In 2014, BP contracted FairfieldNodal to acquire and process two ocean bottom node (OBN) surveys in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico at the Atlantis and Thunder Horse fields, on and near the Sigsbee Escarpment. At 1912 and 2031 nodes, respectively, these were the largest deep water node surveys ever acquired. Concurrently, FairfieldNodal was contracted to reprocess the 2005-2006 and the 2009 vintages of the Atlantis OBN acquisition in an effort to match the processing of the 2014 OBN data. Because the Thunder Horse survey is expected to be the first of a number of OBN surveys on the field over time, the same processing strategy was employed to enhance its applicability as a 4D baseline survey as well. This document and presentation will describe some of the methods and procedures used to mitigate known and measurable obstacles to the repeatability of the different vintages of OBN data in an effort to simplify 4D analyses. As the 2005/6 Atlantis survey was the first deep water node survey of its kind, there has been a natural evolution in the ancillary measurements and data acquired in support of the seismic data as well as significant advances in the technology of the nodes. An example of the ancillary data would be the types and quantity of measurements related to characterizing the acoustic qualities of the water column.
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