Simultaneous-source seismic acquisitions: Do they allow reservoir characterization? A feasibility study with blended onshore real data

Simultaneous-source (or blended) seismic acquisitions allow reducing exploration costs, and thus, are now gaining greater importance. This paper presents a feasibility study based on a simulation of a simultaneous-source acquisition for reservoir characterization purpose. A dense single-vibrator land data set was taken as reference. The shooting times of the sources were mixed up according to a blended acquisition design. The blending fold reaches 8, and the overall blending strategy was ensured to be as unfavorable for processing as possible. In order to provide reliable conclusions, an identical processing flow was applied in parallel to the non-blended and the deblended data. The results were evaluated not only at the PreSTM stage, but also taking into account the possibility of amplitudes interpretation. The quality control tests gave positive conclusions: independent simultaneous shooting proved to be compatible with further AVO/AVA studies and other reservoir characterization techniques.