CGGVeritas Conducts First BroadSeis Survey Offshore China

CGGVeritas has successfully conducted the first 3D BroadSeis marine surveys to be recorded offshore China. The deepwater surveys of two areas offshore Shenzhen in the east of the South China Sea were awarded to CGGVeritas by Chinese seismic services company, COSL (China Oilfield Services Limited), on behalf of its parent company, the Chinese national oil company, CNOOC. Data processing is already underway in the CGGVeritas Singapore center and is expected to be delivered by the end of 2012.

The BroadSeis surveys were contracted to CGGVeritas under a framework agreement for technical collaboration between CGGVeritas and COSL with respect to BroadSeis, the CGGVeritas proprietary marine broadband solution. CNOOC specifically identified BroadSeis for the project in order to overcome the challenge of complex imaging of both shallow and deep targets in the area.

The Viking II vessel, operating with eight x 8,100 m Sercel Sentinel streamers equipped with Sercel Nautilus streamer control devices, acquired the approximately 386 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) full-fold data over the two survey areas which included the heavily congested HuiZhou production area. The surveys were acquired a full ten days ahead of schedule by minimizing the impact of seasonal weather patterns through highly accurate typhoon prediction and managing uptime through efficient operations. COSL and CNOOC congratulated the crew on the successful completion of a high-quality dataset despite significant operational challenges and without compromising safety.

Yang Jing Hong, President of COSL Geo, said: "Successful cooperation between COSL and CGGVeritas within this project not only provides a 'win-win' situation for both contractors, it also services the client with high technology and quality at a competitive cost and makes significant contributions to the advancement of geophysical technology."

Jean-Georges Malcor, CEO, CGGVeritas, said: "CGGVeritas would like to thank CNOOC and COSL for their confidence in our broadband technology. These first 3D BroadSeis surveys acquired in Chinese waters are doubly significant for CGGVeritas, marking a real milestone in our history and boding extremely well for our future activity in China. Together with the agreement we signed recently with COSL for technical collaboration on BroadSeis and the prospect of more BroadSeis surveys being commissioned in 2013, we are seeing clear signs of increasing interest for broadband acquisition in Chinese waters.”