PGS Surveys Kwanza Basin Off Angola

Business & Finance

 PGS, in cooperation with Sonangol, is acquiring a new survey over the shallow-water shelf area of the Kwanza Basin, Angola.

The Kwanza Shelf includes fields and discoveries with reservoirs in both the presalt and the postsalt.

These open acreage shallow-water blocks have been overlooked in recent exploration cycles; just five exploration wells have been drilled on the shelf since 1993.

The untapped hydrocarbon potential of the Kwanza Shelf is thought to be considerable and the area is now witnessing a resurgence in exploration interest.

This new multisensor 3D GeoStreamer survey, together with gravity and magnetic data, over the central part of the shelf will identify and unlock the underexplored presalt and postsalt plays. The acquisition configuration uses triple-source with 12 x 8025 m streamers operating in fan mode and multisensor GeoStreamer technology, to provide clearer images with reliable attributes.

A modern prestack depth processing workflow has been tailored to the imaging challenges of subsalt stratigraphy within a shallow water setting. The preprocessing will include targeted 3D shallow water demultiple, while the velocity model build will include Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) together with separated wavefield imaging using PGS SWIM.

Deliverables will include PSDM Kirchhoff stack, RTM PSDM, angle gathers, velocity models, as well as gravity and magnetic data.