MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands’ oil company completes second 3D survey over its Southern licenses

PGS MV Ramform Sterling performed the seismic survey

Falkland Oil and Gas (FOGL) reported Thursday the completion of a 3D survey over its Southern Area licenses offshore the Falkland Islands. FOGL said the survey aimed to target a number of prospects and leads immediately to the west and northwest of the Darwin condensate discovery.

Operated by Houston based Noble Energy, the survey was performed by the PGS M/V Ramform Sterling seismic vessel. It was conducted over Cretaceous Fault blocks with a total of 1.018 square kilometres of full-fold seismic data acquired.

The data will now be processed by PGS and a fast-track product will be available for interpretation in approximately two months, said FOGL. The final processed data is expected to be available during the fourth quarter of 2013.

FOGL added that its joint venture with Noble and Edison expects to award a new contract in the near future for a third 3D seismic survey over the northern license area, which is to be conducted during the fourth quarter.

FOGL holds a 52.5% interest in the Southern Area licenses, while Noble and Edison hold 35% and 12.5% respectively.

This is the second of three planned 3D seismic surveys and is located in the South Falkland basin approximately 200 kilometers south of Port Stanley.

The survey is designed to cover a number of prospects and leads that lie adjacent to the Borders & Southern Darwin gas-condensate discovery, which has an estimated most likely recoverable resource of 200 million barrels.

FOGL has already identified on existing 2D seismic data, a number of potential prospects such as Inflexible, Scharnhorst and Nurnberg that could be analogous to Darwin. 3D seismic data is however, required to better image these traps.

The information from this survey, together with that from two other 3D seismic surveys will be used to identify drilling locations for the next drilling campaign, which is planned for the second half of 2014.