f Optimizing vibroseis productivity in Saudi Aramco

The first vibroseis 2D data was acquired with a 48-channel crew in 1967. Twenty four years later, a 2D crew was upgraded to 720-channel 3D seismic crew. Initially, productivity was slow with an average rate of 822 sweeps (137 vibrating points (VP)) per day. In the same terrain conditions, our current 4000-channel 3D production seismic crews operating in flip-flop mode can achieve a rate of 3300 VPs per day. To date, Saudi Aramco have acquired approximately 500,000 linear kilometers of 2D and 220,000 square kilometers of 3D seismic data (Figure 1). This presentation reviews the best practices used to reduce the source and receiver cycle times while maintaining data quality.