The multi-use vessel, R/V Gyre, is in the second week of performing a geochemistry analysis programme offshore Nigeria.
The Petrodata/TGS partnership, which is promoting the project, claims that this is the country’s first regional multi-client Multibeam and Seafloor Sampling (MB&SS) Study.
Field reports say that, in just three days after commencement of project, two prominent water column anomalies and bubble plumes were observed in over 2,000 metre water depth with associated surface slicks. The study will cover an area of approximately 80,000 square kilometres of the offshore Niger Delta and will incorporate around 150 cores from the seabed, which target multibeam backscatter anomalies. To this date, the RV Gyre has collected 65,000 square kilometres of multibeam data and identified 431 watercolumn anomalies in the Nigeria study area.
Much of this area is also covered by TGS’ NGRE19 2D seismic data that was reprocessed in 2019 to take advantage of the latest seismic imaging techniques.
Final results of the new MB&SS programme are expected to be available before the end of this quarter.
R/V Gyre had, earlier this year, acquired 80,000 square kilometers of high resolution multibeam echo sounder bathymetry in the MSGBC Basin, from Northern Senegal through The Gambia and AGC zone, into Guinea-Bissau down to the Guinea transform fault. It performed the offshore advanced analysis where 80 active hydrocarbon seeps were detected in the multibeam water column data. But that project was solely for TGS. The one it’s currently doing in Nigeria is a joint collaboration between Petrodata and TGS.
Petrodata and TGS say that the multibeam, coring and geochemical analysis “provides our customers with further insight into and understanding of regional prospectivity.
“Following its successful implementation in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil and across the MSGBC Basin, we are pleased to expand the use of this technology into West Africa’s most prolific hydrocarbon province.”
