Satellite remote sensing for hydrocarbon exploration in new venture areas

Abstract

Multispectral remote sensing is an emerging technology for the oil & gas industry. Since its first application, Earth Observation has seen an enormous breakthrough in a brand-new field such as geosciences for hydrocarbon exploration: both the awareness of the microseepage phenomenon and data processing methods for its detection have greatly improved in the last years. This paper describes a case study of microseepage signals detection in the East Africa Rift System, onshore of Lake Albert, using multi-sensor satellite time series. Results clearly show that the spectral anomalies identified from satellite are closely related to the known oilfields and that the microseepage maps can provide new high-quality data to reduce exploration risk.