Applications of supercomputers in the petroleum industry

Abstract

Supercomputers are becoming a useful and important tool in the finding and developing of oil and gas reserves. Applications of supercomputers in the petroleum industry involve two im portant aspects: enormous computational power and massive data management. Vector computers are being used in petroleum engineering to simulate the flow of oil and gas in a reservoir, the faster performance of the vector machines mak ing many, heretofore, unmanageable calculations possible. In ex ploration for oil and gas, supercomputers are being used to store, classify, and interpret huge amounts of geophysical seismic data.