INDUSTRY

Maxell Corporation of America, the leader in advanced data storage media, announces that many of the leading oil and gas exploration and development companies, and petrochemical companies are accessing their archived computer tape media to help determine if oil reserves first surveyed 20+ years ago can now be mined. Currently, Maxell LTO, Super DLTtape, and 3590E media are being used to archive marine seismic and/or navigation data, as well as land seismic data, which are now being studied for oil exploration. "The rising price of oil and advanced, new technology have made petrochemical professionals re-evaluate their many oil exploration locations throughout the world. These re-evaluations are greatly enabled by Maxell technology, which is used by many of the leading companies in the industry to archive data," explained Steven Pofcher, senior marketing manager at Maxell. "Maxell's tapes maintain their data integrity, allowing archived data to be analyzed and eliminating the need for new site surveys to be performed in many instances. When you consider it can cost millions of dollars to conduct a survey, it is a tremendous cost benefit to use archived data to determine if a site is worth drilling." Re-evaluating sites that have already been surveyed is extremely beneficial to petrochemical companies because it can potentially reveal oil-rich locations in a very cost-effective manner. Today's oil exploration ships are often referred to as "data centers on the water" and cost as much as $1 million a day to operate. Land exploration operations are almost as costly. Maxell media is used during many stages of oil exploration. Geologists and geophysicists have developed special software and technology to analyze archived data that is stored on Maxell LTO, Super DLTtape and 3590E tape. In fact, both archived and new data are being viewed together using advanced 4-D seismic analysis. The fourth dimension is time, which allows geologists and geophysicists to see how the seismic images have changed over time, giving them a better sense of which locations should be selected for drilling. Without quality archived data, it would be difficult - if not impossible - to conduct accurate analysis on these locations. Maxell Records Echos Because of the quality of the archived data on computer tape, many companies have entrusted recent Maxell computer tape technology, such as LTO, Super DLTtape, and 3590E, when collecting new data from prospective sites. For example, when ships are commissioned to survey the ocean floor for oil exploration, Maxell media is often used. Solid streamer lines equipped with thousands of specialized microphones are deployed off the back of these floating data centers to scan the ocean floor. Echo transmissions are sent via the geophones to obtain state-of-the-art seismic data. These transmissions, which can be worth more than $1 million per tape, are recorded on various Maxell media. A typical data collection configuration will include 24 tape drives recording data concurrently as 12 redundant pairs. Data centers collect the tapes, transfer the acquired data to new tapes and send the data to the petrochemical companies, who then conduct their own analysis of the raw data to determine if sites should be drilled. Many companies select Maxell LTO, Super DLTtape, or 3590E tape because Maxell utilizes a patented ultra-fine metal particle ceramic armor coating that prevents tape corrosion, provides superior durability and offers an archival life of 50+ years. This type of performance will continue to be necessary by the petrochemical industry, as new means of exploration are used. Many companies have increased their deepwater (1,500 feet deep or more) drilling activity, and with a daily cost of approximately $500,000 per rig, the acquisition and storage of data acquired during these activities must be done with confidence. The data must also be easily and quickly accessed. Maxell media, with its overall high performance, has shown to be suitable for this demanding application. For more information on Maxell products, please visit Maxell's web site, its Web site.