Veritas completes 2D survey off Namibia

Offshore staff

(Houston)- Veritas DGC Inc. announced that its subsidiary Veritas DGC Ltd. has completed a new data library survey covering the northern part of the Orange basin and southern part of the Luderitz basin offshore Namibia. The data will be available for licensing by October 2006.

Steve Toothill, chief geologist for Veritas DGC Ltd., noted that "Prior to this survey, no seismic data existed in the deepwater area and the data that did exist in shallower water were acquired with short offsets." Toothill went on to explain that the new datasets were acquired with 8,000-m offsets, nearly double that of previous surveys.

"This longer offset data, when processed using the very latest techniques, will provide a step change in data quality, especially in the deeper section, which includes the Kudu reservoir interval," Toothill continued.

Offshore Namibia remains largely unexplored, with approximately one well per 175 km of coastline. However, Veritas is optimistic that the geology in the region shows the potential for significant hydrocarbon reserves with all the requirements for a working petroleum system.

For example, the company points to the Kudu gas field, which lies just 55 km south of the current survey. Possible plays in the block include the Kudu sandstone pinchout and younger Cretaceous/Tertiary deepwater fans and structural traps in the deeper rift section.

This survey marks Veritas' third long-offset seismic acquisition data library survey offshore Namibia, each of which supplements extensive additional brokered datasets.

6/19/2006