Common contour binning, or CCB for short, is a new commercial plugin in OpendTect version 3.2. CCB is used to detect subtle hydrocarbon-related seismic anomalies and to pinpoint Gas-Water, Gas-Oil and Oil-Water contacts. CBB uses the power of stacking to enhance such anomalies. Consider a structure filled with hydro-carbons. All traces that penetrate the reservoir at the same depth will in principle sample the same hydro-carbon column length. In other words for these traces the imprint of any hydro-carbon effect on the seismic response will be similar. Such traces are located along the same depth contour line. So, if we stack all traces along the same contour line we can expect the hydro-carbon effect to stack up while stratigraphic variations and random noise will be canceled out.

This plugin requires a license-key.  An evaluation key can be obtained from  This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

The CCB plugin produces two outputs: First a CCB volume is produced that consists of traces stacked along contour lines that are re-distributed along the same contour lines. In other words all traces along one contour line consist of identical traces that were produced by stacking all traces along that contour line. The second output is the CCB stack. This is a 2D section with stacked traces flattened along the mapped reference horizon.

The ideas behind CCB originate with Jan Gabe van der Weide and Andries Wever of Wintershall Noordzee BV. dGB developed the CCB plugin on behalf of Wintershall who are the IP holders and who granted dGB the right to commercialize the technology.

Top left: CCB enhanced amplitude anomaly.

Top right: CCB reveals a low amplitude anomaly near the top of the structure (green), probably associated with gas-fill. A second amplitude change (red-to-blue) occurs at the depth of the expected spill point and is interpreted as the oil-water contact. The structure is leaking down-dip along a fault system as shown by the chimneys (blue-green). Analogs show that this type of chimney / structure configurations are highly prospective. 

Left: traces along contour lines are stacked (two contour lines are shown)