The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras researchers have developed a statistical approach to characterise subsurface rock structure and detect petroleum and hydrocarbon reserves.
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They used the method to analyse data from seismic surveys and well logs from north Assam region which is known for petroleum reserve. The researches said they were able to accurately get information on the rock type distribution and hydrocarbon saturation zones at a depth of 2.3 km.
Rajesh R. Nair, faculty in petroleum engineering programme in the department of ocean engineering, led the study whose findings were published in The Nature. Researchers M. Nagendra Babu and Venkatesh Ambati co-authored the article.
Mr. Nair said that the challenge to imaging underground structures arise from the low resolution of the seismic images and the difficulty in correlating the data from well log and seismic surveys. His team had developed a method to predict hydrocarbon zones from complex well logs and seismic data.