SEMINAR: The challenge of seismic survey design

3D seismic is probably the most significant dataset we have to make decisions in offshore oil and gas exploration and development. Optimising the quality, cost and delivery time of this data is a challenging problem that could unlock billions of dollars in value. Each year the industry spends US$10 billion on marine acquisition which fundamentally underpins around $75 billion in drilling and around $500 billion in development CAPEX. In this talk I will discuss the drivers in survey design – cost, safety, schedule and quality. I will also propose what research potentially needs to be done to improve the process of survey design including large scale seismic modelling, quantifying “quality” and treating survey design as an inverse problem.