Playing the Nova Scotian margin is a game of two halves. On the shelf lies an exciting exploration ground where 20 years ago fortunes were made discovering oil and gas in shallow water, syn-rift plays. For 20 years though, exploration has neglected the shelf. On the slope and basin floor, new hyper-modern seismic has revealed a fantastic salt basin with new play fairways where the little exploration to date has clarified the key uncertainties that seismic can now resolve.
Nova Scotia Explorer's Guide
Call for Bids
The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board has issued a Call for Bids for eight highly prospective offshore Nova Scotia blocks. Bids are due September 2023.
Available from Searcher Seismic for this open Call for Bids is over 13,000 km² of key 3D datasets as well as nearly 14,000 km of offshore Nova Scotia 2D.
Why is the industry focused on offshore Nova Scotia Oil and Gas Exploration and Production?
✅Prolific and highly underexplored – Offshore Nova Scotia has an estimated 120 Tcf of natural gas and 8 billion barrels of oil. Covered with: Gas Seeps, Oil Seeps, Slicks, Direct Hydrocarbon Indicator clusters in an area 2/3 the size of the US Gulf of Mexico, the margin has already produced 2.1 Tcf and has a significant amount of undeveloped discoveries awaiting development.
✅Excellent Seismic and other data – Searcher Seismic has available key offshore datasets for acreage in this Call for Bids. For example, five of the parcels are in the slope domain where oil shows have been discovered but only now is seismic data available to chase those reservoirs. The prospective portions of parcels 1, 2 and 3 are covered by the Tangier 3D. Acquired in 2014, this 8,502 km² WAZ PSDM state-of-the-art extraordinary data is available to allow the evaluations of these parcels. Plus, obtain 300% Allowable Expenditure Credits for seismic licensed now prior to acreage award.
✅ Infrastructure and opportunities to monetize – Companies are eager to develop LNG export terminals. Plus, there are existing pipelines and an opportunity to recommission an offshore natural gas pipeline.
✅Perfectly positioned to provide Energy Security to Europe – Goldboro, Nova Scotia is about half the distance to Europe when compared to the Gulf of Mexico. The proximity to Europe provides Nova Scotia LNG and hydrocarbons an additional green and economic competitive advantage over US and others.
✅Net negative hydrocarbons – Offshore Nova Scotia can sequester and store over 100 years of Canada’s CO2 emissions.
✅ Great potential for joint renewable and hydrocarbon projects – Offshore exploration and production will facilitate development of wind and other renewables, plus tax credits are available.
Nova Scotia Projects
The Tangier 3D seismic survey (yellow cube) was acquired in the central, sand prone portion of the Nova Scotia margin, where the newly imaged sub-canopy structural plays revealed by the Tangier 3D are of a globally significant scale. The Aspy D-11 well drilled within the Tangier 3D proves the existence of a working oil generative system and further analysis has revealed additional potential in this underexplored basin. All of this is made possible by the state-of-the-art WAZ 3D seismic survey.
The Nova Scotia 2D seismic dataset (orange lines) comprises of over 13,000 kilometers of 2D data throughout the Scotian Shelf, including the prolific Sable Sub-Basin that, in addition to the prolific producing and produced fields, contains ten undeveloped Significant Discoveries that have P50 recoverable gas reserves of 1.9 TCF.
The new multi-client 3D seismic reprocessing projects (blue cubes) comprise over 5,000 km2 of 3D data focusing on the Sable Island Gas fields on the Scotian Shelf. The basin is a great example of exploring for “Advantaged Hydrocarbons” and Searcher can offer two products. Searcher will be reprocessing the 3D datasets and the vintages will be available on the Searcher sAIsmic© platform.
