PGS begins survey in Campos Basin

The survey will provide the first 3D data over blocks offered in the upcoming 17^th Bidding Round, will inform operators on drilling decisions in 14^th Bidding Round blocks, and will improve subsurface imaging of the pre-salt section outboard of Campos Basin oil giants, including Roncador, Albacore, and Marlim.

Ramform Titan arrived in Brazil on schedule and commenced operations on 25 February, just north of the Tropic of Capricorn and west of the Marlim field in the Campos Basin. PGS’ flagship seismic survey vessel is towing the largest acquisition spread ever deployed in Brazil, comprising over 140 000 m of active multisensor streamers.

PGS’ Campos Deepwater GeoStreamer X programme targets Campos Basin pre-salt open acreage, blocks acquired in the 14^th Bidding Round, as well as open acreage offered in the 17^th Bidding Round that is scheduled for late-2020. The survey will cover an area of approximately 14 500 km² and overshoot PGS’ existing orthogonal MC3D, which is currently being reprocessed.

The tailored acquisition configuration for the GeoStreamer X project will provide 10 km long offsets, to improve depth velocity modelling accuracy of the post-salt, salt, and pre-salt sections, facilitated by the use of PGS’ Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) technologies. These additional offset data also promise added angle range for pre-salt seismic amplitude analysis and reservoir characterisation. Multi-azimuth processing, incorporating the reprocessed orthogonal dataset will improve illumination of the subsurface structures found within the pre-salt plays in this portion of the Campos Basin.

Final multi-azimuth products on Campos Deepwater GeoStreamer X, available in 4Q21, will include TTI Kirchhoff and RTM (45 Hz) PSDM. These will benefit from both the new GeoStreamer fidelity and broadband reprocessing of the legacy data. PGS also will be offering a high-resolution PSTM to aid in shallow drilling hazard analysis, gravity and magnetic data for regional basin analysis, as well as standard field deliverables. Fast track products will be available prior to the 17th Bidding Round, scheduled for late-2020.

Barrett Cameron, Vice President New Ventures NSA for PGS, commented: “PGS is delighted to return to Brazil in 2020 with the first GeoStreamer X project in this region, in the under-explored pre-salt play of the Campos Basin. Our previous campaigns, in Potiguar and Sergipe in 2018, proved the unique capacity of our Ramform Titan-class vessels towing large spreads to deliver efficient and safe operations in the challenging environment of Brazil. We are looking forward to better illuminating this portion of the Campos Basin, potentially containing large exploration opportunities. By combining a tailored GeoStreamer X design with an efficient and cost-effective Ramform Titan-class and leading-edge imaging technologies, we anticipate a step-change in image quality to enable future discoveries and provide an excellent baseline 3D survey.”

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/offshore-and-subsea/04032020/pgs-begins-survey-in-campos-basin/