The Use of Near-Seafloor 3D Seismic Data in Deepwater Exploration and Production

Abstract The analysis of 3D seismic data in the near-seafloor interval is a useful speciality in deepwater exploration and production. In addition to the well-established benefits of 3D seismic data, the higher frequency content of near-seafloor data has a variety of applications throughout the life cycle of deepwater plays. These benefits include: (1) depositional process modelling, (2) stratal architectural information for building reservoir models, and (3) drilling hazard assessment. Detailed mapping of well-imaged 3D seismic intervals in the near-seafloor interval is providing new insights to deepwater depositional processes and architectures. Depositional patterns are more confidently identified in near-seafloor settings, enabling the investigation of testable relationships between stratal stacking patterns, gradient changes and accommodation. These relationships as well as spatial and geometric information from these data are useful for building and constraining reservoir models, linking key observations from subsurface data at prospective levels with fine-scale outcrop analogue data. In particular, near-seafloor 3D data can image surfaces related to episodes of aggradation, starvation, bypass, and/or erosion that are typically hard to recognize or map at exploration depths, but are critical in controlling reservoir bed-length and connectivity in three dimensions. Near-seafloor 3D seismic data can supplement or even replace traditional 2D-based site surveys for assessing potential drilling hazards. Although usually lower in vertical resolution than 2D site survey data, 3D data have the distinct advantage of better imaging of 3D geometric bodies, providing insight into complex stratal stacking patterns, and allowing data volume manipulation and perspective.