Seismic exploration company Shearwater GeoServices has secured a contract with energy giant Equinor to conduct a 4D ocean bottom node (OBN) survey in the Norwegian North Sea.

The project, said to be the largest of its type for Shearwater, includes the two-month survey covering the Krafla, Askja and Sentral fields.

According to Equinor, the Krafla field development will be one of the biggest development projects on the NCS in the planned realisation period.

Offshore contractor Subsea 7 was selected for the front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for the marine installations associated with the project while Aibel was awarded a FEED contract for the unmanned processing platform at the Krafla field.

Under the contract, Shewarwater will utilise more than 7,000 nodes, using an ocean bottom nodes-on-a-rope-system, for the 363 square kilometre receiver area survey.

The survey will be conducted by the vessels SW Vespucci, SW Cook and SW Tasman with start-up early in the summer of 2022.

“Ocean bottom node projects provide our clients with an excellent baseline for future 4D time-lapse monitoring to help optimise oil and gas production over time, as well as providing advanced images for improved development planning“, said Irene Waage Basili, CEO of Shearwater.

“Our scale, the flexibility of our fleet and its unique technical capabilities position Shearwater to execute major value-adding projects for our clients while at the same time maximising own fleet utilisation.“

This ‘large’ 4D OBN award comes as Shearwater is preparing to perform a 4D time-lapse seismic monitor project at Equinor’s Mariner field off the UK.

The one-month project, which will be carried out during the 2022 North Sea summer season, is expected to help maximise production from existing fields by providing subsurface data to update reservoir modelling and production simulations.