The IBM Blue Gene/P is the second system in a generation of innovative, ultrascalable architectures that will enable upstream petroleum engineers to make significant improvements in the understanding and the solution of some of the most complex problems in exploration and production. For the first time, it will be possible to combine high fidelity 4-D and even 5-D seismic imaging and very accurate multi-component, multi-scale, reservoir models to further increase the probability of finding and recovering oil. These innovative computational techniques are more imperative in the years ahead as the earth’s scarce resources dwindle, and exploration must occur in environmentally hostile regions such as in deep water, wide basins with salt mounds, Siberia, and Alaska.

However, this entails a continuing investment by upstream petroleum engineers, geoscientists, mathematicians, and computer scientists to develop new algorithms and applications for ultrascalable parallel computing environments. This investment will be protected as newer and more powerful Blue Gene systems become available. As before, the payoff will far outweigh this investment as energy costs continue to escalate.