Improving the Illumination Below Messinian Interval through Better Acquisition Planning

Abstract

Summary During the last decade, the exploration targets offshore Egypt have moved subsalt. Messinian salt is a complex interval that changes its character going from West to East Mediterranean. Existing seismic data was not able to properly capture the pre-Messinian targets. We have used the available seismic and the non-seismic data to build the representative 3D Earth model, incorporating typical challenges offshore Egypt. 3D Finite Difference modeling was used to simulate different acquisition approaches. Based on the modeling results, further in this abstract we will show the best acquisition approaches to illuminate subsalt. Moreover we will examine the impact of the broadband seismic data as well as the impact of surface and internal multiples, inaccurate velocity models and absorption on the image below the salt.