Johannesburg, 30 Sep 2015
The oil and gas industry has long been associated with the "boom or bust" stories from the movies. For more than a half century, companies drilled wells based on little more than an instinctive, best guess at where oil might lie beneath the surface. Midway through the 20th century, the odds of finding oil in a given location could be worse than a roll of the dice in Las Vegas.
But, in recent years, technology has dramatically changed the odds. Oil and gas companies can now predict more reliably where petroleum reserves lie beneath the soil, thanks to companies like CGG and its Insight Earth software, which facilitates seismic exploration.
It all starts with the acquisition of seismic data. A company like CGG transmits controlled acoustic energy into the earth, and records the sound that is reflected back from the layers in the subsurface.
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