geoscience and reservoir engineers in TotalEnergies' Exploration & Production branch. In a single platform it combines a unique palette of constantly evolving tools: a suite of tools for geophysical interpretation, analysis, geological and reservoir modeling, uncertainties modeling, etc., that were previously spread over a mosaic of software tools developed using different computer languages. By centralizing all the data in a single workspace shared by all the geoscience and reservoir disciplines, teams can transfer results from one tool to another or easily update the entire workflow in the light of new hypotheses, without having to worry about potential errors. With these TotalEnergies proprietary tools, teams can optimize well locations, choose the best production scenarios and thus maximize the profitability of E&P assets.

A wide range of techniques and an array of high-tech tools

PANGEA, SISMAGE-CIG, but also a core library, NANOSEIS, TEP ASD, etc. Teams at the CSTJF innovate to optimize hydrocarbon production and assess performance throughout the operating period.