ExxonMobil says an artificial intelligence model built using Guyana’s offshore seismic data was able to identify already-discovered crude oil accumulations with a 90% success rate.
Neil Chapman, Senior Vice President of ExxonMobil, said the model forms part of the company’s wider use of artificial intelligence in oil and gas exploration. He made the comments during the Bernstein 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference on May 28.
Chapman said artificial intelligence could help companies assess large volumes of subsurface data and identify patterns that may support future exploration.
“I mean, the Holy Grail in our industry is, can you find more oil and gas? If you find it, is it the most economic?” Chapman said.
He said ExxonMobil tested the model against discoveries already made offshore Guyana.
“…in Guyana, we have built an agent, a model…which if we give it the seismic data that we’ve run and we say, go find the crude oil, it can find all the crude oil that we’ve already found with a 90% success rate,” Chapman said.
Chapman said the company has also used artificial intelligence to review well data from across the industry.
“We have analyzed the well data from 50,000 wells that have been drilled in the industry all over the world, 50,000,” Chapman said. “It would have taken us 15 years to do that analysis. We’ve done it in a matter of weeks.”
Chapman said the work is aimed at finding similarities in subsurface data that may have been missed through conventional analysis. He said the review identified 150 exploration opportunities worldwide, but those opportunities still have to be tested by drilling.
“We don’t know if they’re going to be successful or not until you drill a hole, you can never be sure,” Chapman said.
Chapman cautioned that ExxonMobil has not fully solved the use of artificial intelligence in exploration.
“I don’t want to say we’ve reached the holy grail in AI and exploration, we certainly have not. But what I’m saying is we’re making progress,” Chapman said.
Guyana is currently producing more than 900,000 barrels of oil per day (b/d). Output is expected to rise above 1 million b/d once the fifth development, Uaru, comes online later this year.
ExxonMobil has a 45% stake in the Stabroek Block, with co-venturers Hess, owned by Chevron (30%), and CNOOC (25%). The oil major has discovered an estimated 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels there.
