MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Repsol YPF seismic surveying next to Falklands.

“Western Patriot” belonging to a US-Norwegian company and contracted by the Spanish-Argentine consortium Repsol-YPF is seismic surveying an area extending between Falkland Islands and Tierra del Fuego reports the Argentine press.

The Panama flagged vessel was last week in Comodoro Rivadavia for a technical and logistic call when some Argentine journalists were invited on board.

Apparently the vessel with all its sophisticated gear and helicopter should currently be operating in an area between the Le Maire strait and the State islands.

"Western Patriot" with fifty people on board of which 28 are involved in the seismic operations with shots of compressed gas that are recorded by several hydrophones thus helping to charter the geological structure below the sea bed.

Three different teams apparently are involved in the collection of seismic data from eight lines, six kilometres long separated by mono-winds which the vessel pulls crisscrossing the area to survey.

WesternGeco is the world's largest seismic services company created in December 2000 by a merger of seismic subsidiaries within Schlumberger and Baker Hughes.

On 28 December 2000 the WesternGeco seismic vessel R/V Western Patriot completed the first marine seismic survey sea-trial with SpaceData's SeismicStar Service. Working off the coast of Brazil the Patriot has transferred to date 13 Tb of marine seismic data directly from shipboard to Houston. During this trial, SeismicStar transferred a one-day record of 422 Gb directly from the deck of the Patriot.

The whole operation is expected to take a couple of months.