Illuminating Santos Basin’s pre-salt with OBN data: Potential and challenges of FWI

Santos Basin has become one of the most prospective oil provinces in the world. Due to the geological complexity, OBN acquisition has emerged as an imaging solution. It provides the full-azimuth and long-offset illumination FWI needs to realize its potential. Given the right data, a reliable FWI engine and a good starting model, we are able to derive accurate velocities to impact the imaging of the salt and pre-salt. Two major challenges remain. FWI is dependent on the initial model and anisotropy remains a challenge. Better acquisitions together with advanced multi-parameter FWI technology are still needed to overcome these challenges.