Bull and ffA (Foster Findlay Associates) have entered into a partnership agreement to deliver ffA GPU-enabled 3D seismic analysis software to the oil and gas community on Bull high performance computing systems.
The two companies will work together to promote the use within the E&P industry of interactive methods for 3D seismic analysis using HPC technology, in particular the use of GPU accelerators. These are fitted into Bull server nodes, from the entry-level tower chassis systems with GPU and graphics cards, suitable for seismic interpretation workgroups, to very large hybrid clusters located in data centres, which Bull is already delivering to government and energy customers. ffA's domain expertise and involvement with a large number of major oil and gas companies' petrotechnical users combined with Bull's expertise in hybrid systems will provide a fast track for innovation and improved turnaround times within 3D interpretation and modelling workflows.
Jonathan Henderson, ffA's managing director, commented: 'The partnership with Bull is an important component in ffA's development strategy which is delivering innovative tools that will be at the heart of next generation seismic interpretation systems. Our development programme is directly addressing the challenges of extracting meaningful information from seismic data at increasing volumes and levels of complexity. These challenges can be significantly advanced by using automated HPC techniques in real or near real time.'
'We are very pleased to announce this partnership with ffA, which is an important milestone in our efforts to gain further traction within the upstream oil and gas industry,' commented Guy Gueritz, business development director for oil and gas at Bull. 'Our involvement with oil companies' R&D groups for accelerated seismic imaging is complemented by ffA's automated interpretation and modelling tools, which plug into established 3D interpretation and modelling workflows and make use of more scalable and powerful technologies.'
