The Centre for Reservoir Geophysics (CRG) focusses on innovative and cutting-edge research on both geophysical theory and application to hydrocarbon reservoirs. It stands on the international environment of petroleum exploration and production and aims at reservoir discovery. CRG builds on an existing industrial consortium that has been running for the last 15 years at Imperial College.
The Centre’s research includes:
- hydrocarbon reservoirs and their geophysical responses
- how to utilise geophysical data for understanding and detecting reservoirs
- systematic research on geology, structure and seismology
- exploring and identifying both conventional and unconventional reservoirs
- providing innovative theory
- developing leading processing techniques that enable more reliable interpretations of sub-surface structure
The research activity, guided by industry requirements, covers a wide variety of topics including fundamental wave propagation issues, seismic imaging and inversion, quantitative interpretation and analysis, as well as reservoir characterisation. Currently, “inversion” is its central theme.
CRG continues its active role as the base for geophysical innovation, for petroleum research and development, for PhD training, for the integration of industry-university-research efforts, and for international collaboration. CRG research combines the development of theory, methodology and algorithms with application to real field data to demonstrate the value of the technology produced. Methods and tools developed will be important for both oil companies and seismic contractors in several ways.
Imperial CRG believes in maintaining close links with each member of the consortium so that the technology developed is transferred efficiently, and the research program remains dynamic and evolutionary.