dGB Earth Sciences, the leading provider of open source seismic interpretation software to the oil and gas industry, has announced a new service - Building a Depositional Framework - in collaboration with Surface and Subsurface Resources (SSR), specialists in the stratigraphic interpretation of wireline log data.

The new service will see the integration of two of dGB's most advanced OpendTect software modules - Horizon Cube and SSIS (Sequence Stratigraphic Interpretation System) - with SSR's Depositional Trend Analysis (DTA) tool. The result will be a complete depositional framework of the target project area and improved high resolution seismic-steered well correlation of sequence stratigraphic bounding surfaces from well data and wireline logs.

"Generating a different perspective on the geological and stratigraphic aspects of data volumes is absolutely fundamental to seismic interpretation today. That's why we see our partnership with SSR and their depositional trend analysis capabilities as so important and of such high value to our customers," said Paul de Groot, president and CEO of dGB Earth Sciences.

He continues: "The result will be the most realistic possible depositional and stratigraphic architecture of the user's target field and the complete integration of well-based sequence stratigraphy with seismic sequence stratigraphy."

His words were backed up by Mat De Jong of SSR: "While our DTA tool is highly effective as a stand-alone approach for well-to-well correlation, we believe that it can offer so much more, when combined with seismic methods. That's why we are so excited about partnering with dGB today. Test runs, carried out on a Northern Dutch offshore field, have already shown that SSIS and HorizonCube can significantly enhance existing well correlation techniques which are using DTA."

OpendTect SSIS increases geologists' insights into the depositional history of sedimentary packages and establishes a context for understanding and predicting the distribution of sediment bodies. The recently launched OpendTect HorizonCube is an advance on SSIS, providing a set of continuous, chronologically consistent horizons through increasing the number and density of mapped horizons.

Together with SSR's DTA tool which, through the use of wireline log data, is applied to wells to generate a high resolution, near-synchronous, stratigraphic correlation framework and has been applied in many basins around the word, the integration of the three tools will ensure the best possible well-seismic tie. It will also create a framework of bounding surfaces and packages that represents the true depositional and stratigraphic architecture.

dGB Earth Sciences, a privately owned company based in the Netherlands and with 27 employees, has been providing seismic interpretation solutions to the oil and gas industry since 1995. Current customers include Addax Petroleum, Anadarko, BG, Chevron, CNOOC, Eni-Agip, Marathon, Petrobras, Petronas, Saudi Aramco, Statoil and Wintershall among others.

dGB's flagship seismic interpretation solution, OpendTect, is the only available open source seismic interpretation platform used in the oil and gas industry today, allowing the visualization and interpretation of multi-volume seismic data. OpendTect, which is available at no cost under the GNU GPL license, provides sophisticated interactive attribute analysis.

dGB and its partners have also developed a wide variety of commercial plugins for customers (companies are also encouraged to develop their own customised plugins). These include plugins relating to attribute and processing analysis, sequence stratigraphy, fluid migration, rock property predictions and velocity modelling. Partners that have also developed commercial plugins of OpendTect include ARK CLS, Earthworks and Geokinetics.

Since 1999, SSR has been offering unconventional stratigraphic and petroleum geological services to international oil and gas companies. SSR's expertise covers a wide range of geological settings from around the world.