North Sea Buzzard Field – Baseline OBN Survey Parameterisation

A Life of Field study for the UK North Sea Buzzard Field focused the strategy on reserves maximisation. 4D seismic technology was recognised as a key potential contributor to achieving this goal, supporting the long term monitoring effort of field depletion and future drilling decisions. A review of possible options was undertaken and a retrievable seabed acquisition approach was adopted. From a technical perspective, a significant concept determining factor was the initial uncertainties in geometry optimisation. The business case itself will be discussed elsewhere.

The same uncertainties about geometry optimisation apply equally to retrievable seabed surveys as they do to permanent installations. The geophysical features influencing the decisions on source effort and receiver effort are considered. The final design chosen for the Buzzard acquisition is compared to published acquisition geometries and target classifications to provide confidence in the ability of the baseline survey to provide the desired results. The survey was successfully acquired in the summer of 2014.