Peter van Baaren

Single-sensor Vibroseis Acquisition In Complex Thrust Belt Areas; A Case Study From Dubai

This case study shows how the use of new seismic technology allows the recording of good-quality surface seismic data in an area of complex geology that has historically provided poor seismic data. The enabling technology was 80,000-lb peak force vibrators using an energetic low-frequency sweep recording into densely sampled single-sensor accelerometers. The study area is in the Emirate of Dubai at the edge of the Oman thrust belt. It is covered by a thick layer of dry sand with relatively large sand dunes. The preferred source, based on legacy data, would have been large dynamite charges or a very high source effort with multiple long sweeps to provide broadband data with adequate low-frequency energy. This “intelligent” acquisition provided better final sections with respect to signal quality within realistic time frames.

Multicomponent acquisition in transition zone environment: an experimental study

Introduction Multicomponent seismology—the use of concurrent and combined shear (S) and compressional (P) wave seismology—is more and more utilized as a tool that can provide direct measurements of subsurface rock properties. Multicomponent acquisition on land has been around for more than two decades. However, in the last two years the most encouraging results have been obtained with multicomponent sea bed acquisition. The shear wave propagation results from conversion of P energy to S at the acoustic impedance boundaries and allows imaging of shear wavemodes. Multicomponent acquisition in transition zone environment is more challenging due to the operational and geophysical difficulties. Geco-Prakla conducted an experiment for compressional and converted waves acquisition in an environmentally sensitive marsh and swamp area of southern Louisiana. This paper examines the results of this experiment.

Survey design for high density, high productivity broadband Vibroseis point source and receiver acquisition — a case study from the UAE thrustbelt

In this paper we describe an integrated design of the acquisition parameters for a 3D seismic survey in a difficult geological and logistical environment using an ultra-high channel point receiver recording system, productivity enhancement techniques and incorporating advanced processing tools. Advances in acquisition hardware and techniques change the way seismic surveys are designed. These advances include continuous recording, faster computers that allow running more elaborate algorithms and new methods such as surface wave methods to model and subtract aliased groundroll. These new tools require different input data and different sampling. How these advances influence the design process is illustrated using a case study for a 3D survey acquired in the 3 quarter of 2011 located in the largely sand covered thrustbelt area of the United Arab Emirates. The seismic data were acquired using a high productivity technique that uses time and distance rules coupled with integrated QC rules based on active spread criteria to maximize productivity and minimize cross-talk between the individual seismic sources. The initial data from the 3D survey shows that the proposed integrated 3D survey design is adequate for coherent noise attenuation, source cross-talk removal and building a near-surface model.

Meeting the challenge of Mesozoic exploration

The Western Desert of Egypt challenges the exploration for oil and gas both from the reservoir as well as from the surface. The reservoir rocks, Jurassic sandstones and Cretaceous sandstones and carbonates, are often intensely faulted and fractured as a result of the long tectonic history of the area.

Single -sensor Recording - a Case Study From a Mature Field In the Partitioned Neutral Zone, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia And Kuwait

This paper shows how changing the paradigms used for 3D seismic acquisition and processing made possible by very high-channel-count systems, can extend the usefulness of 3D surface seismic methods further than conventional acquisition and processing techniques. To demonstrate this, a case study from the Partitioned Neutral Zone between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which is jointly operated by the Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC) and Saudi Arabian Texaco (SAT), known collectively as the Joint Operating Company (JOC), will be used.