A Team Approach to Processing Quality Control is Successful in Optimizing the Processing Flow for a Challenging 3D Seismic Data Area

By

 AbdulSalam Bin Ishaq¹, Abu Baker Al Jeelani², Erik Kleiss¹, Mohammed Samir Al Nahhas³, Abdel Fattah M. Bakhiet³, William Soroka², Mahfoud Al Jenaibi²

(1) Abu Dhabi Company for Offshore Operations (ADCO), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (2) Abu Dhabi Company for Offshore Oil Operations (ADCO), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (3) Jason Geosystems Middle East B.V, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

 A successful study was performed to optimise the seismic processing work flow and parameter selection of a newly acquired 3D seismic volume to achieve a high-resolution seismic image with optimum amplitude preservation and wavelet stability. Acoustic impedance inversion was found to be an essential step to highlight details that were important to achieve the survey objectives.

A 3D seismic survey was recently acquired over a major field in Abu Dhabi, to better map the reservoir units and quantify reservoir properties. The processing of the new seismic data would need to produce a high-resolution volume that would permit detailed structural mapping and additional geophysical analysis to derive quantitative attributes for improved reservoir characterisation. This study was performed using a team approach on a 40 km2 test cube extracted from the new seismic data.

Interpretations made on key reflectors with different processing flows showed that the final seismic images were very sensitive to velocity picking, multiples and coherent noise in the data. Top reservoir structure was sensitive to the static solution method and parameters. Well synthetic ties to the seismic helped differentiate real seismic events from multiples and highlight where the seismic images was good and poor. Acoustic impedance inversion was used to evaluate thin bed resolution and relative amplitude preservation. The resulting acoustic impedance volumes were compared quantitatively to acoustic impedance profiles from the wells to determine which processing flow produced the best match to the known answer at the well.