Chasing Faults within a Permian Carbonate Using Wide Azimuth Seismic Data - A Thailand Case Study

Land seismic data was acquired over a Permian carbonate field with a wide azimuth acquisition template, such that the recorded 3D seismic data is inherently source-to-detector azimuth rich. This geometry allows the data to be subdivided into azimuth sectors, so that stacks of different “illumination” directions can be generated. Subsurface faults and families of fractures are generally better characterized when illuminated normal to their dip, i.e. head on against the faults. The fault and fracture family patterns from each of the sorted shot-to-receiver azimuth sets portray a slightly different illumination of the continuity and development of these faults as shown in time-slices. The paper will describe the azimuth sorting process, followed by the methodology to sharpen the fault pattern within each dataset. The acquisition of seismic data in a wide-azimuth configuration has shown that with appropriate processing, it is possible to illuminate subtle faulting and fractures quite distinctively within the targeted hard rock reservoir.