Pangea III: A Seismic Shift in Total’s Computing Platform

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Diego Klahr from Total

In this video from the Rice Oil & Gas Conference, Diego Klahr from Total presents: Pangea III – A Seismic Shift in Total’s Computing Platform.

Oil and Gas industry is continuously challenged to increase its hydrocarbon production in response to the growing demand for energy. Finding new oil and gas fields has become more challenging as resources are no longer easily accessible with an increase of geological complexity and environmental constraints. High-resolution and reliable subsurface imaging is getting more and more key but more and more internal customers are knocking at the door.

The Pangea III supercomputer has multiplied Total’s computing power by five to a massive 31.7 petaflops and tripled its storage capacity to 76 petabytes.

In seismic imaging, the recent development of Pangea’s computing power significantly reduces approximations and increases iteration rates. Production times are also quicker, with accelerated imaging-interpretation round-trips. The upgrade delivers improved signal-to-noise resolution and, in reservoir seismics, offers unrivalled spatial and vertical resolution. Pangea III therefore helps to more reliably locate hydrocarbons below ground. It is especially useful for complex environments where oil and gas resources are trapped under salt, such as in Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, Angola and the Eastern Mediterranean. In reservoir modeling, Pangea III significantly increases the speed at which simulations are carried out. It also improves mathematical modeling and visualization tools at the pore level and the simulation of fluid flows at reservoir field level.

Developed by IBM, this new high performance computer also enhances energy efficiency, dividing the power consumption per petaflop by 11 (1.5 MW for Pangea III instead of 4.5 MW for Pangea I and II). Furthermore, Pangea III improves the management of uncertainties, to provide a better vision and understanding of the subsurface. It is also poised to drive significant progress in reservoir-well-surface network integration. Pangea III reflects Total’s strategy of investing heavily in high performance computers. Adopted back in the 1980s, this strategy is set to continue into the future, to enable Total to further increase computing power and develop new algorithms and numerical simulations.

Diego Klahr is VP Computational Science and Engineering at Total EP Research and Technology.

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