Report on EAGE Vienna 2006 workshop on marine multi-azimuth seismic

The EAGE conference in Vienna, June 2006 was the venue for a workshop on one of the most interesting developments in seismic technology in recent years. The subject was multiazimuth and wide azimuth seismic surveying in the marine environment, with emphasis on its application in deepwater environments. The timing of this workshop was particularly appropriate with the introduction, since 2004, of several new technologies and methodologies to image below complex overburden in major deepwater oil and gas provinces. The workshop brought together a range of presenters from E&P companies and seismic contractors to present the state of play in the technology and discuss challenges for the future. It was the first of several sessions on the subject in 2006. The EAGE workshop was followed by the SEG/EAGE Summer Research Workshop on subsalt imaging and a special session on multi-azimuth and wide azimuth seismic at the SEG convention in October. Below is a summary of the EAGE Multi-Azimuth workshop as an introduction to the papers in this special edition of First Break. The perspectives provided in the two authors’ keynote papers as coordinators of the workshop form the basis of this article.