oa Anisotropic PP and PSv prestack depth migration of 4C seismic data; Pamberi, Trinidad

In November 2004, EOG Resources contracted WesternGeco to acquire an ocean-bottom cable (OBC) 4C swath survey across the Pamberi-1 well in the Lower Reverse L block of the Columbus basin, eastern offshore Trinidad. The purpose of the 4C survey was to evaluate the potential of long-offset multicomponent technology for resolving lithology and stratigraphic detail in an area perturbed by shallow gas, overpressure and illumination shadows from normal regional faults and major anticlinal ridge trends acting as pressure seals. A key motivation for EOG was the realization that a conventional 3D towed-streamer survey acquired the previous year failed to adequately image the target reflectors comprising the reservoir under the main fault.

Details of the P- and PSv-wave processing of this dataset through anisotropic prestack time migration were previously described (Johns et al., 2006) in which it was demonstrated that there existed a qualitative correlation between derived parameters and attributes from P and Sv anisotropic migration velocities and known regional geology. This observation was quite remarkable considering only a limited effort to constrain or validate parameters (in this case, velocities to the Pamberi-1 well checkshots) was performed. Under the “Future work” section of the previous publication, it was suggested that further data quality enhancement in preparation for more quantitative rock property classification could only be achieved after prestack depth imaging.

In this paper, we present precisely that next phase in the 4C processing, advancing the P- and PSv-wave data through anisotropic prestack depth migration, using cellbased tomography with a top-down approach. The Pamberi-1 well was used to constrain the anisotropy in the shallow section, with the deeper, spatial trend away from the proximity of the well determined from the anisotropy derived previously in the time processing.

Prior to proceeding with the anisotropic depth imaging, the magnitude of shear splitting from the presence of azimuthal anisotropy (HTI) was first examined to assess its potential impact on the radial rotated P-S signal. The shear wave splitting analysis revealed a principal angle of polarization that was closely aligned with the regional stress direction delineated by the normal major faults blocks acting as pressure seals.