TDI-Brooks completes MSGBC basin field data acquisition program offshore West Africa

COLLEGE STATION, TX - TDI-Brooks International, under contract to TGS, has completed its offshore “seep-hunting” surface geochemical analysis and geotechnical campaign of the MSGBC Basin, from Northern Senegal through The Gambia and AGC zone, into Guinea-Bissau down to the Guinea transform fault.

TDI-Brooks’ R/V Gyre acquired 80,000 square kilometers of high resolution multibeam echo sounder bathymetry and performed the offshore advanced analysis where 80 active hydrocarbon seeps were detected in the multibeam water column data to date. The R/V Proteus completed phase 2 performing the coring program which included 260 piston cores, 23 jumbo piston cores and 23 heat flow measurements. Advanced geochemical analysis of samples is ongoing.

The R/V Gyre is currently performing a further geochemistry analysis program offshore Nigeria. This is Nigeria’s first regional multi-client Multibeam and Seafloor Sampling (MB&SS) Study. After just 3 days of field operation, two prominent water column anomalies and bubble plumes were observed in over 2,000 meters water depth with associated surface slicks. The study will cover an area of approximately 80,000 square kilometers of the offshore Niger Delta and will incorporate around 150 cores from the seabed, which target multibeam backscatter anomalies. To this date, the RV Gyre has collected 65,000 square kilometers of multibeam data and identified 431 water column anomalies in the Nigeria study area.

These programs follow the successful coring program in Brazil’s Campos and Santos Basins in 2019 covering over 213,000 square kilometers. This program included 342 piston cores, 29 jumbo piston cores and 33 heat flow measurements. Prior to that, TDI-Brooks completed the Gigante and Otos Seep-Hunting and offshore coring programs in 2016-2017 in the Gulf of Mexico. The 2016-2017 programs covered approximately 289,000 square kilometers with TDI-Brooks executing over 250 navigated piston cores with 750 baseline petroleum advanced geochemistry analysis, 140+ 20m Jumbo Piston Cores for stratigraphic analysis and age dating and 150 heat flow measurements for basin modelling. The Gyre is fitted with a EM302 MBES (EM304 upgrade pending) and should be available for programs off North, West, and East Africa after June 2020.

The Proteus is in dry-dock for 2 months and then available for work in the June timeframe. She is undergoing her 5-year dry-docking and retrofitting in Las Palmas. The Proteus will be available on the spot market for projects in West Africa