Reservoir Monitoring (ReM) System
System Description
The Reservoir Monitoring (ReM) system is a seismic data acquisition system, designed for permanent deployment on the sea floor. The system is intended to enable the use of seismic data in reservoir management. The concept is that the installation of a seismic data acquisition system will be included as a standard item in the reservoir development plan. Once it has been installed, the system is used to perform repeated seismic surveys of the reservoir as required to control the development of the reservoir.
The ReM system uses 4-component sensor nodes with a 3-axis VectorSeis® accelerometer assembly and a hydrophone. The VectorSeis® sensors provide improved low frequency as well as high frequency response and superior vector-fidelity (cross-axis isolation) compared to the gimbaled and omni-directional geophone systems that have been used for ocean bottom surveys.
Architecture
The system can be divided in two main parts, the Topside Equipment and the In-water Equipment. The Topside Equipment consists of computers and other hardware and software for recording of the seismic data, and for powering and controlling the In-water equipment. The In-water Equipment consists of a number of Receiver Blocks, composed of a number of sensor lines, and associated cables to connect it to the Topside Equipment.
The recording system software is developed by Concept Systems (part of the ION Geophysical Corporation). It is based on existing industry standards and practice.
The in-water part of the system is designed with focus on reliability and redundancy, in addition to best-in-class sensor response and low cost.
The system will be modular, consisting of smaller building blocks that can be combined in different configurations to meet the requirements for each installation.
Main System Specifications
The following are the main specifications for the system.
| Maximum Water depth |
2000m (pilot installation) |
| Number of sensors per receiver lines |
480 |
| Number of receiver lines per HUB |
12 |
| Number of receiver stations per system |
5760 |
| Number of receivers channels per system |
23040 |
| Max. receiver spacing |
100m |
| Max. receiver line length |
24 km (@50 m receiver spacing) |
| Max number of HUBs (not fully populated) * |
8 |