Adding time makes seismic data a production tool

With oil prices expected to remain flat in the future engineers must look to technology to lower development costs and raise profits. Time-lapse 3-D seismic, known commonly as 4-D seismic, though new and unproven, will likely be the next step in reservoir management. This paper discusses the technology involved in 4-D seismic and the comparative costs between conventional 3-D and 4-D data processing. It also compares the times of imagery one can expect from this type of modeling.