Siemens has recently announced that it plans to invest around $150 million in Brazil, of this sum $50 million alone will be invested in a new technology in Rio de Janeiro. The new technology research center will be located within the UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) technology park at Fundão Island, where Siemens plans to concentrate all of its research and development activities.

The UFRJ Technology Park is already a hub for research centers related to the O&G industry, harboring research centers belonging to the Brazilian national operator Petrobras and also to major O&G industry service providers such as Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Halliburton.

According to Siemens executives, the company is aiming at being closer to its energy industry clients and sees Brazil as the new frontier for energy business. In order to adapt to Brazilian laws, Siemens is already making a big effort to increase the national content in its manufacturing plants in Brazil, they also hope that the increase in national content will help them in securing orders for equipment to be used in the development of Brazil´s pre-salt fields.

The Siemens Technology Center will occupy an area of 4 thousand square meters and employ around 800 engineers and technicians. Although the center´s main target will be in developing offshore and subsea technology, it will also be dedicated to research in different forms of renewable energy and software development in cooperation with various UFRJ technology laboratories.

Two other international companies have also secured locations at the UFRJ Technology Park, which will now have its 350 thousand square meter area fully occupied. These companies are the British BG Group, specialized in segments of the O&G industry and U.S based EMC which specializes in information technology.

This shows how major international companies are certain that the O&G industry growth in Brazil is no fluke and that they expect this growth and development to go on for decades bringing Brazil into the mainstream O&G market as a top player. The amount of foreign investments pouring in to Brazil also hint at the belief these companies have that the Brazilian economy and government is stable enough to be considered as low risk venture  for companies involved it the energy and infrastructure segments.

Claudio Paschoa

It was recently announced that all of OGX´s geophysical and geological software applications will be moved to Landmark´s DecisionSpace Desktop, which is a Halliburton owned company.

"The integration of workflows and data such as rock, logs and seismic across domains in the DecisionSpace Desktop allows us to work more efficiently as we explore for hydrocarbons, improve our asset knowledge, and reduce our exploration risk.", said Marcos Amaral, OGX´s Executive Manager for New Technologies. 

"DecisionSpace Desktop's unique approach to reservoir description, known as Dynamic GeoModeling, is a no compromise, unified and dynamically updated interpretation and modeling system," said Gene Minnich, vice president of Landmark Software and Services. "Using proven science, unparalleled data management and easy to use interfaces, this software is helping our clients make better decisions faster."

The DecisionSpace Desktop workspace unifies workspaces for geosciences applications related to oil and gas E&P. The software is built on the most widely-adopted data management system in the industry: OpenWorks® software. The software makes it possible to access data across entire exploration areas, from a reservoir to the entire basin, along with managing and sharing one copy among many users and update the models with new data in real time.

This will undoubtedly be a handy software bundle for OGX, as they have basically uncovered a new shallow water oil province in the southern part of the Campos basin, composed of various reservoirs. If we look at the scope of what this software bundle offers, it will simplify the management of the reservoirs as a group, even though each reservoir has its own distinct characteristics.

According to Halliburton, the DecisionSpace Desktop workspace provides a common, flexible 1D, 2D, 3D workspace for the whole OGX exploration team, including seismic, logs, maps, sections and cubes. With the software, OGX exploration engineers and geologists will be capable of building and sharing workflows using the Project Designer.

The DecisionSpace software bundle is composed of:

-Base Software - Seamless integration and painless collaboration.

-Earth Modeling Software - Reservoir modeling software which enables geoscientists and reservoir engineers to construct accurate, high resolution, geocellular models.

-Geology Software - Provides geological interpretation, mapping and modeling for asset teams.

-Geophysicas/Seismic Interpretation Software - Provides seismic interpretation, mapping and modeling for asset teams.

-GIS software - Provides GIS data to image cultural data, set the geospatial context for interpretation, map play fairways, plan optimal well locations, and assess environmental impact.

-Stimulation software for fracture monitoring - Fracture monitoring, where engineers and geoscientists can visualize and analyze frac operations and microseismic data in real time.

-Well Planning Software - Well and field development planning team can integrate all relevant data from all domains in one unified 3D workspace.

Claudio Paschoa