Sirius*, the Norwegian R&D establishment is working on a Digital Geological Assistant (DGA) in collaboration with Schlumberger, Statoil, NTNU and Sirius’ parent, the University of Oslo. The researchers realized that straightforward geoscience workflows were already digital. Others were unsupported by digital tools, particularly where knowledge is experience-based and intuitive and where images and analogies are used, for instance, in understanding the geological history of a prospect.
Sirius researchers suggested that work done on ‘knowledge representation and formal methods’ might be applicable. They used gaming technology to produce a working prototype which was well received by Schlumberger (which had just announced its ‘cognitive’ Delfi environment.)
The ongoing project is to develop a geological reasoning engine to enable formal description of a prospect’s geological history amenable to automated reasoning. This will combine ‘massive computing power with formal methods of analysis and a logical understanding of how things and ideas in geology interact.’ Exploration geologists are said to be ‘highly skilled but are currently limited by their reasoning capacities.’ Geological analysis is complex, ‘an automated tool could help generate more accurate assessments of prospects.’ More from Sirius.
* Centre for Scalable Data Access in the Oil and Gas Domain.© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.