Offshore staff
HOUSTON – Fugro and Amplified Geochemical Imaging (AGI) have sold licenses for data from a joint campaign in the Orphan basin offshore Newfoundland.
This comprised a hydrocarbon seep survey, heat flow, and geochemical coring.
The data package includes multi-beam echo sounder data (bathymetry, backscatter intensity and water column), sub-bottom profiler data, heat flow measurements and shipboard geochemical screening analyses; and shore-based screening and advanced geochemical analyses, including biomarkers on select samples.
Fugro’s offshore scope for the 11,070-sq km (4,274-sq mi) campaign included acquisition of 99 cores for geochemical sampling and investigation, and shipboard analysis of around 550 samples for hydrocarbon geochemistry.
The contractor took heat flow measurements at 11 locations (two measurements per location); the results, it claims, are a significant improvement on the three pre-existing heat flow measurements along the periphery of the Orphan basin and should sharpen basin models.
AGI undertook the shore-based geochemical work using an ultra-sensitive analytical method to determine difficult-to-measure hydrocarbon concentrations in order to test for thermogenic signatures.
According to Fugro, the various geochemical datasets (shipboard, conventional shore-based and AGI adsorbent-based analyses) all suggest the presence of thermogenic hydrocarbons.
E&P companies can use the data to plan for this year’s Newfoundland and Labrador licensing round. Nalcor Energy is also an investor in the project.
05/14/2018
