MicroSeismic Technology

MSI's patented PSET® imaging technology provides the best, most accurate microseismic event location in the industry.

There are multiple sources of microseismic energy within the reservoir, all associated with specific dynamic reactions to hydrocarbon-producing activities. MicroSeismic, Inc. (MSI) provides innovative technologies that monitor and map these energy fields from the surface in real-time, yielding valuable information unavailable from other monitoring methods.

How MicroSeismic's Technology Works

MSI is a pioneer in monitoring microseismic events from or near the surface, in real-time, using large geophone arrays. Like a stethoscope on the chest of the reservoir, our arrays give insight into a fracture treatment as it happens, allowing operators to optimize field development plans and avoid fracturing (fracing) into environmentally sensitive areas.

Traditionally, operators have monitored their frac'ing jobs using downhole tools, requiring a monitoring well to be drilled in order to record information from the well being stimulated. This process presents several economic and processing challenges. Not only are monitoring wells invasive and expensive, but they also place temperature limits on the tools placed in the well. Ultimately, downhole monitoring has limited spatial coverage, often creating a bias in the event locations and providing a limited view of the stimulated reservoir volume. This forces operators to guess where their fractures are going, and prevents them from optimizing their completion and production plans.

MSI's FracStar® and BuriedArray™ microseismic data acquisition services allow multiple wells and simultaneous frac operations to be monitored from one installation over a geographic area of up to 500 square miles (1300 square kilometers). The combined listening power of an array of hundreds or thousands of geophones placed at or near the surface essentially creates a large parabolic dish microphone that can detect multiple simultaneous microseismic events over an entire field, eliminating the need for monitoring wells. MSI's PSET® mapping and analysis technology links individual geophones together and serves as a focusing algorithm, allowing us to pinpoint the location of microseismic events across a field with a high degree of accuracy.

The result: an operator can gather more real-time data for less cost and with a much smaller environmental footprint, ultimately making more informed decisions about future stimulation programs to optimize field production and recovery.

Have questions about MicroSeismic's technology? Please contact us or Ask Peter!