Australia’s National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has invited public comments for Beach Energy’s proposed T/30P geophysical and geotechnical seabed survey offshore Australia.
NOPSEMA said that Beach Energy’s seabed survey proposal was submitted last Thursday, March 19.
Under the proposal, Beach Energy’s subsidiary – Beach Energy Operations Limited – proposed to undertake a geophysical and geotechnical site survey over a portion of their T/30P permit and open acreage in the Otway Basin. At its closest point, the site survey is 76.5 kilometers from Port Campbell.
The site survey is required to inform the location of future drilling of an exploration well and identify potential hazards.
According to NOPSEMA, the data will be acquired from the same vessel in two parts. Namely, the geophysical survey to collect bathymetry data and detect hazards and a high-resolution two-dimensional shallow reflective imaging (2D survey) to inform shallow gas hazards.
The geotechnical survey, which may be undertaken from the same vessel as the geophysical and 2D survey or from a separate vessel, consists of coring, Piezo cone penetrometer test, and grab samples.
The site survey will take up to 28 days based on 21 days of survey time and 7 days for transits and setting up of equipment.
The site survey is proposed to be undertaken between April 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021. Timings of the survey are contingent on the availability of suitable vessels, weather, and the receipt of required environmental approvals. The survey will be undertaken with only one vessel undertaking each component at a time with the geophysical survey requiring seven days, the geotechnical survey needing six days, while the remaining eight days will be used for the 2D component.
The survey area refers is a 36 square kilometer area with an operational area of 100 square kilometers. The survey will be conducted in water depths across the operational area range from 150 – 1,110 meters.