The oil industry has long flirted with virtual reality (VR) and visualization tech but falling prices and technological advances mean this once-futuristic concept is becoming more practical.
The tech is appealing because oil companies have struggled to visualize complex subsurface data and effectively train their workforce. VR’s immersive nature is helping companies overcome such challenges.
Space for Cores
Physical space has long been a constraint when it comes to analyzing core samples at the YPF Technology (Y-TEC) research facility in Berisso, Buenos Aires.
Ariel Guzzetti, lab and data manager for the subsurface services department at YPF Technology, told JPT the lab can display up to 500 linear m of physical core at any given time. Core projects tend to take between 4 and 8 months to complete because during those projects specialists require frequent access to the cores. Sometimes the facility displays optical electronic microscope images, CT scans, log plots, charts, and other data related to the cores on laptops, monitors, or printouts near the cores, such as for workshops or training sessions.
“That’s how we run out of space,” he said.
The facility can handle somewhere between five and eight projects simultaneously.
