Towards Improved Time-lapse Seismic Repetition Accuracy by Use of Multimeasurement Streamer Reconstruction

It is widely accepted that accurate repetition of source and receiver locations between surveys is key to time-lapse seismic data quality. Whilst the source locations of marine streamer time-lapse surveys can be accurately repeated, exact repetition of receiver locations can still be challenging. The introduction of multimeasurement streamer technology has enabled repetition of receiver locations by reconstruction of the recorded wavefield at the desired coordinates. Two or more multimeasurement surveys may be reconstructed at common locations, or a multimeasurement monitor survey may be reconstructed at the receiver locations of a previous conventional marine streamer dataset. Apache North Sea Limited acquired, in 2012, test lines over the Forties field using multimeasurement streamer technology. The initial results of these tests suggest that a conventional marine streamer survey can be accurately repeated with multimeasurement streamer technology, and work is ongoing to qualify the technology for routine time-lapse seismic acquisition.