Many Viewpoints, One Vision
Part 3
Date: 07/13/2012
Exploration Begins With Seismic
Establishing a clear picture of subsurface fairways and traps is the starting point of any successful exploration campaign. Building on a seismic science and technology platform that features proprietary WesternGeco Q* technology—still the only point-receiver acquisition system in the world—Schlumberger continues to develop the ability to illuminate the subsurface, helping customers identify and mitigate exploration risk by using techniques such as wide-azimuth acquisition and full-waveform inversion. In 2009, we introduced the innovative Coil Shooting* technique, a single-vessel full-azimuth method in which the seismic acquisition vessel sails in a spiral of overlapping circles, recording continuously, to deliver full-azimuth data. Coil Shooting acquisition not only delivers significantly increased illumination, but can also be more cost-effective than alternative advanced towing configurations because the down time linked to turning the vessel to conduct the next pass is completely eliminated.
Sophisticated Coil Shooting surveys can address the combined needs of deeper water and more complex geological environments such as subsalt, sub-basalt, and deep carbonates that are usually beyond the capabilities of conventional seismic surveys. Even in these environments, Schlumberger technologies deliver highly reliable subsurface models, particularly when tight integration between datasets is required—this year’s extension of Petrel* workflow software by Schlumberger Information Solutions to fully cover exploration through production activities greatly facilitates that critical coordination.
Building on the success of the single-vessel Coil Shooting technique, we recently introduced Dual Coil Shooting* multivessel full-azimuth acquisition. The synergy of two recording vessels, each with its own source, as well as two separate source vessels, all sailing in the same interlinked circles, creates unprecedented seismic coverage of deep and complex exploration prospects. Schlumberger is the only company to be able to offer this service, joining our numerous innovative technologies with our leading processing and interpretation expertise. To date, Dual Coil Shooting surveys have been completed in all major exploration areas and new surveys are being planned.
WesternGeco pioneered the single-sensor approach for both land and marine data with the introduction of Q technology. Following a decade’s experience in single-sensor land acquisition, the introduction of the new UniQ* land system takes this approach a step further by moving to an areal network of relatively sparse point receivers that use proprietary workflows to extract high-fidelity signals. Tests show that this approach delivers significantly improved data quality but without the dense sampling that was previously necessary. UniQ technology opens the door to a completely different way of designing and executing land surveys, in which the 200,000-channel capacity of the system is paired with WesternGeco data management and processing workflows to offer unparalleled freedom to design surveys for detailed targets, from the growing unconventional resources market to the exploration of deep plays.
Next up in the series Many Viewpoints, One Vision: Integration Is Essential…Schlumberger is at the forefront of seismic services and our leadership is further differentiated by being the only oilfield services company that includes seismic services as an integral part of its portfolio—in turn, WesternGeco is the only seismic organization with access to a complete reservoir characterization team.
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