The first digital center for subsoil research “Geosphere” opened in Russia

A unique robotic research center began operating in Tyumen subsoil “Geosphere”, created by Gazprom Neft. Its main task is to study hard-to-recover oil reserves, including deposits in the perpetual zone. permafrost. The center’s specialists use advanced technologies to obtain maximum data from each rock sample and speed up the process of developing new deposits. 

Modern oil production faces new challenges – easily accessible deposits are gradually drying up. Today, oil has to be found in hard rocks, where it is distributed in microscopic pores. To extract it, an accurate understanding of the properties of the formation is required, and this is where Geosphere comes to the rescue. 

After drilling a well, a core is removed – a cylindrical rock sample about a meter long. Each such fragment is unique and contains valuable information about the deposit. In Geosphere, the cores immediately fall into the hands of robots: automated systems mark the samples with barcodes, create their digital copies and send them to storage. This allows scientists to work with data without damaging physical samples. 

Each sample goes through a series of high-precision studies: 

1. Tomography to study internal structure. 
2. Analysis using probe scanners and microscopes. 
3. Strength and filtration tests. 

All data is loaded into a digital “passport” of the core, which becomes a virtual model of the real sample. Scientists can study it endlessly without risking destroying a single specimen. 

• Speed: Robots perform routine tasks 3 times faster. 
• Accuracy: Human factor is excluded during measurements. 
• Savings: Costs for drilling new wells are reduced. 

Thanks to Geosphere, Russia receives a tool for developing complex deposits that were previously considered unprofitable. This is especially true for the Arctic and other hard-to-reach regions. 

The opening of the center marks a new stage in the development of energy. Automation of research not only speeds up the process, but also opens up access to enormous reserves of “difficult” oil. Geosphere technologies will help Russia maintain its leadership in oil production even in the face of depletion of traditional fields. 

_{The material was prepared with the support of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science as part of the Decade of Science and Technology}

_{Source: naked-science.ru}