Enhancing Sedimentary and Structural Features With Seismic Attribute Extraction Methods: Case Studies From Shallow and Deep Water 3-D Seismic

Abstract

Geophysical methodologies for extracting certain attributes from 3D seismic volumes have now been around for decades, and although their usefulness and integration into geological workflows has increased over the years, the ability for geoscientists to accurately choose, setup, execute, and interpret these extractions has been hindered. In an internal study it was found that the difficulty is mainly due to the fact that most methods are described as a ‘black-box’ with the input parameters and results being described as incomprehensible.

An internal project within OMV was initiated to further the understanding and propagation of efficient usage of current technologies. This pilot project, consisting of a project manager/geoscientist, structural geologist, sedimentologist, and a geophysics expert investigated all the available attribute extraction methods within Petrel which were subsequently distilled down to 11 fundamental methods. These resulting attribute extraction methods were described with a simple, yet informative explanation of the method as well as various exploration settings in which those methods could be utilized.

A secondary goal of the project is to identify and assess the fundamental difficulties that geoscientists have regarding attribute extractions and understand the breadth of knowledge regarding the geophysical background. This groundwork allowed us to develop a series of “1-pager” description that detail the most crucial information needed for each method as well as set an organizational nomenclature and color convention. All of these ‘1-pagers” link back to a geophysical and geological report that goes into the details of the application from one or more of the projects worked within OMV.

The result of this project is a large increase of geoscientists using attribute methods to characterize their geologic prospects along with the ability to properly explain their setup and what the extraction means in a peer review setting without the pain and cost of being sent to multiple geophysical workshops. In this paper, using several 3D seismic datasets including deep and shallow water settings as examples, we demonstrate the methods and products used to increase the awareness of attribute extraction methods to the geoscientists in OMV as well as the response from the geoscience community.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90323 ©2018 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Salt Lake City, Utah, May 20-23, 2018