MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay will survey continental shelf for hydrocarbons

M/V Bergen Surveryor

Uruguay's government owned oil corporation Ancap signed this week a contract with Norway's Wavefield Inseis ASA for the seismic surveying of the country's continental shelf including deep and very deep waters.

According to the 4.9 million US dollars contract Wavefield will cover an area of 7.000 square kilometers with M/V Bergen Surveryor this coming summer. Ancap becomes the sole owner of the data collected and holds the right to licensing based on the survey information. Wavefield Inseis ASA is a Norwegian marine geophysical company that provides proprietary data acquisition services and offers a portfolio of non-exclusive Multi-client data to the global exploration community developed in partnership with oil companies and governments. The range of products includes long offset 2D, high capacity 3D, 4D, Multi-azimuth and Wide-azimuth data acquired with highly specified vessels and the latest seismic equipment. The company is also a full service permanent 4D acquisition provider: the company's personnel have a track record of planning, installing and acquiring data over, permanent 4D 4C systems. Wavefield Inseis has activities in the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia with main offices in Bergen and Oslo, Norway, and other locations in London, Houston and Perth. M/V Bergen Surveyor was converted in 1997 and is equipped as a long offset 2D also capable of 2 streamer acquisition for development 3D and 4D surveys. In 2D mode the maximum offset available is 12,000m and for 3D the maximum configuration is 2 x 6000m and dual source. Uruguay that is totally oil dependent, has made attempts to look for hydrocarbons offshore in the River Plate for decades, beginning in 1976 with Chevron which drilled a couple of exploratory wells and in the nineties an extensive surveying was done by a French company.