Optimizing operations in 3‐D land seismic surveys

Abstract

We formulate and solve a mathematical programming optimization model to find a minimum cost solution for an orthogonal split‐spread design in a 3‐D land seismic survey. The model contains decision variables on source and receiver location spacings, the amount of receiver equipment, and the production rate of the seismic crews. The model includes operational constraints for source and receiver movements. It also includes geophysical constraints for fold coverage, offset, and azimuth. To demonstrate the efficacy of the model, we include an example and solve it using the nonlinear optimization solver in Microsoft Excel. The model results demonstrate the classic trade‐off between source and receiver points to satisfy the geophysical requirements. In addition, we conduct sensitivity analysis on an important production parameter: the maximum number of source points that can be shot per day. We show that although changes to this parameter do not impact the decision variables, such changes do have a significant effect on the total cost of the survey.