POSSESSING A quarter of the world's proven oil reserves and with a production capacity of some 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, Saudi Aramco must put in place efficient systems and tap the latest appropriate technologies in a bid to manage these massive resources.

As well as producing oil cost-effectively and with minimal impact on the environment, Saudi Aramco is also deeply committed to the difficult task of replacing its massive annual oil production with new reserves.

Evolving technologies and staff of the highest calibre mean that the company last year, for instance, maintained crude and condensate reserves at 261.7 billion barrels despite average production over the year of around 7.6 million bpd.

Saudi Arabia's premium crude oil grades - Arabian Super Light, Extra Light and Light - contributed to 78 per cent of total production last year.

Saudi Arabia is in the middle of a multi-billion dollar programme of oil and development projects at Qatif and Khurais which will see production capacity raised to more than 12 million bpd. In addition, international oil companies involved in Core Ventures in the Saudi Gas Initiative are expected to provide some incremental oil production from their upstream activities.

At the heart of Saudi Aramco's vast upstream infrastructure is one of the most powerful geoscience supercomputers in the industry, based at the Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Centre (EXPEC).

The super computing capacity of the EXPEC - in particular for seismic processing and reservoir simulation - has been boosted to reflect Saudi Aramco's increased oil and gas exploration and field activities and to meet projected demand for oil and gas.

New hardware installed increases EXPEC's capacity to process seismic data from exploration and development crews, and is expected to improve the resolution of reservoir-simulation models which help to pinpoint where to drill wildcat wells.

The upgraded supercomputing capacity is a major investment for Saudi Aramco, but offers significant savings by helping the company make informed decisions about drilling and exploration efforts.

The seismic processing platform has 512 processors, with seismic data stored on a huge online magnetic disk farm comprising almost 7,000 disks with a combined capacity of 190 terabytes. Compare this with the EXPEC Computer Centre's 1993 storage capacity of just one terabyte!

New seismic technologies which are ten times more computer-intensive than conventional seismic processing are making progress, improving Saudi Aramco's ability to image deep targets - ideal for the company's target deep non-associated gas reservoirs.

For example, Pre-Stack Time Migration technology improves the image quality and resolution of seismic data, reducing exploration risks and increasing the success rate for exploratory gas drilling.

The reservoir-simulation supercomputer platform is now used mainly to run Saudi Aramco's parallel reservoir simulator, POWERS, a supercomputer which provides extremely high resolution processing.

In the past, Saudi Aramco was only able to simulate portions of large reservoirs at one time. Using POWERS, the company can simulate huge reservoirs all at once, significantly improving data quality and resolution.

Advanced computer technology is a common link between 3D seismic data acquisition, processing and interpretation, the size and complexity of data volumes collected today in a 3D survey far exceeding the capacity of computers which were considered state-of-the-art just a few years ago.

The need for increased computer power for surveys has also driven the development of new processing and interpretation software which enhances subtle reservoir features, thus providing a clearer view of a reservoir's overall dimensions and properties and its potential behaviour during drilling and production processes.

EXPEC has played a pivotal role in Saudi Aramco's exploration successes since it was established 20 years ago.

The facility has provided petroleum engineers with the tools to chart increases in crude production capacity in Saudi Arabia and in mapping the delivery of more gas into the Master Gas System (MGS).

EXPEC has enabled Saudi Aramco to eliminate its dependence on upstream technological support from other oil companies.

EXPEC introduced horizontal well drilling technology to Saudi Aramco in 1991 and has also been instrumental in the utilisation of 3D seismic technology in the company.

Saudi Aramco has pioneered the development and application of technologies - such as lateral reentry system - self locating (LRS-SL) to enhance oil recovery from existing wells and optimise new field development.