Published March 15, 2023 | Version v1
Conference paper Open

Cost effective high-resolution marine streamer seismic acquisition and imaging solutions for new energy applications

  • 1. PGS, martin.widmaier@pgs.com
  • 2. PGS, carine.roalkvam@pgs.com
  • 3. PGS, okwudili.orji@pgs.com
  • 4. PGS, andrew.long@pgs.com

Description

Advanced towing configurations which combine distributed multi-sources with high-density multi-sensor streamer spreads have been frequently used for hydrocarbon exploration in recent years. These marine seismic acquisition solutions enable accurate imaging from very shallow targets and geohazards to deep geological structures in a cost-effective manner. The improved near offset coverage and the dense spatial sampling provided by the wide-tow multi-source (e.g., 6.25m x 6.25m nominal acquisition bin sizes) enables subsurface imaging with frequencies above 200Hz and thus temporal and spatial resolution in the meter-range. Dense spreads with short streamers can be complemented with longer tails if refracted waves are analysed as part of the geophysical studies, and if velocity building or quantitative interpretation (QI) requires access to longer offsets. The same survey design principles can be applied to near-surface high-resolution or ultra-high-resolution studies such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) site characterization and CCS 4D monitoring, deep-sea mineral exploration, or offshore wind farm 3D site surveying. Typical site survey and near-surface seismic technologies are based on hydrophone-only streamers that are towed very shallow, i.e., only a few metres below the sea surface. While the shallow tow mitigates the receiver ghost problem at high frequencies, the operations are exposed to weather related downtime. With multi-sensor streamers, the receiver ghost problem is solved at all frequencies by combining pressure and particle motion recordings. This means the streamers can be towed deep (e.g., at 25 m) and rough sea surface effects are avoided. In our presentation, we will revisit modern streamer seismic configurations and show how the same concepts have recently been used to design and acquire the first larger CCS site characterisation and baseline surveys in Europe in 2022.

Notes

Open-Access Online Publication: May 31, 2023

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