Exploration in the Gulf of Suez has always been severely hampered by the poor performance of the seismic reflection technique in the presence of the thick interbedded late Miocene evaporate sequence. In addition to the difficulty of obtaining energy penetration, the high velocity shallow section generates a large number of complex multiple trains which have no velocity discrimination to separate them from the deep primaries.
The principal difference with Ras Fanar area is that the reservoir Nullipore (carbonates buildups) depth is only some 2000 feet, so the attenuation problem is much reduced and, in addition, the reservoir lies immediately beneath the evaporate section where there is less problem from long multiples. However, the reflection identification of the Nullipore reservoir in the field has long been a problem because of the interfingering of the anhydrites with the reefal facies of the Nullipore reservoir.
Seismic characteristics of the Nullipore (carbonate build-up) reservoir and the surrounding evaporate section in Ras Fanar Oil Field were studied using the available geological, petrophysical and geophysical data. Well data was integrated with the seismic data to achieve this task. The seismic expression of the Nullipore reservoir is a broad band, low amplitude, incoherent event, while the equivalent evaporite section which is surrounding the Nullipore shows reflections of significant amplitude and coherency restricted in a narrow frequency band