Oilsands: Not Your Average Seismic Data

This paper is an examination of the issues inherent in processing and interpreting Athabasca oilsands plays. For example, the most common form of examining seismic data is by taking its average to produce the seismic stack. Canadian oilsands plays are Class II AVO plays, which are near zero amplitude at zero offset with a risk of amplitude cross-over with offset. Therefore, stacking all these offsets may result in poor well ties. There are many more aspects of the prestack seismic data that we need to be aware of in order to make better use of seismic data in these plays. More thought must be put into appropriate attributes and processes, which bring out the features of the reservoir that are of interest. It is the purpose of this paper to give some guidance on these issues.