ears to the ground

June 12, 2008

R3M technology can help remotely detect oil and gas — and reduce drilling.

How can you “hear” oil and gas hidden miles beneath the ocean floor?  Len Srnka, chief research geoscientist at ExxonMobil, is part of a team that is perfecting a new technology called R3M that does just that.

R3M stands for Remote Reservoir Resistivity Mapping.  It is a sophisticated technology based on a simple fact: that oil and gas are poor conductors of electricity.  R3M uses extremely low-frequency electromagnetic waves to discern these resistive deposits — remotely “mapping” undersea oil and gas reservoirs with accuracy.

“The R3M technology we developed allows us to listen to the Earth’s response to electromagnetic fields,” said Srnka. “So we not only find deposits we might not have seen, we also reduce the number of wells we drill, mitigating environmental impact.”

As a child, Srnka’s interest in science and engineering was inspired by seeing the 1957 Sputnik launch.  He began his career at NASA's Lunar Science Institute studying the interior of the moon and planets, before turning to his true passion — Earth. 

Today, Srnka, 61, is one of the more than 14,000 scientists and engineers at ExxonMobil who are advancing breakthrough technologies such as R3M, which can unlock the resources we need to meet growing energy demand in an environmentally responsible way.

A lot of oil and natural gas remains, but much of it is found in hard-to-reach locations — for example, more than 10,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.  R3M improves our ability to search for oil and gas in these deep waters. It has been used to explore off the coasts of West Africa, Brazil, Colombia and Canada, as well as in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Breakthrough technologies like R3M embody the continuous and dramatic evolution of today’s high-tech energy industry. Such advances can require billions in investment, and long timelines for success.  Srnka first conceived the idea in the early 1980s, but it took two more decades for the high-performance computing, deep water electromagnetic sources, and ultra-sensitive seabed sensors that R3M depends on to be successfully developed.

Four decades ago, ExxonMobil pioneered an exploration technology called 3-D seismic, which uses sound waves to locate oil and gas deposits. A breakthrough at the time, 3-D seismic is now standard throughout the energy industry.

Which goes to prove: as our world’s need for energy evolves, so do the technologies for finding, delivering and using that energy.  Today, R3M. Tomorrow, who knows?