Trinidad and Tobago govt OKs Searcher’s 3D acquisition project

Searcher Seismic has received approval from the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago for the Tobago Trough multi-client 3D acquisition project.

The acquisition is planned as a 6,500 km² wide-tow long streamer acquisition and processed through to Pre Stack Depth Migration.

It will commence as soon as an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is complete and is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2023. 

Data is expected to be available in Q4 2023 in time for the next Deep Water Licensing Round.

“Modern 3D seismic acquired in the Tobago Trough will offer such a security of assessment that the exploration of the prospectivity can be undertaken in a planned and considered manner. This will maximize investment efficiency and ensure production is optimized within the LNG export infrastructure,” said Alan Hopping, Searcher’s GM of Business Development.

“The opportunity to explore shallow targets in Tertiary Deltas for seismically visible gas is a rare and exciting opportunity today, which we are happy to pursue with the aid and support of the authorities in Trinidad and Tobago.”

Tobago Trough, which lies off the north coast of Tobago, is a tertiary basin where high-quality shallow marine sandstones have been found to reservoir giant gas reserves.

Exploration and appraisal in the late 1990s brought the North Coast Marine Area (NCMA) gas fields Hibiscus, Poincettia and Chaconia into production, with gas being exported via Trinidad and Tobago’s Atlantic LNG infrastructure.

According to Searcher Seismic, subsequent development of the shore-face sand reservoirs has been “tremendously successful”, however very little exploration in the Tobago Trough has been undertaken to back-fill these now produced reserves.

2D seismic in the basin indicates that additional sequence stratigraphically controlled shoreface, channels and pro-delta fans lie in stratigraphic and structural stacked traps in the Tobago Trough, however, 3D data is required to delineate and explore for these targets, the company added.

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