Seismic surveys to check for oil resources

NADIRA GUNATILLEKE and UDITHA KUMARASINGHE

The Government will conduct two dimensional seismic surveys costing US$ 6.5 million to test the availability of petroleum and natural gas deposits in the Southern, South Western, South Eastern and Eastern offshore areas of Sri Lanka.

Following a Cabinet memorandum submitted by Petroleum and Petroleum Resources Development Minister A.H.M. Fowzie, the Cabinet granted approval to call tenders to carry out two dimensional seismic surveys in these selected areas.

The Treasury will allocate US$ 6.5 million to the Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat for this, Information and Media Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa told the weekly Cabinet press briefing yesterday.

The proposed survey will be carried on 22 lines distributed in a radial pattern from the Piduruthalagala peak to the offshore areas. These lines will extend from nearshore to 3,500 metre bathymetric contour and vary from 40Km to 200 Km in length. Accordingly, the total estimated length for carrying out the seismic survey is about 2,500 Kilometres.

According to the Minister, the field acquisition and processing cost of this data is US$ 2,000 per kilometre. The total cost for 2,500 Km is US $ 5 million.

The mobilisation and demobilisation cost of the vessel used for the survey is about US$ 1.5 million. Therefore the total cost is about US$ 6.5 million.

The Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat has submitted a proposal to conduct a two dimensional survey in this area and the Petroleum Resources Development Committee has approved this proposal.

“As the entire world has faced an energy crisis, we should also take measures to find out a solution to the energy crisis,” the Minister added.