"Subsalt Depth Imaging for Improving Seismic Structural Interpretation and Hydrocarbon Potential using 3D Pre-Stack Depth Migration inRas BudranField, Central Gulf of Suez, Egypt"

Abstract

Ras Budran oil field is located in the offshore Gulf of Suez within the central province approximately 4 km west of Sinai. The field was discovered in 1977 after the successful drilling of EE 85-1 well, encountering multiple reservoirs within the Paleozoic and Cretaceous. The field production started in May 1983 with 15000 BOPD from Paleozoic and Cretaceous reservoirs. Structurally, Ras Budran field is considered as identical complex pre-Miocene model. It is severely strained by faults of different throws and aligned in various directions. The study discusses the depth seismic images of the deep structural objectives beneath a complex overburden, which may show strong lateral and vertical velocity variations where thick Miocene evaporites and shale sequences overlie rift structures involving Pre-Miocene and Lower Miocene oil producing formations. In such areas, the seismic image is frequently of poor quality and the depth models of deep layers is often false due to the perturbed propagation of seismic energy through the deforming overlying layers. Thus, the seismic survey was re-processed and produced pre-stack depth migration (PSDM) cube by using the controled beam migration (CBM), which is a specialized version of Beam Migration designed to achieve improved signal-to-noise ratios and enhanced steep dip imaging in complex geological settings thence several enhancements were accomplished such as: 1) Depth conversion challenges that resulted from the well velocity survey and the vintage seismic cube have been overcomed,