Key Themes and Major Enhancements in Petrel 2024.9

1. Cloud-Native and Digital Platform Integration (DELFI)

This is the most significant strategic direction. Petrel 2024 is deeply integrated with SLB’s DELFI cognitive E&P environment.

  • Petrel on DELFI: Users can now launch a full, pre-configured Petrel environment directly from a web browser. This eliminates complex local installations and IT overhead.

  • Shared Earth Model in the Cloud: The reservoir model is no longer tied to a single desktop. Teams across the globe can collaborate on the same project stored in the cloud, with version control and concurrent access to different parts of the model.

  • Seamless Data Access: Directly access and integrate data from various sources (e.g., OSDU Data Platform) without manual transfers, ensuring everyone is using the most up-to-date information.

2. Pervasive AI and Machine Learning

AI/ML is no longer a separate module but is woven into the fabric of everyday tasks to automate tedious processes and enhance interpretation.

  • Enhanced Seismic Interpretation:

    • Fault Detection: AI algorithms automatically identify and extract fault surfaces from seismic data with high accuracy, drastically reducing interpretation time.

    • Horizon Auto-Picking: Advanced ML models can now track horizons even in complex, noisy data, learning from the interpreter’s initial picks.

  • Well Log Analysis & Correlation: AI-powered tools can automatically correlate logs across multiple wells, identify facies, and flag data quality issues.

  • Smart Modeling: AI assists in property modeling by suggesting optimal parameters and algorithms based on the input data, moving towards “one-click” geomodeling.

3. Geophysics and Seismic Processing

  • Full-Waveform Inversion (FWI) Integration: Tighter integration with tools like SLB Omega allows FWI-derived velocity models to be directly used for depth imaging and model updates within the Petrel environment, closing the loop between processing and interpretation.

  • Improved Seismic Attribute Analysis: New and optimized attributes for detecting subtle geological features like channels, fractures, and direct hydrocarbon indicators (DHIs).

  • Advanced Visualization: Enhanced rendering for large 3D seismic volumes and improved opacity tools for better volume dissection.

4. Geology and Modeling

  • Uncertainty Quantification: More robust workflows for assessing model uncertainty. Users can easily run multiple realizations to understand the impact of different interpretations on the final reserve estimates and development plans.

  • Stratigraphic and Structural Modeling: Continued improvements in the structural framework building, ensuring more geologically consistent models. Enhanced tools for modeling complex depositional environments like deep-water channels and carbonate reservoirs.

  • Flow Diagnostics: Integrated flow simulation diagnostics allow modelers to quickly assess the dynamic behavior of a static model without running a full, time-consuming numerical simulation, enabling faster model iteration and quality control.

5. Drilling and Well Engineering

The integration between subsurface modeling and well design is tighter than ever.

  • Well Design and Planning: Engineers can design optimal well trajectories within the detailed 3D geological context, assessing risks related to faults, unstable formations, and pore pressure.

  • Real-Time Data Monitoring (with Techlog): While more prominent in Techlog, the connection allows for real-time drilling data to be visualized in the Petrel geological context, enabling geosteering decisions based on the most current information.

6. User Experience and Performance

  • Modernized UI: A cleaner, more intuitive user interface that reduces clutter and helps new users get up to speed faster.

  • Performance Gains: Significant improvements in loading large datasets, rendering complex 3D scenes, and executing computational tasks, leveraging both local hardware and cloud scalability.