Director of Petroleum explains process

Andre Cho

The process for offshore exploration, says Cho, involves the use of sound being bounced off the seafloor.  The information gathered will then be used to determine if there is a deposit below the surface.

Andre Cho, Director of Petroleum

“The seismic in the offshore will be done using normal seismic procedures and techniques for shallow marine or what we call transition zones and they involve the use of air guns and hydrophones.  These would be the geophones that float on the water.  So simply put they will use air guns to produce sound because you need sound to go down into the sea floor and scan the rocks under there and then the sound reflects from all the rock formations and comes up back to the sea surface and the hydrophones which would be floating in long lines, in long cables will collect the data and store it and computers will process that and the geophysicists will interpret that.  If you’re shooting seismic in the deeper waters you’ll need a seismic ship and a larger cruise and more geophones floating behind the ship.  Providence won’t be using a large seismic ship, they’ll use  small boats, small air guns and small hydrophones and the hundred and fifty kilometers is not a lot of miles.  I believe it’s about ten lines so it doesn’t cover on the surface a large area, unlike a large seismic survey in the deep marine waters that a seismic ship would carry out.  And then the survey on the on-land portion on that coastal area will be done again using normal on-land and transition zoning equipment.  They’ll be using charges to produce the sound on land.”

Offshore seismic testing has raised the concern of TIDE, the Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment, which is one of the environmental groups in the south that opposes offshore oil explorations.