WesternGeco is acknowledged by a wide margin as the industry leader in providing 4D time-lapse seismic surveys for reservoir monitoring. (Reference, Welling & Company: The State of the Market for Seismic Services in the Worldwide Petroleum Industry, 2004).
Since 1990, WesternGeco has been involved in time-lapse seismic reservoir monitoring projects in 96 oil and gas fields in 18 countries worldwide for over 20 major international oil companies. These surveys have been acquired onshore and offshore; single and multicomponent; in oil, gas, and condensate fields, and for gas sequestration.
WesternGeco and Schlumberger have also published more than 90 technical papers and case studies on all aspects of time-lapse seismic technology. Our publications span the entire 4D business from 4D survey design and planning to simultaneous inversion and automatic history matching.
The
Q-Marine seismic system, designed for time-lapse (4D) seismic applications, was introduced in 2001 and set new standards in 4D towed seismic repeatability; to date, we have acquired many Q-Marine seismic surveys specifically for time-lapse 4D reservoir monitoring, including the world's largest
4D survey. The largest 4D acquisition configuration we have acquired to date involved 10 streamers, each over 6 km in length. We have similarly acquired in an area of shallow reservoirs and logistical challenges, a high-resolution Q-Marine 4D survey with six streamers, a trace density of 6.25 m, and cable separation of 30 m.
In Stavanger, Norway, our 4D Center of Excellence provides a focal point for 4D within WesternGeco. The primary function is training, based largely on our vast 4D data processing experience, but extending to all elements of the 4D workflow.