--> Angola Block 14, 3-D Visualization of Seismic Gathers and Its Impact on Deepwater Field Development
[First Hit]

Datapages, Inc.Print this page

Angola Block 14, Previous Hit3-DNext Hit Visualization of Seismic Gathers and Its Impact on Deepwater Field Development

 

Paparoni, Guido1, David Bartel2, Casey Simms3, Peter Mitchell3, Henry Megan2 (1) ChevronTexaco Overseas Petroleum Co, Houston, TX (2) ChevronTexaco Energy Technology Company (3) CABGOC, Luanda, Angola,

 

Traditional interpretation of seismic gathers is based on arbitrary traverses that display stationary information over features such as fluid changes. In Block 14, deepwater Angola, seismic gathers have been loaded through a proprietary process into a Previous Hit3-DNext Hit visualization package, which allows for a temporal component to be added to the interpretation.

The technique uses vertical planes that correspond to constant offset seismic panes, which are panned in a crossline direction allowing for dynamic near to far offset compari­son of the data. The use of traditional in-line gather displays, including arbitrary traverses, is also possible. Furthermore, stacked-data seismic interpretation such as faults, horizons and oil/water contacts, can also be loaded and compared with the dynamic response of the seismic data as near to far offsets are panned.

We illustrate examples of how these techniques have been applied by the operator (CAB­GOC, a ChevronTexaco affiliate) in association with other members of the Block 14 Contractor Group (Sonangol P&P, ENI, Total and GALP) to the deepwater Negage and Lobito fields in Block 14 Angola.

Applications of this method include (1) validation of seismic processing flows including moveout Previous HitcorrectionsTop, (2) detection of multiple interference, (3) comparison of velocity mod­els over the predicted oil/water contact surfaces, (4) validation of the high- or low-imped-ance nature of reservoirs, (5) identification of phase changes resulting from Earth interac­tion as opposed to poor moveout, (6) selection of features that should be mapped on a given stack (7) identification of exploitation opportunities by extension of known hydrocarbon responses.