KPC Group to Unleash Its New 4D Seismic Data technology on South Africa’s West Coast

Manama, Bahrain, December 05, 2016 --(PR.com)-- Recent estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) put South Africa's recoverable offshore gas at 9 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), while there is another 9 Tcf of unconventional gas located in the arid Karoo desert and some 1.5 Tcf of CBM gas.

Faisal Madhol – KPC Groups Senior Geophysical Analyst said, “We have been testing and refining our latest 4D technology for the last 2 years and are now ready to go live, we believe that South Africa’s current discoveries are minor when you compare them to the gas field finds off Argentina or the North Sea and are confident our new technology will be able to discover significantly more of South Africa's hydrocarbon resources.”

Rising Domestic Demand for Gas
South Africa currently consumes some 180 billion cubic feet of gas per year, of which imports of 120 billion cubic feet (Bcf) arrive by pipeline from central Mozambique for customers in Johannesburg (source: EIA, January 2016). With the prospect of rising demand for gas in South Africa, ROMPCO, the pipeline operator, plans to increase capacity from 88 million gigajoules per year to 212 million gigajoules per year by the end of 2017 (source: Engineering News).

Value of 4D
The value of 4D seismic technology when properly applied continues to grow. New technology like the KPC Groups are the reasons for the technology gaining value. The growth from qualitative tool to quantitative reservoir management tool has come over a short time span, too.

The specific advantages depend upon the development stage of a field. The benefits range from more successful well siting to shortening the time to production to extending the producing life of the field.

At the front end, 4D can help place a new well in the optimal spot by indicating how the reservoir is likely to perform. It also can stretch the production time between initial completion and uneconomical water saturation. In a field under development drilling, an eye on 4D data can help determine how the reservoir is acting to improve the placement of each successive well. It also can help in tapping productive partitions within a field that otherwise would not flow.

In older fields, 4D seismic can help locate unproduced hydrocarbons. Assessment of the remaining hydrocarbons can determine if additional drilling is cost-efficient. Locating fluid fronts in older fields can alert the operator to expected breakthroughs.