Episode 305: Building Trust in Elastic FWI
“We always aim for 60 percent. The other 40 percent, we are ready to make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and then move forward.”
A 600-meter carbonate platform forced Dr. Ahmad Riza Ghazali and his PETRONAS team to reconsider a basic assumption in their seismic workflow.
Acoustic FWI and reverse time migration could not adequately image the layers beneath it, while 3D distributed acoustic sensing revealed extensive P-to-S mode conversion at the carbonate boundary. That evidence led the team toward multiparameter elastic FWI. And images that Ahmad says helped support successful drilling.
His SEG Pacific South Honorary Lecture, Next Generation Seismic Imaging Elastic FWI and Wavefield Solutions for Seeing Through Complex Carbonates, turns that experience into a regional argument. As exploration moves toward deeper Miocene carbonates, better physics may expose plays conventional imaging misses. The remaining challenge is economic and organizational because elastic FWI costs substantially more, requires teams to learn together, and asks decision-makers to invest before the outcome is certain.
This episode sponsored by Hart Energy.