Griffon Vultures, Golden Eagles and Buzzards : Integration of Reconnaissance AVO, EEI Attributes & PreSDM to De-Risk a Flight of Prospects, Greater Buzzard Area, UKCS

Dutton, David M.; Lu, Liwei

Exploration screening around the Buzzard & Golden Eagle infrastructure hubs in the Moray Firth Basin, UK has traditionally focused on conventional seismic mapping techniques from reprocessed legacy PreSTM products.

Throughout 2010 - 2012, a step level change in exploration prospecting techniques was facilitated through the use of a new ~4000 sqkm regional high-density 3-D seismic acquisition programme. The seismic data was processed to PreSDM to mitigate the severe lateral velocity effects and ray path distortions caused by the presence of dendritic shallow channels and from deeper chalk scours. The improved imaging has resulted in a paradigm change in how the Late Jurassic ‘Burns' turbidite play has been characterized and has significantly de-risked an array of prospects.

Reconnaissance AVO attributes such as Ip, Is & Vp/Vs coupled with a rock physics framework has helped identify sweetspots within current Jurassic plays as well as delineate new emerging plays within the Lower Cretaceous. Targeted coloured inversion schemes have been rotated to EEI X angles to provide lithology and fluid discrimination techniques at prospect level. Furthermore, application of these techniques has helped understand sediment dispersal patterns into and within sedimentary basins on a regional scale.

Integration of all these techniques has helped to identify new commercially attractive prospects and rejuvenate exploration activity in acreage holdings that were once considered to be extensively "drilled out". Since adoption of these techniques the prospect inventory has tripled with the addition of new stratigraphic prospects that can now be defined with greater confidence.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90163©2013AAPG 2013 Annual Convention and Exhibition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 19-22, 2013