The role of seismic advances in reducing exploration risk in the northern Perth Basin

Abstract

Seismic data from the northern onshore Perth Basin has generally been of poor quality and as a result, many exploration wells have been drilled off structure. Combined with other factors, this has contributed to a lack of consistent exploration effort in the basin over the past 20 years. However, by applying recent advances in seismic technology, data quality is being significantly improved. Reasons for these improvements are given along with supporting examples, providing a comparative summary of seismic methods employed in the basin. Better structural definition has resulted from the improved seismic data and initial drilling results indicate that this is having a positive impact on the success rate.