The 4th RPI for March-April 2016

Jorg Herwanger - Vice President of Special Projects and Principal Geoscientist at Ikon Science in London, UK

During my career in the Oil industry so far, I held positions in research, worked as a consultant and assisted software sales and deployment. I believe this combination forced me to balance my views on what is required in our industry to make progress. All roles revolved around Seismic Geomechanics. As a researcher, I tried to follow what was true and pure, only to find out that as a consulting solution this may not work, solve the issue in a timeframe that is acceptable, or indeed that the data requirements were such that a specific method may not be applicable. When assisting software roll-outs, I additionally learned that most geoscientist work against very tight deadlines. In these circumstances, the true and pure solution moves even further into the future. I learned that progress needs to occur along a number of different vectors simultaneously. It is important to develop new theoretical understanding and new concepts. To make them work in practice, the new concept needs to be shown to solve a problem faster or better, simultaneously with enabling a large user base to apply and understand the new technique.

One of my colleagues put the adage “Good, fast, cheap – choose two” into the footer of his email. The reality of the current work environment requires a constant rebalancing of quality of work, depth of investigation, speed of execution, and a host of other commercial considerations. Under these circumstances, finding time to keep an inquisitive mind can be a challenge. I believe it is a challenge worth taking on. The reward is personal satisfaction.

In my current role, I am pursuing a number of goals. Firstly, I am heading the Special Projects Team at Ikon Science. My team and I carry out 3D and 4D geomechanical consulting and pilot projects using a novel fully coupled geomechanics and flow simulator. Secondly, I am working closely with the development team of the simulator as well as oil-company clients to ensure that the implemented technology is not only dazzling, but also useful in day-to-day work. Even though my main tasks revolve around 3D and 4D geomechanical simulations, I am acutely aware of the importance of high quality input data and models. To ensure quality of mechanical property models, pore pressure models and calibration data in the simulations, I work in collaboration with the consulting teams in Ikon Science and asset teams with clients that specialize in pore pressure analysis, rock physics, well-centric geomechanics and image log interpretation, model building as well as reservoir engineering and simulation.

To stay connected with the wider geoscience community, I am an active member of EAGE, PESGB, SEG and SPE. I served as an EAGE Distinguished Lecturer from 2007-2009, EAGE Education Tour (EET-V) Lecturer in 2011-2012, and I am a member of the EAGE Education Committee. For the EET-V, I wrote the eponymous book on “Seismic Geomechanics”.

Your pathway for success in becoming a well known name in the rock physics community

If I had only three words to summarize why I am reasonably well known in the field, I’d choose luck, perseverance and curiosity.

Luck came to me in various guises. Firstly, I got lucky with projects. On the first day in my first job in the oil and gas industry, I was given a plot of shear-wave splitting observations in the shallow overburden superimposed on the subsidence bowl above the Valhall field. The fast shear waves were very clearly aligned with the contour lines of the observed subsidence. I was told to go away and find an explanation. I figured I had to learn some geomechanics to understand the subsidence bowl. Studying rock physics models would allow me to relate the changes in stress/strain during the formation of the subsidence bowl to velocity changes, which in turn could explain the observed shear-wave splitting. The ideas that I formed at the time are still at the core of my current work. The second bit of luck was having colleagues, both at Schlumberger and with clients, who were willing to share knowledge, bits of computer programmes, time, their address book and access to data. I don’t want to single out any colleague in particular – many of them will appear as co-authors in publications or will be mentioned in the acknowledgements. The third bit of luck was having a string of managers who gave me the freedom necessary to develop ideas, concepts and products that did not always follow a GANTT chart or a product life-cycle management programme. These managers opened doors at the right moment and took on battles on my behalf that I could not have fought myself. Finally, on the point of luck, I hasten to mention that the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Perseverance is perhaps more straightforward than luck. Some projects take a lot of willpower and cunning to be successful in the end. In my experience, it is important to find a theme and then play variations on the theme. Let me explain by retracing my career path highlighting some of the variations on a theme. In my case the theme is “Seismic Geomechanics”. The excellent multi-component seismic product development group in which I was first developing ideas on the link between seismic observations and geomechanical models disappeared due to a slowdown in multicomponent seismic business. I therefore had to park my work on shear-wave data, my first passion. Instead I started to look more at time-lapse seismic data and its relationship with production induced geomechanical effects. During this period I started to think more about the process of building 3D geomechanical property models, and wondered why seismic inversion models were not used more often in this process. So the next variation on my theme became the accurate calculation of 3D mechanical property models, especially the importance of facies models in the construction of mechanical property models. To summarize the secret to my success here was “to stick to my guns”, persevering in the pursuit of my ideas while accepting to step sideways when necessary.

Curiosity is arguably the foundation necessary for luck and perseverance to flourish. Without curiosity perseverance can easily turn into a pointless slog, and luck needs to be tempted to attach itself to you. Applied geophysics is a discipline in which the underpinning physical principles are very well understood. In order to do innovative work it is essential to tease out the missing links and new applications. This works by being curious, and by taking perceived wisdom with a pinch of salt.