3D seismic onshore:

should the transition be disruptive?

Denis MOUGENOT
Sercel France

Finding Petroleum, London, November 2011

Presentation outline
Conventional cable systems are blamed
(cost, weight, serial reliability..)
and Sercel is the main manufacturer
(>65% market share)

428XL
(since 2000)

(since 2005)

Cable system improvement over the last 10y: more channels

Integration of cable/cableless systems within hybrid spreads
The high productivity of the land recording systems
How land acquisition compare with marine
Is a disruptive transition still required?

More channels: Sercels figures

Channel capability of the recording systems
has constantly improved to handle denser & larger spreads

For Land, the growth has been exponential:

in average a doubling every 5 years since 45 y

More channels: historical driver 1

Reduction of size, weight & power for field units:
- power consumption divided by 2.7 / channel in 12 years
330 mW

330 mW

SN388 / SU1 (1993)

120 mW

408UL / FDU 428XL / FDU

(1999)
(2005)

20 cm

SN388 / SU1UL
(1997)

140 mW

420 g
3750 g

1450 g

- weight divided by 10 / channel in 12 years

350 g

More channels: historical driver 2

Reduction of weight for receivers:
Moore's law: geophone mass halving every 5 year

1945s

kg

100

10

1985s
1

0.1

2000s

0.01

0.001
1925

1935

1945

1955

1965

1975

1985

1995

from Dave Monk, Apache, Canadian SEG, May 2006

2005

year

1985s

- According to Moores law, replacement of geophones

by MEMS* accelerometers is the continuation of seismic sensor
evolution for the past 75 y.
* Micro Electro Mechanical System

More channels: multi-channel telemetry

Multi-Channel digitizer connected by multi-pair cables
with take-outs.
- excessive weight
- expensive to operate and repair
- one battery for every 6-8 channels
- analog transmission by the cable:
. cross talk
. leakage

6 channel field unit

More channels: single channel telemetry

Today the 408UL-428XL are the only open cable systems offering:
- robust, light & simple 4 wire cable, with digital only transmission
- efficient power management: up to 100 channels on one battery
- digitization of data at each single channel station

1 channel field unit

7

More channels: recording capability

Improved performances from 408UL to 428XL:
- higher rate on line (16Mbps) & transverse (100Mbps, 1Gbps)
- increased power & scalability of the central unit (n x 10k Ch)
428XL (11/2005)
408UL (04/2001)
PC Linux
Client

HP Server

CMXL Central Unit

Standalone SUN

LCI Central Unit

10,000 Ch

Ethernet

FDU

2,000 Ch

2,000 Ch

FDU
1,000 Ch
8

LAUX

LAUX

More channels: Central Unit scalability

428XL client-server architecture provides flexible
configurations based on PC under Linux
With laptop+GPS+LAUX (total<5kg)
it even possible to record in real-time
up to 2000 channels / explosive source

laptop
GPS

LAUX

428XL Lite

40,000 channel configuration

2,000 channel configuration

July 09: 100,000 channel configuration

Two identical recorders each with

50,000 channel real-time capability
in master-slave

10

10

More channels: 100,000 channel spread

Easiest spread management
with the 428XL Giga transverse:
100,000 channels real-time @2ms

LCI-G
LAUX-G
TFOI-G

11

11

More channels: towards 1M channels

Such 1M channel system should probably not be available
at the same price, with the same weight as todays systems

NOW

1 Gb/s

100,000 channels real-time @2ms

FUTURE

10 Gb/s

1 Million channels real-time @2ms

12

12

How to manage large cable spreads?

Flexibility of cable spread has improved thanks to:
multiple telemetry supports, and multi-path telemetry
Multiple telemetry on line & transverse to avoid obstacles
using lasers, Ethernet bridges or radio relays

Multi-path telemetry
snaking
thanks to distributed electronics
Secondary
transverse
transmission losses avoided
by rerouting data via
Skipped
secondary transverse digitizer
snaking
or line snaking
Spread > 200km used in desert areas

16 Mbps

100 Mbps

100 Mbps

line
16 Mbps

Main
transverse

13

13

Cableless for specific environments

Cableless is a cost effective solution to replace previous
radio telemetry in case of obstacles (river, canyon, highways)

A cableless system, is a adapted to:

- specific constraints (locals, animals)
- difficult environments (urban area, TZ, jungle)

from COMESA

14

14

Cableless system: Unite

System made of identical and independent stations
called Remote Acquisition Units (RAUs)
based on 428XL electronics (FDU) & software (eUnite)
All RAUs are synchronized by GPS used for timing
RAUs setting, QCs & data harvesting based
on WiFi for remote access from antenna
Antenna
(Wi-Fi)

RAU

Remote Acquisition Units

(RAUs)

GPS

Over 45,000 RAUs sold to 16 clients

15

15

Full cableless Unite survey

Spread made of RAUs only:

Remote harvesting
autonomous

real-time

Two acquisition modes:

autonomous and real-time
16

16

Infill Unite survey for hybrid spread

Cable & cableless acquisition based on a 428XL Central Unit
with two networker servers to end up with a single SegD file

Some infill patches are harvested in real time,

the others are remotely harvested

17

17

3D Infill Unite in Colombia-1

3D over urban area:
- no explosive allowed
- no chance to lay cable
- but prospective area
- solution: cableless
patch

2 km
- 1856 live channel template (16 lines)
- 10,550 total explosive SPs (200 SP/d)
18

from Sismopetrol

18

3D Infill Unite in Colombia- 2

Exemple of Unite infill patch in urban area

RAU & bunched phones

for urban area

from Sismopetrol

19

19

3D Infill Unite in Colombia-3

3D SP from FDU

Country FDU
+ array of 6 geophones

from Sismopetrol

3D SP from FDU + RAU

Remote harvesting with CAN

Range downtown is ~300m

City RAU
+ 6 bunched geophones
20

20

High Productivity Vibroseis: 428XL-VE464

Thanks to Vibrator Electronics combined with GPS
and digital transmission (TDMA) up to 32 groups of vibrators
can be managed in real-time over large distances

VE464
DSD

GPS +
TDMA

VE464
DPG

TDMA
relay

Hill

428XL
21

21

High productivity Vibroseis records

DSSS with
slip-sweep

ISS
Slip-sweep
HFVS
Flip-Flop

Record daily production in VPs/d

Records obtained by a combination of 428XL & VE464 in operations

from different methodologies during the last ten years
22

22

Simultaneous surface & borehole seismic

VE464 DSD slave to start distant recording system

DPG

TDMA

Recorder 1
(master)

DSD

Recorder 2
(slave)

VSP

This is one step towards Total 3D seismic,

and it has been already applied in the field
23

23

Land high-end WAZ 3D surveys

Dukhan (Qatar Petroleum) WAZ HD 3D survey
completed by CGGV-Ardiseis in 2009-10

Main characteristics:
- land, sabkha & transition zone
- 863km, 35.8M traces/km
total traces >30Billion
Cost land:
- $140M i.e. $162,000/km & $0.0045/seismic trace
24

24

Marine high-end WAZ 3D surveys

Offshore Mexico (Pemex) WAZ HD 3D survey
ongoing by CGGVeritas (10 months):
- 2 streamer-source vessels
- 2 source vessels
Main characteristics:
- 18,300km, 1.6M traces/km
total traces >30 Billion
Cost marine:
- $200M i.e. $10,900/km & $0.0068/seismic trace

x1.5
x15
Cost land:
- $140M i.e. $162,000/km & $0.0045/seismic trace

25

25

Comparison of Land & Marine

Land acquisition has surpassed marine in terms of trace productivity,
data density and azimuthal distribution

Land
- number of channels
- components
- spread size
- number of sources
- data density
- azimuthal distribution
- productivity (traces)
- productivity (km)

Marine

4000 up to 100,000
4000 up to 12,000
3C (PP & PS waves)
2C (PZ summation)
up to 220km
up to 9km (single vessel)
up to 18
up to 4
up to 35 Million/km
up to 2 Million/km
full offset/azimuth
partial offset/azimuth
up to 500 Million/day
up to 80 Million/day
up to 40km/day
up to 220km/day (WAZ)

Due to land environment

(topography, near surface, noise..)
and to the resulting lower data quality,
more traces are required onshore
to get comparable images as marine:
thus, the cost is higher (up to x70!)

3D seismic costs:
marine to mountains

26

26

Why High Density 3D onshore?

500m

200m

100m

PSTM time slices at 900ms for symmetric source & receiver line decimations

Signal-to-noise and resolution improve

with finer spatial sampling
Dominant frequency (from 20Hz to 40Hz) increases
from P.I. Pecholcs, EAGE Land workshop, Cairo, May 2010

27

27

Which recording system for the future?

Digital

It should be a scalable and flexible recording system able

to manage in the same hybrid spread both cable & cableless
units as well as different type of sensors (+ borehole tool )
428XL answers these requirements

Analog

all 428XL

Cable based

Cable
-less

The challenge will be

in the capability of the system
to monitor in (near) real-time
an increasing number
28
28
of elements

Is a disruptive transition still required?

Todays land recording systems have considerably improved
Various architectures are made available for productivity

Receiver
Centralized

Cableless

Autonomous

Source

Cable

They deliver in a cost effective way seismic traces, but land

will always require more traces, thus higher investment

29

29

30

30