TGS has started work on two more seismic data reprocessing projects offshore eastern Canada and mid-Norway, both supported by industry funding.

The Orphan3D PSDM Phase 2 reprocessing project offshore Newfoundland and Labrador will provide an uplift to about 13,300 sq km of 3D seismic data over the prospective Orphan Basin.

Main goals are to improve imaging quality and subsurface understanding to help exploration companies assess drilling opportunities within the basin. TGS will add the reprocessed data to its Newfoundland and Labrador data library.

The Orphan Basin is widely regarded as one of Atlantic Canada's most prospective frontier exploration areas, having attracted interest from operators such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, bp and Equinor in past licensing rounds. While exploration activity has slowed in recent years, regulators continue to promote the basin's potential as part of broader efforts to attract new offshore investment. 

The basin is thought to contain significant undiscovered oil and gas resources and has been compared geologically with other productive North Atlantic margin plays, although much of the area remains lightly explored.

The project also comes as Newfoundland and Labrador authorities seek to improve the region's competitiveness for exploration. In 2024, the regulator C-NLOER launched a Call for Bids covering more than 10 million hectares in the Eastern Newfoundland region, including acreage associated with the Orphan Basin and neighboring exploration trends.

The depth imaging technologies deployed will include full waveform inversion (FWI) and proprietary imaging workflows, which TGS expects to enhance image clarity, structural definition and reservoir characterization. 

The survey, which is targeting Cretaceous and Jurassic exploration intervals, should provide greater clarity across a range of structural and stratigraphic play types, the company added.

Those intervals host many of the source and reservoir rocks that underpin exploration plays across the broader North Atlantic margin.

TGS will release early products followed by final migrated volumes over the course of next year.

The project also aligns with efforts by Newfoundland and Labrador officials to keep the offshore sector competitive for future licensing rounds and exploration investment.

"Continued investment in geoscience data is essential to advancing understanding of the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore and maintaining the region's position as a globally competitive exploration jurisdiction.”

—Jim Keating, CEO, Oil and Gas Corp. of Newfoundland and Labrador