INVERSION OF MAGNETOTELLURIC DATA IN OFFSHORE HYDROCARBON EXPLORATION

The marine EM exploration method has become a legendary and complimentary technique to other geophysical methods in the offshore hydrocarbon exploration. There are two EM exploration methods: marine magnetotelluric (MMT) and controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM). MMT is a natural source method, which utilized earth''s natural electromagnetic field as a source field. The commercial survey applicability of CSEM for offshore hydrocarbon exploration use a mobile horizontal electric dipole (HED) and an array of seafloor receivers,which measured the EM fields. Integration of MMT and CSEM data significantly enhances the exploration efficiency and minimizes the risk of dry well before the offshore drilling.

Autorentext

Arun Kumar received his M.Tech degree in geophysics from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India and M.S in geophysics from University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA. He is actively involved in the processing, forward modeling and inversion of the marine MT and CSEM data. He is author/co-author of several CSEM and MMT abstract publications.