What is Ava Insights?

In this article we will explore both the motivation for the Ava Insights and its components in a bit more detail

September 2024

Seismic-structural interpretation/modelling and facies characterisation/modelling are key workflows that support volumetric assessment and development planning. These workflows are undertaken by geoscientists who are asked to analyse and interpret local/regional project data, along with information from analogous prospects/fields, and best practice guidelines. The models that result are limited by the intrinsic uncertainties and unknowns inherent in these data and in the selected geological priors. It is impractical/impossible for even the most expert geoscientist to improve the reliability of these models, or keep these models evergreen in light of incoming information and reinterpretation by related disciplines. As a result, all technical, operational and strategic decisions that make use of these models are always sub-optimal. 

If we accept that geoscientists will always have limited knowledge of the geological priors and access to partial supporting, analogous information, then we acknowledge that it can be challenging to pair these priors with the available project and analogue data, to generate the inputs required for these critical workflows and also QC the results. The impact of failing to effectively support geoscientists trying to generate these workflow inputs is two-fold. For the individual geoscientist it means the creation of structural and facies models which do not appropriately capture the potential uncertainties and will likely not pass internal peer reviews. For the company, poor uncertainty characterisation for assets which leads to poorly constrained inputs for decision making and inefficient/sub-optimal exploration targeting and/or development planning. 

Ava Clastics and Ava Structure were developed to support geoscientists by using all the available information to create inputs that help capture the full uncertainty space. Ava Structure offers QC of seismic structural interpretations and uses peer-reviewed approaches to extend fault interpretations beyond their seismic tip, creating optimised inputs for multiple alternative 3D structural models. Ava Clastics provides a library of depositional concepts, based on the high quality peer-reviewed analogue information, which can be used in combination with project data to create inputs for a variety of facies modelling algorithms, within uncertainty workflows. 

Many of our clients use our Ava technologies out of the box, however we believe that new technologies are maturing which will enable us to more effectively integrate the wealth of proprietary analogue information with our existing technologies, to develop richer knowledge bases for our customers. In parallel we are making our Ava technologies extensible so that customers can integrate their own rules, templates, algorithms and also interact with our Ava services through our APIs. 

This evolution of our product line will also utilise AI as needed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge ingestion and the application of knowledge to improve modelling workflows. To be useful in the domains of science and engineering, AI needs to work hand-in-hand with the geoscientists, by assisting them, suggesting pathways, autonomously identifying and signalling possibilities based on streams of inferences delivered from the geological data ecosystem.

We refer to the development of our existing products combined with new extensibility, integration and deployment options, plus the appropriate use of AI, as Ava Insights.