WorldOil

Multi-component seismic data continues to add to the bottom line in eastern Alberta

In 2004, Apache began investigating the use of multi-component technology. One of the projects initiated was to target upper-Mannville channel sands to discriminate gas-charged porosity. Several papers have been published reviewing the acquisition design, initial processing and interpretation.1-4 Additional efforts have been put toward the analysis in the past few years in order to better utilize the multi-component data recorded. The data were used to generate a Joint PP-PS prestack inversion, which was then incorporated into a neural networks analysis for further lithology discrimination. The vertical and horizontal components of the PS data were also analyzed for shear-wave splitting to detect anisotropy. Before utilizing the converted wave seismic data, these channels were identified using the residual PP-time structure from conventional 3D seismic data. The first development phases focused on drilling those anomalies with the most residual structure. The well results indicated a more complicated stratigraphic scenario.