CGG has announced that Robertson Geolab, specialists in surface geochemistry in its GeoConsulting business line, is currently performing a multi-client surface geochemistry (shallow core) survey to detect seafloor seepages of hydrocarbons in the South East Barents Sea. The project has received high prefunding from major oil industry players.

The survey covers all the blocks in this region which have been recently proposed by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, as well as sampling of outlying sub-areas where hydrocarbon seepages are suggested to be present by methods including satellite image analysis from NPA Satellite Mapping. The coring method used has minimal environmental impact, being simply the dropping of a thin, clean iron core barrel and penetrates the seafloor sediments to a few meters depth to retrieve mud samples. The main aim of the survey is to detect active petroleum systems in the area, targeting both larger and smaller structures of interest. The extensive geochemical analysis program for both the gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons in the sediments will yield information as to the gas- or oil-affinity of the petroleum systems and the sourcing /maturity of the hydrocarbons. This information will be of prime importance in connection with de-risking of areas by the oil companies, prior to more detailed investigations. It is therefore also of importance in limiting any future environmental issues, e.g. from over-drilling, and not least in assessing the background levels of natural seafloor seepage pollution that occurs in the region.

The collected data will be processed to provide a full geochemical interpretation report, including anomaly mapping in ArcGIS format for assimilation into clients’ own seismic or geological databases. The final report for this survey will be available in December 2014, in time for our clients’ future licensing round decisions. Sophie Zurquiyah, Senior Executive Vice President of CGG’s Geology, Geophysics & Reservoir Division, said: “Our Barents Sea oil and gas seep survey is part of our rich multi-disciplinary multi-client data library that we are developing in the region.

It complements existing exploration products ranging from our offshore hydrocarbon seeps database and regional Gravity & Magnetics coverage to our state-of-the-art BroadSeisTM surveys. It will result in unique exploration data, which directly targets and measures the hydrocarbons, within an exciting frontier area about which we have, as yet, very little information regarding active petroleum systems.”