Seismic Technology - Offshore Exploration and Production

Abstract

Systematic offshore exploration began as a natural extension of its onshore counterpart the continental margin basins where many of the larger hydrocarbon fields were already developed with the main aspects of petroleum systems already established. The geophysical seismic technology needed for the mapping of offshore prospects progressed in tandem with marine drilling operations in this new exploration perspective of prospect mapping without geologic outcrops. This paper establishes the close relationship between seismic images evolution with hydrocarbon developments in the marine environment. As such it briefly describes the history of offshore hydrocarbon discoveries and the impact of geophysics technology for the offshore assessment of exploration and development activities, focusing into the description of the main aspects and history development of offshore drilling, offshore seismic data seismic acquisition, dat6a processing and the main aspects in the evolution of seismic structural and stratigraphic interpretation to present wide utilization of workstations with interpretive software.