Riaz Alai
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| Latest company | PETRONAS Carigali Sdn. Bhd. |
|---|---|
| Membership | SEG, EAGE, AAPG, SPE, and HGS |
| MSc | Electrical Engineering |
| PhD | Geophysics |
| MSc university | Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands |
| PhD university | Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands |
SEG Reginald Fessenden Award 2024
Riaz Alai is recognized with the Reginald Fessenden Award for his contributions as an inventor who has made a significant impact on the energy industry. He pioneered the simultaneous adaptive least-squares matching and subtraction concept that has become an industry standard. He co-pioneered Shell’s prototype spinning weight shear wave source, an industry breakthrough for multicomponent seismic acquisition. At Arco, he was instrumental in the development of new software tools for surface and borehole data processing, imaging, interpretation, and integration. At Anadarko Petroleum, he developed state-of-the art wave-based illumination applications by optimally combining surface and borehole data acquisition designs. Throughout the years, he developed efficient and unique elastic processing solutions for imaging reservoirs in complex geologic environments. Alai has been an active participant in international geophysical conferences and an avid publisher of articles. His work has been referenced in several patents on varied topics. In addition, he has demonstrated an outstanding performance in managing well over 100 international exploration projects and contributed to significant exploration and development successes. Alai was the recipient of Anadarko’s 2006 APC Innovator Award and has received several conference best paper awards.
Biography Citation for the Reginald Fessenden Award
by Eric Verschuur and Frederico Xavier de Melo
It is our pleasure and honor to write this citation for Riaz Alai for his various exceptional contributions to the industry and the geophysical community. Riaz started his career with an MSc and PhD at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, providing innovations in both graduate stages. During his MSc studies he co-pioneered Shell’s prototype spinning weight shear wave source, and during his PhD work, he introduced the pseudo vertical seismic profile (VSP) concept. This inventive concept became a useful interpretation tool for identifying elastic waves and interbed multiples at boundaries, providing unique insight in linking unmigrated surface data with subsurface information. Over the decades to follow, this original thinking inspired others to adopt and expand the methodology to patents.
After his PhD studies, Riaz held leading positions in several oil and gas companies, mostly in the role of geophysical advisor. Riaz’s creative mind always searched for advancements in geophysical technologies and challenged his co-workers with his out-of-the-box ideas, even when he was not directly active within research teams. As such, he pioneered the simultaneous adaptive least-squares matching and subtraction concept for optimally suppressing surface and interbed multiples. This landmark concept and its variations are used ubiquitously and have become the industry-standard practice when dealing with, combining, and simultaneously subtracting multiple models originating from different methods and parameters. Their applications to land data with innovative volumetric subtraction approaches have been especially well appreciated. In addition, his refined mathematical justified strategies for quality assurance of adaptive subtraction results, employing various cross-correlation and frequency decomposition methodologies, have added a quantitative aspect from a previously qualitative and subjective process.
Working at Delft with seismic data generated in their physical modeling facility with a scaled salt model, Riaz expressed the ambition to handle the strong and clearly visible single- and double-converted waves around the salt region as signal rather than noise. Over the next decades, this ambition materialized when he pioneered methods utilizing mode-converted wave information to assist in imaging complex structures such as subsalt regions. As part of that process, he advanced an innovative converted-wave scanning method to identify zones of high converted wave energy, opening deeper exploration opportunities and elevating certainties with reduced associated risks. He demonstrated how mode-converted energy in marine data complements very complex salt body geometry definitions, particularly in areas of salt overhangs and steep flanks. These approaches have set a new benchmark in seismic research. He introduced VSP data visualization as a function of two-way time versus one-way time, allowing refined elastic wave field separations and Poisson’s ratio calculations.
The 2021 paper "Enhancing subsalt imaging through advanced identification and suppression of interbed multiples and mode-converted reflections — Gulf of Mexico and Brazil case studies" published in The Leading Edge summarizes a lot of successful applications and paves the road for new research initiatives across different basins. His pioneering implementations of simultaneous volumetric subtractions of surface multiples, interbed multiples and mode-converted energy have provided significant image uplifts for subsalt prospectivities, contributing to prolific hydrocarbon discoveries.
He spearheaded the development of advanced diffraction imaging via combined wavefield separation approaches to highlight steep faults, detailed fractures, carbonate deposits detection, and gas compartmentalizations. In short, one might say that most of Riaz’s work revolved around wavefield separation methodologies: primaries versus multiples, P-waves versus S-waves, diffractions versus specular reflections.
All these accomplishments resulted in several best paper awards at geophysical conferences and Anadarko's APC Innovator Award in 2006. Riaz's major efforts in reprocessing legacy data sets with specialized workflows, as opposed to reshooting data at high costs, delivered not only enormous cost savings but also images at fine resolution, high accuracy, and optimum quality, leading to major discoveries.
This short description of Riaz’s work is a representative sample of his outstanding contributions made over the years. Through a combination of profound expertise, creative problem-solving, and a relentless pursuit of excellence, his contributions have proven to be a strong asset to the geophysical community and are recognized through the Reginald Fessenden Award.