Approaching Zero Footprint Seismic- PinPoint Pilot

Seismic lines can disturb ~25% of the land base in the Athabasca Oil Sands region. This has undesirable environmental impacts, including population declines in boreal caribou, a species at risk, whose decline has been partially caused by seismic lines providing wolves “roadways” for easier access to this prey. The Explor PinPoint technology is a new land seismic data acquisition method with potential to reduce or eliminate line clearing when acquiring seismic data in forested regions. This study compares (1) seismic data quality and environmental performance; (2) safety performance; (3) surface disturbance footprint and (4) cost between PinPoint and conventional LIS-based acquisition methods (Vibroseis).

(1) seismic data quality/environmental performance – PinPoint is capable of imaging shallow oil sands reservoirs and could be used today, but with less certainty than Vibroseis for interpretation of the Cretaceous interval; (2) safety performance – the following safety challenges were noted: increased personnel extraction challenges, field time exposure and scale-up of crew to commercial scale surveys; (3) surface disturbance footprint – a proof of concept was demonstrated for near-zero footprint 3D survey acquisition, but with more access routes than originally planned due to a change in survey sequencing. Spring data acquisition is feasible, but spring melt/flooding season is not recommended for a safe/cost-effective survey; (4) cost – PinPoint was ~3.4 times more costly than Vibroseis, primarily due to reduced field productivity during spring melt. Further optimization and field testing are required to demonstrate equivalent or better (1) quality/performance (frequencies (2-300 Hz) and signal to noise), (2) safety standards, and (3) costs relative to Vibroseis or dynamite.