10 Q-Seabed Seismic Acquisition QC

Quality is integral to our business. Prior to the shooting of each swath a set of instrument tests is
carried out. WesternGeco continually strive to develop improved methods of acquisition and data
quality control. Listed below are the possible standard QC products offered for multicomponent
surveys.

Shot Gathers:
To characterize (in terms of dip, intensity, frequency content, etc) noise, like ship noise
etc.

Every km or as often as necessary to QC every receiver on the line

All cables, all traces displayed.
Optionally LMO correction using nominal geometry applied to the CSG.

Receiver Gathers:
Every one km or as often as necessary to QC every shot on the line.
Analyzed ASAP after EOL.

Brute Stack (Vertical Components):

To show the effects of external noise (propeller noise, swell, etc) on quality of the stacked
seismic data.

Hydrophone Stack
Optional gain recovery

NMO velocity correction using a velocity field provided by DP/Client or using a single velocity
function provided by DP/client.
Post NMO mute.

Or PZ Stack
Fixed geophone scalar provided by DP/Client.
Optional gain recovery.

NMO velocity correction using a velocity field provided by DP/Client or using a single velocity
function provided by DP/client.
Post NMO mute.

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 Brute Stack (Horizontal Components):
To show the effects of external noise (propeller noise, swell, etc) on quality of the stacked
seismic data.

Geophone Stacks
Optional gain recovery

Asymptotic CCP binning using a PS velocity field provided by DP/Client or using a single
velocity function provided by DP/client and supplied gamma.
NMO velocity correction using a velocity field provided by DP/Client or using a single velocity
function provided by DP/client.
Post NMO mute.

RMS Analysis:
To QC ambient noise, external noise, trace condition, and cable depth / vessel speed effects
on the seismic data.

Computed in two time windows for all components and all cables.
Last 500ms
Whole trace length or client requested target window
Both time trace windows is further analyzed in three frequency windows.
Loaded into Aqua database.

Water Bottom Hydrophone Cube

To detect timing errors and to check for gross positioning errors, over the entire
survey
Low fold cube (offset 0-500 m)
Trace length (maximum expected water bottom two way time plus 1000ms)
Trace selection based on a radial offset window, two traces per cable per shot.
NMO correction using the water velocity.

1.7. SEG-D Header Analysis:

To monitor the acquisition system.
Multiple SEG-D header attributes displayed on screen real-time and loaded into Aqua
database
Available for inspection and comparison offline.

1.8. Inclinometer Analysis:

Inclinometer QC value is computed at each receiver station to verify the correct
operation of the equipment.
Calculated from the sum of the squares of each component of the acceleration of the
station.
Loaded into Aqua database.

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 1.9. Additional Post Acquisition OmegaQC products
Relative source amplitude (dual source only)
To evaluate the relative amplitude of two sources to help detect small air leaks that will
affect the output of the source but may not be noticeable by monitoring sub-array
pressures.

Compute the mean RMS amplitude of the closest 10 traces.

Compute difference between adjacent shots (alternating sources) and display.

Note that when Near Field Hydrophone (NFH) displays are available, the analysis of these displays
will replace the relative source amplitude method of detecting air leaks.

1.10. Receiver Lay QC

Select one shot gather every km.
Update trace headers with the source and receiver positionins from the navigation system.
Correct for linear moveout using water velocity.

1.11. Positioning QC
To QC navigation calculated offsets, using direct arrival travel time.

Receiver Positioning QC
Select one shot gather every km.
Update trace headers with computed source and receiver positioning information.
Correct for linear moveout using water velocity.
Display and plot.

Source Positioning QC
Select a receiver gather, every km.
Update trace headers with computed source and receiver positioning information.
Sort by offset.
Correct for linear moveout using water velocity.
Display and plot

1.12. Online Displays

- Brute stacks
- Aqua database attribute analysis to optionally include SEGD header attributes, RMS analysis
attributes, RMS frequency analysis attributes, Average channels RMS analysis, Inclinometers
analysis attributes, Source attributes, Source RMS attributes.
- Shot gathers (optional shot increment). Rotating through components Shot display. CRG and
CSG gathers.

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 - FK plots (optional shot increment).

1.13. Offline Displays

Shot/trace RMS analysis.
RMS noise areal analysis.

1.14. SEG-Y Deliverables

Concatenated brute stacks on SEG-Y.
Water bottom cube on SEG-Y.

1.15. Hard Copy Deliverables

- Brute stacks (one per production sequence).
Water bottom cube (inlines, xlines and timeslices plotted once per week).

1.16. Supervision Deliverables

Brute stacks.
Shot gather (one per line).
Water bottom hydrophone cube (updated every week).
Standard attribute plots.
Inclinometer QC plots.
RMS noise areal plots.
Relative source amplitude plots (dual source only).
Shot/trace RMS analysis plots.
RMS Frequency plots.
FK shot plots.

The recording vessel will have dedicated QC geophysicist personnel with the capability to
investigate all potential data anomalies. Ship to Shore QC and test transmission will be facilitated
by WesternGeco's SuperVision system allowing pseudo real-time project monitoring from shore
based support groups. All products will be visible (selected lines and slices from cubes) on
SuperVision within 24hrs of acquisition in client offices.

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