Innovative Acquisition and Processing of Low Signal-To-Noise 3D Land Seismic Data, Leads to a Leap in Subsurface Understanding. A Case History from Eastern Jordan.

Abstract

In January 2010 BP Exploration Jordan Ltd signed an agreement with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the National Petroleum Company (NPC) to explore and appraise the 7,200 sq km Risha Concession. The concession, in the desert of Eastern Jordan, bordering Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia contains the partially developed Risha Gas Field. This has historically been a poor seismic data quality area, mostly due to a complex and variably karstified near-surface. There was a sparse coverage of heritage 2D lines and two 3D surveys covering just 5% of the concession and a strong need for a large areal coverage of improved quality 3D seismic data. New and cost-effective techniques in acquisition and processing have been deployed to address the seismic coverage and quality issues, and during 2010 to 2012, a ~5000 sq km Simultaneous Source Seismic (DS3) survey was acquired and processed. The high-density wide-azimuth acquisition was carried out in a time and cost-efficient way. Following innovative acquisition and processing techniques to address the extreme scattered noise problem, high quality seismic attribute products have allowed insights into lithology and potential fracture distribution for the first time in the area. In this paper we discuss the acquisition, processing and analysis that have allowed the data quality improvement and the impact on reservoir interpretation.