经济学人下载:石油勘探 千虑一得之法

Science and technology
科学技术

Prospecting for oil
石油勘探

Grains of truth
千虑一得之法

Putting rocks in medical scanners may help the search for oil and gas
采用医学扫描仪对岩石样本扫描，可帮助寻找石油和天然气

STRIKING oil is one thing.
开采石油是一回事。

Getting it out of the ground in economic quantities is quite another.
然而从经济角度考虑，能从地下开采出多少石油又完全是另一回事。

Doing so depends on understanding the granular structure of the rock it is trapped in,
要做到这点,人们需要对某些岩石的颗粒结构有所了解，而这些岩石是有石油困于其中的。分

and analysing that is a tedious business of placing countless samples in pressure vessels to assess their capacity to hold hydrocarbons and to estimate the flow rate of those hydrocarbons through them.
析岩石颗粒结构是极其枯燥乏味的事情，研究人员需要将无数个样本放置在压力容器内以评估它们含纳碳氢化合物的能力并估计其中蕴藏的碳氢化合物的产量。

This can take years.
这可能需要花费数年的时间。

Help, though, is at hand.
然而可施之法即在眼前。

Computerised tomography scanning has been used in medicine for several decades.
计算机X线断层照相扫描术在医学领域应用已有几十年时间。

Now it is being applied to geology.
目前它正被应用于地质学。

In alliance with electron microscopy, the geological use of CT scanning has given birth to a new field, digital rock physics.
在与电子显微镜配合使用下，CT扫描术在地质上的应用孕育了一个新的领域—数字岩石物理。

The field's proponents believe it will let oil companies decide far more quickly than they could in the past which strikes are worth exploiting, and which should be abandoned.
该领域的倡导者认为，该项技术能使石油公司较之以往更加快速地判断哪些石油矿值得开发，哪些应该放弃。

One of those proponents is Amos Nur, chief technology officer at, a company based in Houston, Texas.
科技公司Ingrain总部设在得克萨斯州休斯敦，其首席技术官阿莫斯?努尔是该技术倡导者之一。

His firm is one of three independent digital-rock-physics laboratories in the world.
他所在公司是全球三家独立数字岩石物理实验室之一。

According to Dr Nur, the new technology is capable of creating three-dimensional pictures of a sample's structure with a resolution of 50 nanometres.
努尔博士表示，这项新技术能为岩石样本结构创建分辨率为50纳米的三维立体照片。

That is enough to work out how oil and gas trapped in the pores between the grains of such a rock might be expected to behave.
这足够预测出困在岩石颗粒细孔间的石油和天然气的表现方式。

Most of the samples analysed by Ingrain start as cylindrical cores brought up from deep below the Earth's surface by drills.
开始分析的大部分样本都来自于地下深层钻探得到的圆柱形岩石核。

A typical core is several metres long, so it is first subject to a rough and ready CT scan using a standard medical scanner.
典型的岩石核有几米长，因此首先要采用标准医学扫描仪对其进行粗略的CT扫描。

The scanner is fitted with calibration rods made of a proprietary material whose properties provide reference points for the creation of an image.
该扫描仪安装了许多由专利材料制成的调校棒，这种材料有为图像创建提供参考点的属性。

This initial scan yields a picture that has a resolution of about 500 microns.
初始扫描会得到一张分辨率为500微米的图片。

That done, sections of the core 2-3cm long, whose porosity is of particular interest, are subject to further study.
这些完成之后，将一些长度在2至3厘米间，其孔隙度有特殊研究价值的小岩石块做进一步研究。

This involves scanning them in a special micro-CT machine, of a sort developed originally to look at computer chips.
这包括将岩石核样本放入一台特殊的微CT机进行扫描—微CT机原是为了观察电脑芯片而研制的。

The sample is placed on a turntable and rotated inside this microscanner.
将小岩石核样本放置在微扫描器内部的转盘上并使其旋转，

The result is a 3D image with a resolution of 40 microns.
结果得到一个分辨率为40微米的三维图像。

This allows sections requiring further study to be identified.
这就使得需做进一步研究的小岩石块能够被标识。

These sections are dissected, using a laser, into slices a millimetre or less thick, and then scanned again, either with the micro-CT or with a scanning electron microscope.
采用激光将这些小岩石块切分成一毫米或不太厚的薄片，然后用微CT机或电子显微扫描镜对其再次扫描。

That brings the resolution to half a micron, or 500 nanometres.
这样便将图象分辨率提高到了0.5微米或500纳米。

Finally, the image is cleaned up by a computer program and the 50-nanometre-resolution picture emerges.
最后，将该图像进行计算机降噪去斑处理，得到一张50纳米分辨率的图片。

This image, which shows the porosity of the rock, and the channels between the pores,
然后将能够显示岩石孔隙度和岩石内部毛孔间通道的图像用计算机分析，

is then subject to a computer analysis that reveals how easily hydrocarbons will flow through it under pressure—and thus the likely productivity of a well dug at that site.
结果会显示在有压力情况下碳氢化合物在岩石块内部流动的容易程度—从而得知样品来源之处那口钻探井的可能产量。

Whether digital rock physics will actually replace traditional methods is unclear.
“数字岩石物理”技术是否能够取代传统方法，目前尚无定论。

Sceptics, such as Anthony Kovscek of Stanford University, think the claims being made for it are exaggerated.
许多人对此持怀疑态度，斯坦福大学的Anthony Kovscek就是其中之一，他认为该技术的声明有夸大成分。

Though analysis of a rock's structure in this way will, in his opinion, be able to tell you that a strike is unlikely to yield a commercial return,
在他看来，尽管采用这种方法得出的岩石结构分析结果能够告知人们哪个钻探点不可能产生商业回报，

the reverse is not true.
但其反面结论却未必正确。

He does not believe that the technique can predict flow rates,
他不相信这种技术能预测石油的流量，

even from rock that contains a lot of hydrocarbons—and flow rates are crucial to an oil field's economics.
即使对于含有大量碳氢化合物的岩石也无法预测—石油流量是油田经济中至关重要的指标。

The new discipline of digital rock physics has, nevertheless, attracted considerable attention within the industry.
但是“数字岩石物理”这门新学科在行业内引起了相当大的关注。

Smaller oil companies are using the facilities of Ingrain, Numerical Rocks and Digitalcore.
小型石油公司正在使用Ingrain、Numerical Rocks和Digitalcore的设备。

Larger ones, such as BP, Chevron and Shell, are setting up their own digital-rock-physics laboratories.
而大型石油公司—如BP、雪佛龙和壳牌正在创建自己的数字岩石物理实验室。

As the supply of crude oil dwindles and the price thus rises, anything that makes the process of prospecting new wells cheaper is to be welcomed. This new technique may be such a thing.
当原油供应下降并导致价格上升之时，任何能使新井勘探成本更低的技术都将受到欢迎。“数字岩石物理”可能就是满足此要求的新技术。