Paper submitted to NAPE Lagos 2026, by Emily Kay (TGS)
Introduction
The Niger Delta has long been known as one of the most prolific hydrocarbon provinces in West Africa. As exploration pushes further into the deepwater domain, new imaging solutions are required to unravel the structural complexity of the deepwater Niger Delta and improve imaging around mobile shales, which have historically proven challenging to image on legacy datasets. In order to solve this problem, new long-offset acquisition with advanced processing techniques including elastic-Full Waveform Imaging (e-FWI) is key to fully resolve the shale bodies, faults and channels.
Following on from the successful acquisition and processing of the Awele MC3D, completed in May 2025, we now go one step further, utilising an enhanced workflow with e-FWI to capture the complexity of the southeastern offshore Niger Delta within the newly acquired Laide MC3D dataset. The Laide MC3D covers an area of 12,800 km2 and contains a host of structural domains including the inner fold & thrust belt/ shale diapir zone, a transitional zone with gentle folding passing into toe-thrusts of the outer fold and thrust belt. In addition to this, strike-slip faulting can also be observed in a N-S orientation, further increasing the structural complexity of the area.