HOUSTON, March 27, 2020—Schlumberger in cooperation with Breckenridge Geophysical, LLC announce the completion of the acquisition and processing of the McKenzie Draw 3D wide-azimuth (WAZ) multiclient survey covering 412 mi² in Martin, Andrews, Dawson and Gaines counties, Texas. The survey was designed to address the subsurface challenges of the Permian Basin such as shallow karsting, salt formations, complex basement faulting, thin beds and multiple target benches.

A step change in acquisition design and efficiency resulted in a 13.8× increase in trace density from legacy Permian Basin surveys performed by WesternGeco^®, the geophysical service product line of Schlumberger. At the time of acquisition, this was the densest large-scale commercial 1C nodal multiclient survey ever acquired in the Permian Basin, with tight point spacing of 20.625 ft, natural bin size.

Operators are already planning and drilling wells using the final data volumes because of their significantly increased data quality. Certain features such as shallow caves, which occupy up to 10% of the survey area and can have a significant financial impact on drilling operations, can be seen with much more clarity when compared with legacy datasets. At target, the extent and thickness of the carbonate deposits can be identified, which can help operators reduce drilling time by avoiding carbonates and keeping laterals in mudrocks.

"With this high-density, fit-for-basin seismic dataset, our clients are able to achieve much higher-fidelity images in this key area of the Permian Basin to make more informed decisions," said Peter Jones, WesternGeco Region Director North America Land.

For further information about the Schlumberger multiclient surveys, visit www.slb.com/multiclient.

WesternGeco is a mark of Schlumberger