MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay contracts 2D seismic survey in anticipation of second oil licensing round

The 2.400 tons R/V Reflect Aries seismic survey vessel

Singapore based Reflect Geophysical has been selected by Uruguay’s state oil company Ancap to carry out a 2D seismic survey in the country’s Punta del Este and Pelotas offshore basins.

Reflect won the 5 million US dollars contract in competition with five other international seismic players, including Petroleum Geo-Services and CGGVeritas.

The survey, which includes gravimetric and magneto-metric data is due to start later this month and covers a wide area of Uruguay’s Exclusive Economic Zone in water depths ranging from 20 to 2500 metres.

Data acquired in the shoot will be made available by Ancap to companies participating in Uruguay’s second licensing round, due to be launched in April 2012.

The survey will be carried out from mid March to May 2011, with at least a crew change and provisioning port call of the seismic vessel “R/V Reflect Aries” at Montevideo during that period.

The geophysical data to be obtained by Reflect adds to other contracts that ANCAP signed to improve the knowledge of the Uruguayan basins. ANCAP signed a contract with the international company Fugro for the provision of geophysical services covering a high resolution aero-magnetic survey of Pelotas, Punta del Este and Oriental del Plata offshore basins.

In addition, ANCAP already holds multi-client agreements with CGG Veritas for near 12.000 Km of 2D seismic data (acquired from 2002 to 2008), and has signed an agreement with ION/GXT for the acquisition, processing and interpretation of seismic data offshore, the so-called Uruguay SPAN (seismic data that will link the Uruguayan basins with the neighboring offshore basins in Brazil and Argentina).

All this large amount of data will be useful to enhance the knowledge of the offshore basins, as well as identifying leads and prospects in the Uruguay offshore, and therefore, will be particularly interesting and helpful for the oil companies that are evaluating the exploration opportunities in Uruguay.

The Uruguay Round II is based on the promising Uruguay Round 2009 that opened in Uruguay a new industrial area for development. In 2009 ANCAP, the National Oil Company, successfully launched the Uruguay Round 2009, for the awarding of exploration and exploitation areas offshore Uruguay, signing two contracts for two areas with a consortium formed by Petrobras, YPF and Galp.