CGG is to start a multi-client airborne gravity and magnetic survey offshore South Africa this month ahead of a new licensing round expected in the region later this year.
The Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA) has authorized the program, which will extend across two blocks totaling about 78,000 line km.
The survey areas are offshore Cape Agulhas (West Bredasdorp area) and offshore Durban (Eastern Margin area).
Data acquisition will start in January 2016 and is anticipated to take four months utilizing specialized geophysical survey aircraft.
PASA acting CEO Lindiwe Mekwe, said: “The oil industry’s funding of CGG’s early-phase exploration effort offshore South Africa is a testament to the prospectivity of the region. PASA expects that the geological insights of the West Bredasdorp and Eastern Margin areas gained from the CGG survey will attract further exploration investment and help focus explorers’ efforts.”
The project has received significant prefunding from the oil industry; survey data and interpretation products will be available for licensing in mid-2016.
CGG says the survey will provide partial coverage of the largely underexplored Western Bredasdorp, Durban and Zululand basins and the data will assist with mapping crystalline basement and magnetic and density anomalies within the sedimentary section.
The airborne survey will allow data collection through the “transition zone” from the marine environment to the near-shore.
Greg Paleolog, Senior Vice President, Multi-Physics, CGG, said: "Our multi-client South Africa project will be a great addition to our existing multi-client gravity and magnetic database that contains over 16 million line kilometers of profile data. It will result in a unique exploration dataset in an exciting frontier area about which we have, as yet, very little information regarding active petroleum systems."
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