Polarcus has continued its offshore West African safari by announcing another 4D marine seismic acquisition project in the region.
The seismic service provider said the project duration would be approximately two months and is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2019, after a scheduled class docking.
Polarcus did not provide further details about the project and had worked on a seismic project in the same area offshore West Africa earlier this year.
On the same day last week that TGS announced the commencement of its Midnight 3D seismic survey to “further solidify its core position in the Inga/Fireweed area” of British Columbia, Canada, the seismic services provider revealed it would also conduct a new 3D multi-client project offshore Argentina.
The Norwegian company said the British Columbia survey merges into TGS’ existing onshore Canadian seismic data coverage in the condensate region of the Montney basin and straddles a large area where drilling activity is incentivized by deep-well royalty credit.
When completed and processed by TGS, the Midnight 3D project will result in 168km²of high-quality 3D seismic data.
Cairn Energy has hit a dry well in the first well of its drilling program offshore Mexico, where the exploration target of the Alom-1 well on Block 9 failed to prove hydrocarbons, the UK-based independent oil and gas company said.
The company said the well would now be permanently plugged and abandoned after data collected and preliminary analysis had indicated over 500m of “high quality water bearing sands across multiple targets”.
“This information will help Cairn calibrate the seismic data and geological models and is being integrated to improve Cairn’s understanding of the petroleum system offshore Mexico,” the company added.
Searcher Seismic has announced the expansion of its modern offshore data library with the completion of its Northern Basins Prospectivity Study in Papua New Guinea.
Searcher, in conjunction with Discover Geoscience, has compiled the Northern Basins Prospectivity Study following its successful acquisition of the Solomon Sea Broadband Non-Exclusive 2D seismic survey in 2017.
Searcher said the study offers the industry a detailed understanding of the basins and hydrocarbon potential of the region, with extensive coverage of the Cape Vogel, Bougainville and New Ireland Basins.
The Northern Basins Prospectivity Study contains an assessment of the Sequence Stratigraphic Framework, with Chronostratigraphy unified with that from Searcher’s Gulf of Papua Prospectivity Study.
BEACH Energy has reported a new gas discovery at the Beharra Springs Deep-1 well in the Perth Basin and told the ASX that it had delivered a net gas pay of 36 metres across the Kingia sandstone.
Beach, operator and 50% interest holder in the licence with Mitsui E&P holding the balance, said the Kingia Sandstone reservoir was comparable to Waitsia-4 and preliminary interpretation had indicated reservoir porosities of up to 21%.
Wireline activities are continuing, after which the well is expected to be completed for production testing over the coming weeks.
The well was drilled to a total depth of 4,170 metres and intersected a 65-metre thick reservoir interval of the Kingia Sandstone at a depth of 3,935 to 4,000 metres, with estimated net gas pay of 36 metres.
Bunbury Energy has commenced a three-day aerial survey spanning 675km2 of the South West.
CGG Aviation will fly a light aircraft about 500 feet above the exploration area to assess subsurface geology in a project across the Shires of Capel, Dardanup and Donnybrook-Balingup and parts of Bunbury and Busselton.
This fulfils a long-standing aim of Bunbury Energy to investigate acreage in the South Perth Basin to reprocess data previously gathered in the 1950s and ‘60s with newer technologies.
Exploration has indicated that the area is not suited to hydraulic fracturing and the company is pursuing conventional gas reserves in a region where fracturing is not allowed under current state legislation.
Santos has snapped up a big basket of onshore and offshore ConocoPhillips assets in a $2.2 billion deal motivated by the Adelaide-headquartered oil and gas company’s big vision for future gas demand in Australia.
“We see a big future for gas,” Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher said as details of the purchase emerged.
“Through to 2040 it is the fastest-growing energy source and that’s why there’s such demand for our product across Asia.”
ConocoPhillips and Santos already have a long-standing partnership in the Northern Territory, the former as operator and major stake holder in the Darwin LNG plant, which gets feedstock from the Bayu-Undan offshore field in which Santos has an 11.5% share.
PGS says it is fully-booked for seven vessels in the fourth quarter of 2019. PGS has now committed to a MultiClient program in West Africa for the eighth active vessel. The program is expected to last more than 100 days and has strong industry funding. PGS said: “As a consequence, PGS will operate all eight active vessels also over the winter period and Sanco Swift has commenced transit from Norway to West Africa.
CGG Subsurface Imaging, part of CGG’s Geoscience division, has delivered state-of-the-art broadband 4D seismic results ahead of schedule from BP Angola’s latest monitor survey offshore Angola. This achievement builds on previous 4D seismic processing projects undertaken for BP Angola. CGG said the enhanced imaging volumes from the Greater Plutonio development in the Lower Congo Basin were delivered four weeks early for this time-critical BP project.
Total and Santos have requested a one-month extension from Melbana Energy for the deadline date to decide whether to acquire a 40% interest in WA-488-P by agreeing to jointly fund drilling of the Beehive-1 exploration well. Last April the six-month option period for Total and Santos to farm into the Melbana-operated Beehive prospect and drill the first exploration well started. This followed approval of 3D seismic data from the Beehive 3D survey. The project was further de-risked in June this year after Melbana had confirmed key technical characteristics of Beehive-1.