SapuraOMV gets green light for Kanga survey offshore Australia

Australia’s National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has approved SapuraOMV’s plan for the Kanga-1 geophysical and geotechnical site survey offshore Australia.

NOPSEMA said that the plan for the Kanga-1 survey was submitted on 3 June 2020. The assessment of the survey plan began several days later.

According to the offshore regulator, the plan was approved on Wednesday, 1 July 2020.

In the plan,
SapuraOMV stated that it would conduct a geotechnical and geophysical survey
within Permit WA-412-P located in Commonwealth waters.

The site
survey location is approximately 163 kilometres north of Karratha in water
depths of around 147 metres.

An operational area has been defined within Permit WA-412-P, which represents a 4×4-kilometre area which encapsulates all potential geophysical and geotechnical survey locations.

The
geophysical component of the survey will collect data for assessment of water
depths, seabed topography, seabed conditions, and identification of
obstructions on the seabed that may include data collection with a multi-beam
echo sounder, side-scan sonar, sub-bottom profiler, and magnetometer.

The
geotechnical component of the survey is to assess and characterise seabed
conditions within the operational area, including calibrating and interpreting
geophysical results that may include cone penetration testing, piston coring or
vibracore sampling, and box core sampling.

The survey has been planned to occur between January and November 2020 and last for up to 14 days.

The timing
of the survey is dependent upon vessel availability, weather conditions, and
the receipt of the required statutory approvals.

The
stipulated durations do not, however, provide for vessel transit times,
potential delays caused by ocean conditions, weather downtime, standby and
equipment failure or other delays relative to the survey plan, as these factors
are difficult to predict or quantify.

SapuraOMV
also stated in its survey plan that the activities would be undertaken 24 hours
per day.