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The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has awarded a contract worth up to $519 million (AED1.9 billion) to further expand the scope of the world’s largest combined three-dimensional (3D) onshore and offshore seismic survey, which is currently taking place in Abu Dhabi.
The contract was awarded to BGP Inc., a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), represented in the UAE by Al Masaood Oil Industry Supplies & Services Co. This new award brings the total area to be covered by the survey up to 85,000 km2 . Fifty percent of the award value will flow back into the UAE’s economy under ADNOC’s In-Country Value (ICV) program, highlighting how ADNOC continues to prioritize ICV as it invests responsibly to deliver its 2030 strategy, a statement from ADNOC said.
The expansion shows the important role seismic surveying plays in enabling UAE's largest oil company to identify and explore new hydrocarbon resources as highlighted by the recent major discoveries of recoverable unconventional oil resources and conventional oil reserves announced by Abu Dhabi’s Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) earlier this week.
Earlier this week, the SPC announced the discovery of recoverable unconventional oil resources estimated at 22 billion stock tank barrels (STB) and an increase in conventional oil reserves of 2 billion STB which boosted the UAE’s conventional reserves to 107 billion STB.
Yaser Saeed Al Mazrouei, ADNOC Upstream Executive Director, said: "The award follows a competitive tender process that ensures a significant portion of the value will flow back into the UAE’s economy, supporting local businesses in line with the leadership’s wise directives.”
According to the statement, the seismic acquisition will capture high-resolution 3D images of the complex subsurface structure at ultra-deep locations and help to pinpoint potential hydrocarbon reservoirs by deploying industry-leading technologies to provide high-density survey data which is analyzed at ADNOC’s Thamama Subsurface Center.
This data is being leveraged by all of the successful exploration partners in Abu Dhabi’s first block bid round and the data will also be available, for a cost, to the successful bidders in the second bid round, which will begin to be awarded this year following the SPC’s recent approval.
(Writing by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)
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