Reducing turnaround of a large variable depth streamer processing through improved onshore- offshore coordination

Nowadays, the broadband marine acquisition using variable-depth streamer is used for any project size or acquisition template, including the most recent wideazimuth, long-offset ones. The last decade has shown a growing demand for faster processing turnaround, due to shorter decision-making cycles and lower rigs availability. However, variable-depth streamer data (Soubaras et al, 2010) introduce additional and more complex processing steps (Lin et al, 2011), as the receiver ghost has to be rigorously taken into account until the end of the sequence for joint deconvolution. One of the main challenges is thus to be able to deliver the different processing products, such as fast-tracks, within the same timeframe as for conventional data, yet providing the expected high quality images. This paper will present the organization set up between onshore processing center and onboard crew during the acquisition of a 4100 square km variable-depth streamer dataset, in a challenging environment offshore Guinea. This organization was set up to deliver a fast track volume two months after the time of the last shot, requiring anticipation on potential on-board processing issues and provide near real-time support to ensure quality products and on-time delivery.