ION’s seismic imaging helped discover Zama

Geoscience company ION Geophysical has provided imaging services which supported the discovery of Zama-1 offshore Mexico by Talos Energy and its partners.

Zama-1 is the first offshore exploration well drilled by the private sector in Mexico’s history and is estimated to hold 1.4 to 2.0 billion barrels of oil in place.

ION said on Wednesday that the company closely collaborated with Talos to reprocess and reimage data over all its blocks offshore Mexico.

The Gulf of Mexico is one of the most complex oil and gas provinces and, according to ION, requires advanced techniques to truly understand the challenging subsurface. ION said its imaging in the Gulf of Mexico and proprietary processing technologies maximized data quality which delivered high-resolution images that improved and de-risked prospect identification for the consortium.

John Parker, executive VP of exploration for Talos, said: “The successful evaluation of the Zama prospect is a result of the tremendous collaboration between Talos, our consortium partners, Sierra Oil and Gas and Premier Oil, and ION.

“Talos launched this proprietary reprocessing project in March 2016. ION’s proprietary reprocessing of seismic data over Blocks 2 and 7 delivered significant uplift with superior images of multiple prospects, including Zama. The Zama-1 results make a number of these additional prospects, both shallow and deep, look very attractive.”

Ken Williamson, executive VP and COO of ION’s E&P Technology and Services group, added: “As the first exploration well and discovery drilled by the private sector in Mexico in 79 years, Zama-1 is both a historic and significant discovery for Mexico and our clients. We are honored to have played a role in their journey to success.”

To remind, Talos Energy started drilling the Zama-1 exploration well in Block 7 in the shallow water Sureste Basin on May 21, 2017. The entire Zama Field is estimated to hold more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent and is considered one of the largest shallow water fields discovered in the past 20 years.