Print this pageAAPG GEO 2010 Middle East
Geoscience Conference & Exhibition
Innovative Geoscience Solutions – Meeting Hydrocarbon Demand in Changing Times
March 7-10, 2010 – Manama, Bahrain
The Multiple Challenges of Processing a 3D Marine Streamer Survey
(1) Explorations Operations Department, Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Multiple 
reverberations
, linear refraction noise, aliasing, and random noise were just a few of the challenges faced while processing a 3D Marine Streamer data set in the Arabian Gulf. The purpose of this paper is to present the processing sequence that was undertaken to distinguish between the primary reflections from the multiples and unwanted noise. In presenting the processing flow, we will examine the methods used to reduce the multiples
as well as other undesirable noise that seriously affects the geoscientists’ ability to search for oil and gas reservoirs. An attempt is made to present a complete processing sequence over the test area. In keeping with this aim, a short discussion of near surface effects is presented as well as issues involving interpolation, regularization and scaling. Before the issue of noise attenuation was tackled, it was observed that the greatest structural complexity is most evident along prestack migrated cross lines. With this in mind, a conservative approach was taken to attack the noise in the safest possible way. By adopting this approach, we are able to establish a safe reference PSTM that would be used to evaluate the effectiveness of any noise attenuation. The processing flow adopted is shown to make significant progress against the major challenges presented by the 3D Marine Streamer data set.