A seismic team from the Brisbane office of Grant Geophysical is conducting the near-shore and onshore survey in Greymouth’s newly-acquired licence PEP 38773.

The recording vessel is the MV Bubbles, with several inflatable boats acting as support vessels, and it is recording data up to 5km offshore and inland up to 2.5km.

“This survey will be very noticeable because we will be shooting data over areas very popular with a lot of New Plymouth people,” client representative Doug MacLean from the Perth office of RPS Energy-ECL, told PetroleumNews.net at Port Taranaki this morning.

“So we are advising the public to watch out for the seismic vessels and crews working during the next two weeks.”

The survey is from the port’s eastern end, near where Greymouth is rigging up the former Nabors International Drilling Rig 647 to spud the Moturoa-5 well, to the New Plymouth Airport at Bell Block.

It covers some very popular spots in the city – notably the lower reaches of the Te Henui Walkway, some of the Fitzroy and New Plymouth golf courses, Rifle Range reserve and the popular New Plymouth coastal walkway that stretches from the port to the Fitzroy golf course.

The inshore waters of New Plymouth are also very popular with fishermen, recreational boaties and surfers.

PEP 38773 is a 50 square kilometre block sandwiched between Greymouth’s Moturoa (PEP 38464) permit to the west and the Pohokura lease to the east.

Greymouth chief operating officer John Sturgess told PNN that PEP 38773 work program obligations for the first year were to acquire 20km of transition zone seismic and to reprocess 140km of existing 2D data.

“Greymouth is getting after this aggressively and will acquire and reprocess more seismic data than required, in order to firm up our drilling plans for one or more wells,” Sturgess said.

The company was also awaiting Crown Minerals approval to push ahead and acquire more transition seismic in another neighbouring block, he added.

The same Grant Geophysical team last week completed another specialised onshore-offshore seismic survey for PEP 38729 operator New Zealand Oil & Gas and partner Origin Energy, aimed at improving the structural definition of the Felix and Opito-Updip prospects in preparation for possible drilling next year.