Experience with towed streamer multi-azimuth processing and acquisition

Multi-azimuth towed streamer acquisition is a technique whereby conventional marine 3D seismic surveys are acquired in several distinct acquisition directions and then combined in some way to produce an improved image. The method as described here has produced some impressive comparisons in the literature, e.g., Keggin et al. (2006), Page et al. (2006), and is drawing increasing interest especially for areas of poor signalto-noise ratio. Over the years that this method has been pioneered, some standard acquisition and processing procedures have been established which will be discussed here with examples from BP’s six azimuth Raven survey from the Nile Delta, courtesy BP Egypt.