Optimum seismic illumination of hydrocarbon reservoirs

Abstract

A method is proposed for the design and application of a wave theory‐based synthesis operator, which combines shot records (2-D or 3-D) for the illumination of a specific part of the subsurface (target, reservoir) with a predefined source wavefield. After application of the synthesis operator to the surface data, the procedure is completed by downward extrapolation of the receivers. The output simulates a seismic experiment at the target, carried out with an optimum source wavefield. These data can be further processed by migration and/or inversion. The main advantage of the proposed method is that control of the source wavefield is put at the target, in contrast with the conventional wave stack procedures, where control of the source wavefield is put at the surface. Moreover, the proposed method allows true amplitude, three‐dimensional (3-D), prestack migration that can be economically handled on the current generation of supercomputers.