Recycling oil data to discover deep groundwater resources in water scarce countries

This is known as the Search Model. Helene will present about a project commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which the Search Model has been successfully applied in Tanzania and used to discover freshwater indications in Somalia.

Overview

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<v ->My name is Helena Ree,</v>

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and I work for a company called Ruden AS from Norway.

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Thank you so much Seequent and Lyceum for having me here,

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I’m very excited to share this exciting project with you

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on how we use data and technology

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to identify until now hidden,

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deep, fresh groundwater resources.

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This presentation will take you through

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how we work with old and new data to do this work.

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The oil industry and hydrogeology have many common features,

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but they have been separated for a long time,

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and in Ruden we think it’s a shame

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not to use this valuable data from the oil industry

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for the greater good.

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So we combine these two

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by taking competence and information from the oil industry

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to get a better understanding of the subsurface

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and the resources currently present there.

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So by recycling technology,

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data and competence from the oil industry,

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this enables us to look for other resources than oil.

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This is a quick overview

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of the water scarcity situation in the world today,

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and please have a specific look

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at the African continent and its neighboring countries

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where the vulnerability is higher

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and the lack of resilience is greater

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than any other place in the world today.

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And when we add something called passive margins,

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which is large thicknesses of sediments,

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where vast amounts of fresh water can be stored.

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You can see this applies

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to most coastal countries in the world.

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And when you look at the water scarcity map in the back

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combined with this passive margins,

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our attention was specifically brought

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to the horn of Africa and East of Africa.

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So, with our current access

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to some of this geological data

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and the combining this

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with the desperate need of water in this region,

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our attention was brought to this part of the world.

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In 2007, our idea was born.

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We started looking at seismic lines

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from sixties and seventies to conceptually test our idea.

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This cross section you see top right

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is based on interpretation from seismics,

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more than 1000 kilometers of seismic survey data,

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borehole logs and completion reports

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from previous oil exploration activities in East Africa.

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We decided to test this conceptual model

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and found funding to execute this project in Tanzania.

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In this project we also heavily lean on

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competence and technology from the oil sector.

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This rig you see in the picture

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is taken from an onshore oil exploration field.

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We completed borehole geophysical logging,

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also a technique taken from the oil sector,

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and the result of this specific execution in Tanzania

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were also the water was tested and sampled

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by the local authorities to make sure the water was fresh.

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The result and impact of what was initially an idea,

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it’s now a sustainable water capacity

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for a population of more than 1.2 million people.

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This workflow was set into a system

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where we like to call this a search model.

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So it’s like a recipe for identifying

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deep groundwater based on oil data.

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We do literature review, seismic interpretation

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and well log interpretation,

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and all of these activities form the base

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for what we call the search model,

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to enable us to identify all this fresh water.

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As you can imagine, we in Ruden,

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we employ people from both the oil sector

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and the more traditional water and hydrogeology sector

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to make sure this puzzle is figured out.

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We presented our idea of our knowledge

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on the current geological settings in Somalia,

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it’s quite similar to that in Tanzania,

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and we presented the Tanzania project

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to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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And we created a project that is today led by Ruden

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and it’s funded by

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the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

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and of course the beneficiary of this project

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is the Somalia population.

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We have a fantastic extended team project and contributors.

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We have Petrel from Schlumberger,

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we have Leapfrog from Seequent,

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we have lots of data from Swalim,

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which is Somalian Water and Land Information Management.

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We have researchers from Oxford University

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and also data and software competence

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locally here in Norway from Sintef.

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So we are now building a conceptual model of Somalia,

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and this is the first time in history

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where satellite data and geological data

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has been interpreted and integrated

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into one big geological model.

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And we use the satellite data to understand

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the volumes that goes into this aquifer system,

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and we use the geological data

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to understand more about the behavior of the water

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and where is it stored.

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So the output of this conceptual model

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is this beauty to the right,

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which is a geological model

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that integrates seismics, wells data, literature,

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and part of this integration

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is done by Leapfrog from Seequent.

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And just to make sure you see the whole picture,

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this geological model you see here

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is the whole nation of Somalia.

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So it’s an enormously big,

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enormous model, very high resolution,

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and this has to our knowledge never been done before.

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And this geological model has already given us,

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we have already found indications of freshwater,

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we have already proposed eight drilling sites

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and 40 information targets.

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This is our contribution,

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and thanks to software like Leapfrog

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we are able to explore where no one has looked before.

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Thank you.

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