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3D/4C and 4D Ocean-Bottom Seismic Surveys in the Caspian Sea

Jack Bouska, BP

Copyright 2007, Offshore Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2007 Offshore Technology Conference held in
Houston, Texas, U.S.A., 30 April3 May 2007.
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Abstract
The signal to noise problems inherent in towed streamer data
associated with mud volcanoes, subsurface heterogeneities and
distributed gas in the Azeri, and Gunashli structures of the
Caspian sea prompted the use of three dimensional four
component ocean bottom seismic (3D/4C OBS) to improve
imaging. The introduction of several innovative enhancements
to the traditional ocean bottom cable technique, when applied
cohesively across both acquisition and processing, resulted in
cost savings compared to conventional OBS acquisition and
improved final data quality compared to towed streamer
seismic.
To further guide cost effective designs of future ocean bottom
seismic (OBS) for 3D, 4D or permanent sensor time-lapse,
surveys over the Azeri, Chirag and Gunashli reservoirs, a

Figure 1: Location of study area shown within red box: Azeri

Chirag Gunashli PSA, (ACG) Caspian Sea, Azerbiajan.

multi-faceted study was subsequently conducted evaluating

both real OBC seismic data from Azeri and synthetic data
from numerical modeling. This study evaluated sensor density
requirements to properly acquire the PZ component of the
wave field, as this component provides the best reflector S/N
and, depending on rock physics, is sensitive to productionrelated fluid changes in the reservoir.
Critical spatial
sampling and acquisition parameters were established through
a series of comparison tests including:
Fold decimation tests - to establish the sensor density
required to insure image quality and signal-to-noise necessary
for time-lapse monitoring.
Migration aperture tests - to establish the permanent array
line length across the structure necessary to adequately image
the hydrocarbon column.
Repeatability tests - to establish if the noise floor from
repeated data acquired in the Azeri OBC survey is adequate to
allow effective time-lapse monitoring from OBC.
Comparisons included data from fixed shots recorded on
different receivers, and also data from reoccupied receiver
locations recorded with different shots.
Spatial resolution testing through numerical modeling - to
understand the relationship of the shot and receiver spacing
and resulting image resolution for different acquisition
geometries including surface tow, roll-along OBC, and

Figure 2: Examples of areas where towed streamer data is

compromised over the structure crest due to seabed scarps, mud
volcanoes, and near surface distributed gas.

permanent OBS designs.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of: seismic volumes,
horizon amplitude maps, difference sections, S/N estimates
and comparisons to synthetic seismograms were used to
evaluate the adequacy of the various decimation levels.
Results of these evaluations indicate that future OBS designs
employing relaxed spatial sampling specifications, compared
to the original OBS survey, would provide adequate balance
between minimum seabed equipment (cost) and recording of
high quality structural, or time-lapse seismic data.
Introduction
The Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG project) is a world-class
oilfield development (15 billion barrels oil in place) located in
the South Caspian Sea; offshore Azerbaijan (Fig. 1) The ACG
anticline extends in a northwest to southeast direction, in
water depth of 120m to 350m. The structure is asymmetric
with steep dips (40deg.) on the north flank and gentler
(25deg.) on the south flank. The reservoir consists of 9
laterally extensive stacked Pliocene sandstone intervals; in the
Pereriv and overlying Balakhany formations. Mud volcanoes
of varying size penetrate the structure near the crest. The mud
volcanoes are characterized by debris cones on the seabed fed
by over-pressured shale from strata below the target
reservoirs. The existing towed streamer seismic data, while
generally of good quality, does contain areas of weak
reflections over the crest of the structures, especially in the
vicinity of the mud volcanoes, to the extent that accurate
structural mapping over the crest has been seriously impaired.
(Fig. 2) The cause of the poor data has been postulated as a
combination of a number of factors:

P-wave absorption/attenuation through distributed

gas in the overburden sediments

Figure 3: OBS vs Tow streamer data comparison.

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Disturbed/disrupted sediments in the vicinity of the

mud volcano plume (Fig. 2)

Backscattered shot generated noise from near surface

heterogeneities.

Figure 4: Acquisition pattern for Azeri OBS survey. Left:

source configuration around two active 6km rcvr lines (shown
in blue) Right top: schematic showing areal extent of receiver
lines used in decimation study. Right bottom full source (blue)
and receiver map (red) for full area.

Following a 2D test of 4C seismic over Azeri in 2001, a

pair of 3D/4C-OBS surveys were acquired by a Caspian
Geophysical crew in 2002, and processed in 2003, to
image the Azeri (160 sq.km.), and Gunashli (114
sq.km.) areas of the ACG PSA. Both PZ (summed
pressure phone & vertical geophone), and PS
(converted shear wave) surveys were planned. The
PS image was intended to provide improved data
quality, by virtue of reduced attenuation through gas
in the up going shear leg. Early processing
demonstrated that the P-wave image was of
markedly better quality than the existing towed
streamer, to the point where the P-wave image from
the 3D/4C OBS is now vital to the overall value
derived from the seismic. (Fig. 3)
Survey Acquisition Method
Data acquisition costs typically dominate the
overall seismic budget, however from an
interpreters point of view, survey acquisition /
processing / interpretation are strongly interrelated.
The danger of treating acquisition and processing as
sequential (separate) steps, is that assumptions
related to data processing requirements, can lead to
an unbalanced acquisition design, with overemphasis
of expensive field parameters
The tasks of Acquisition design, processing

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management, and interpretation were carried out by a single

core team of specialists. This unified approach resulted in two
notable advantages:

Knowledge of the deficiencies or idiosyncrasies in

the acquisition were carried seamlessly forward in the project,
allowing processing flow, and program parameter
adjustments, avoiding known problems

Innovations, which are intentionally imbedded in the

acquisition design, are well understood during the processing
stage, and were properly exploited to maximum advantage.
The remote location of the Caspian Sea exaggerated the
high cost of 3D/4C OBS acquisition. Budget pressures
prompted innovation in acquisition design to accommodate the
conflicting requirements of tight spatial sampling (high fold)
over the crest of the structure, while maintaining adequate
aerial coverage over the migration aperture extent demanded
by the steeply dipping reservoir strata at depth.
Apart from boats and air guns, the underlying acquisition
design and processing techniques of 3D/4C OBS surveys
share many features in common with land 3D seismic.
Numerous parameter optimizations were applied during
acquisition and processing however six major areas of
advance stand out as unique innovations, pioneered in the
Caspian 3D/4C OBS surveys:
1. Variable cross-line spatial sampling via receiver line
interlacing. Deployed during acquisition to induce fold
variability generating high fold on the crest (to improve S/N)
grading to lower fold on the down dip flank to expand
migration aperture.
2. Uniformly sampled shot wave field comprised of a wide
patch (wide aperture), 75m x 75m grid of source points (4km
X 10.4km) surrounding each receiver line pair, forming one
half of a 3D symmetric sampled wavefield (Vermeer 1994)
3. First break refraction tomography (made viable with the
wide patch acquisition scheme) used to estimate P- wave (and
indirectly S-wave) receiver statics, and near surface velocity
model definition for joint inversion depth migration.
4. Pre-stack noise attenuation in the common receiver
domain using 3D-FXY-Decon (3D Random noise attenuation,
RNA, made possible via the large, regularly sampled source
grid around each receiver point.)
5. Additional pre-stack noise attenuation via a second pass
of 3D RNA in the single fold common offset domain, a
technique borrowed from land processing.
6. Kirchoff 3D pre-stack time migration, with premigration fold normalization, and post migration offset
dependant fold weight restoration, providing improved
attenuation of backscatter noise (Bouska 1998),
acquisition/processing footprint, and multiples.
OBC Imaging Examples
The Azeri and Gunashli OBS surveys were designed to use
a non-uniform, interlaced, receiver line patch layout, creating
a distribution of high fold coverage over the difficult zone
near the crest of the structure, grading to lower fold over the
better quality, deeper data in the flanks of the structure.
Arranging a greater concentration of receivers over the poor
data quality area served two purposes: first, it helped attack
some of the noise associated with backscatter, and

compensates for weak signal penetration. Second, it

maintained stack fold consistent along stratigraphy, rather than
constant at one depth.
The advantages of OBC wide-patch, wide-azimuth
acquisition are readily apparent in figure 3, which shows a
comparison between towed streamer (right) and OBC (left).
The towed streamer depth slice (top right) is seen to suffer
from significant disturbance in the core of the Azeri structure,
while the OBC depth slice (top left) yields dramatic
improvements in clarity, continuity and S/N. The full shape of
the structure is now easily interpretable, including the large
circular shaped rim of the mud volcanoes cordillera which
pierces the S-W flank of the structure.
Design optimization using decimation testing
Various seismic data decimation case history studies have
shown the value of using spatial sampling analysis so that the
acquisition parameters can be adjusted to achieve appropriate
balance between cost and final interpretation quality. The
earliest application of (fold) decimation tests on 3D seismic
data was reported by Bouska (1995, 1996), and showed how
post acquisition decimation testing during processing assisted
in determining appropriate parameters for subsequent
exploration 3D surveys over large areal extent. Later other
authors, (e.g.: Schroeder, 1998) used the same decimation
processing methodology to test bin size and fold in relation to
interpretability of reservoir characteristics over smaller
producing fields.
The use of decimation testing was extended to 4D data as
reported by Nolte (2004) using the Valhall permanent sensor
array. All of the above case histories used land or permanent
OBS surveys incorporating a wide recording patch, wide
azimuth geometries, where cost is more directly proportional
to density of sources and receivers per unit area, compared to
towed streamer seismic surveying. The results from Nolte
(2004) highlight how the 4D signal can be interpreted at lower
levels of receiver coverage than were deployed in the current
buried cable. Permanent sensor installations are currently very
expensive with spatially over sampled designs. Reliance on
close spaced sensors may force this 4D technique to be
uneconomic.
In areas where permanent seismic array 4D deployment is
being planned, there is strong motivation for analysis, such as
decimation testing, to assist in setting the most appropriate
sensor sampling level to balance budget and quality of 4D
signal. Decimation testing on towed streamer 4D is not
directly applicable to OBS geometries. However decimation
testing on existing high fold OBS surveys can be used to
estimate the expected permanent sensor image quality and 4D
signal detectability for a variety of acquisition geometries with
different detector densities
In this case study, the spatial sampling requirement for
additional OBS surveys was estimated by performing
decimation testing on an existing 3D 4C OBC survey, as part
of the data processing phase.

Figure 4:
volumes.

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Time slice sections from four of the decimated

Fold Decimation Tests

The decimation tests focused on determining the minimum
sampling requirement (and CDP fold) for receivers on the
seabed. The key assumption in this study is that sources are
less costly, and regardless of receiver spatial sampling, dense
shots would be deployed in a well-sampled aerial pattern to
compensate for the sparser receiver density. For decimation
testing purposes, all the shots for each receiver were used,
with no shot decimation applied in this test.
Future OBS surveys will require a pattern of cables to be
arranged on the seabed, to adequately cover the production
area (planned well-bores). The two elements contributing to
receiver spatial sampling in this context are the distance
between cables, and the distance between receiver elements
within each cable. The decimation testing was designed to
determine the impact on image quality for cable spacing of
360m and 720m, and for receiver element spacing of 25m,
75m, 150m and 300m, for each of the two-cable spacing. This
approach yields a spatial sampling analysis corresponding to a
range between: 112 rcvr/sq.km and 5 rcvr/sq.km.
The decimation scheme used eight of the acquired swaths
(as highlighted in the map Figure 4). Eight swaths were
required to produce a 1km wide zone of full fold coverage in
the centre of the test area.
Previous 4COBS processing steps were not repeated and
only the Kirchhoff PSTM processing step was re-run,

Figure 5: Periviv amplitudes from four of the decimated volumes.

employing all the pre-existing velocities and undecimated preprocessed data. The data were re-imaged with variable
amounts of input data omitted from the process, and attributes
extracted from each decimated output volume. All imaging
was output to the bin size of 25m x 37.5m to facilitate
comparison with the previous imaging as the base case
reference image.
The decimation tests were processed in three steps:
Step 1: Simulate 720m and 360m line spacing, with 25mrcvr intervals;
Step 2: Simulate 75m, 150m and 300m station intervals; at
both 360m and 720m line intervals;
Step 3: Investigate migration aperture requirements by
omitting down dip stations from one of the datasets in 2)
above.
Analysis of Decimation Test Results
The receiver station decimation tests (Fig 4, Fig 5.)
investigated the effects of reduced sampling and reduced fold
on the data quality. The most general observation is that
reduced receiver spatial sampling has a very large effect on
amplitude fidelity in a signal-to-noise sense, where a reduction
in receiver density correlates directly with increased levels of
noise on the seismic images, and amplitude maps. However it
was also noted that the structural image (and mapping)
remained viable down to the very lowest fold levels.
Analysis revealed that both reflection amplitudes and S/N
remain reliable at or above a decimation level of 75m station

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spacing across the crest of the structure. On the flanks, the

amplitudes remained stable at or above a station spacing of
150m. All of the decimations with 720m-line spacing were
judged inferior to those with 360m-line spacing over the crest
of the structure, but acceptable on the flanks.
The Migration aperture tests indicated that line lengths of
10.5km or greater would have less than 1dB effect on the
amplitude fidelity at the oil/water contact of the Pereriv
horizon.

Crompton, R., K. Dodge, P. Whitfield, J. G. Bouska, and R. Johnston,

2005, Depth imaging of 3D, 4C OBS surveys in the Caspian Sea: 75th Annual
International Meeting, SEG, Expanded Abstracts , 425-428.

Conclusions
The use of wide-patch, wide-azimuth OBC technology has
resulted in a step change in data quality, compared to prior
towed steamer surveys, over the Azeri and Gunashli structures
in the Caspian Sea. The dramatic improvements in
interpretability brought with the OBC technology have
prompted further plans to perform additional OBC surveys on
adjacent fields, as well as install a permanent sensor array for
4D reservoir surveillance.
The Azeri OBS decimation study provided valuable insight
into data quality and interpretability as a function of sensor
spatial sampling density. Results indicate that future 4D OBS
surveys may be acquired more economically, using slightly
reduced levels of receiver density, while maintaining adequate
quality in the final seismic image and extracted attributes
through an increase in source effort.
The suite of decimation, migration aperture, and resolution
tests implied the following acquisition parameters which
achieve a regular fold of 100 (crest) and 50 (flanks) would be
adequate for future targeted 4D OBS acquisition:

Line length: 10,500m.

Line spacing: 480m (crest and flank).

Inline sensor spacing: 75m for a zone of 6km over

the crest.

Inline sensor spacing: 150m for 2.25km in two zones

flanking the crest, in the down-dip region.

50m x 50m regular spaced source grid spanning

entire acquisition area.

25m x 25m subsurface bin size.

Johnston, R., Bouska, J., Lyon, T. Ashby, A., Walters, R., Whitfield, P.,
Crompton, R., Ebrom, D., Mueller, M., Thomsen, L., Azeri 4C: 2004,
Processing the first 3D OBS survey in the Caspian Sea., 74th Ann. Int. Mtg:
Soc. of Expl. Geophys.,SEG Expanded Abstracts 23, 845

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field: New frontiers for 3D4C and borehole-seismic integration: 75th Annual
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Acknowledgments

Bouska, J., Lyon, T., Johnston, R., Buddery, D., Howe, D., Mueller, M.,
Thomsen, L., Ebrom, D., 2004, Acquisition design of the first four component
3D ocean bottom seismic in the Caspian., 74th Ann. Int. Mtg: Soc. of Expl.
Geophys., SEG Expanded Abstracts 23, 49 and- : 67th Meeting, EAGE,
Expanded Abstracts , B003.

BP operates ACG field on behalf of the shareholders of the Azerbaijan

International Oil Company (AIOC) which include the following companies:
BP 34.14%, UNOCAL 10.28%, SOCAR 10%, INPEX 10%, Statoil 8.56%,
ExxonMobil 8%, TPAO 6.75%, Devon 5.63%, Itochu 3.92% and Amerada
Hess 2.72%.

Bouska, J. G., J. Howie, B. Nolte, R. Johnston, and R. Walters, 2005,

Azeri 4C Time-lapse design using 3D 4C OBS imaging decimation tests: 75th
Annual International Meeting, SEG, Expanded Abstracts , 2406-2409.

The authors would like to thank the AIOC shareholders for permission to
publish this case study and their input to the planning and execution of the
project.

Bouska, J., and R. Johnston, 2005, The first 3D/4-C ocean bottom seismic
surveys in the Caspian Sea: Acquisition design and processing strategy: The
Leading Edge, 24 , no.9, 910-921.