Best Practices in 3-D Land Seismic Acquisition in the Middle East and North Africa: Cost-Effective Acquisition in a Low Oil Price Environment

ABSTRACT Increasing expenditure in 3-D land seismic acquisition has driven the need to define Best Practices and improvement areas in the acquisition process. Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) and Arthur D. Little Management Consultants undertook a study to identify these Best Practices in the Middle East and North African regions by interviewing 34 companies and compiling data from 51 recent vibroseis surveys. Acquisition costs and duration from surveys over similar terrains, but with varying geometries, were compared on an equal basis to determine the most cost-effective method for acquiring high-quality (i.e. data density) 3-D data. High-quality surveys acquired using a Zig Zag geometry had lower costs than those acquired using conventional geometries over gravel plain terrain. However, there was no clear best geometry for other terrains. Acquisition performance was also improved by adopting a number of Best Practices covering the design, planning, contracting strategy, execution, processing and post-acquisition elements of the seismic acquisition process.