Companies work Barents seismic jointly

In an effort to minimize impacts on the fishing industry, companies exploring in the southeastern Barents Sea have conducted a joint seismic acquisition project in the region, rather than having individual companies conduct their own seismic surveys, according to a report on the Statoil website. Statoil is one of a number of companies with exploration interests in the Barents.

“We are pleased to have found a form of cooperation that has ensured good quality data sets and low acquisition costs,” said Jan Helgesen, Statoil’s head of geophysical operations. “This warrants rethinking and exploring new business approaches and forms of cooperation in order to reduce costs and work more efficiently also elsewhere.”

With the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy encouraging the oil industry to jointly conduct 3-D seismic operations in the southeastern Barents Sea, 33 companies participated in the acquisition of seismic data in the region, Statoil said. PGS and WesternGeco were the seismic contractors conducting the surveys.

Several oil companies actively participated in the planning of the surveys and in the data processing, thus bringing the companies’ combined expertise to the program, Statoil said.

Helgensen said that the relationship with the fishermen proved cooperative and that the few incidents that did occur were efficiently resolved through dialogue offshore.

Statoil said data processing from the surveys is still in progress and that the final data will be ready for interpretation in the fall of 2015, for use in companies’ decision making ahead of an upcoming round of oil and gas licensing.

- Alan Bailey