Reliance Industries Ltd. on 20 January 2006 awarded TDI-Brooks’ a contract entitled “Coring, Heat Flow, Geochemistry and Microbiology in Various Blocks Offshore India”. TDI-Brooks mobilized its research vessel, the R/V GEOEXPLORER, from West Africa to India starting the acquisition for the study on 28 April 2006. The core and heat flow acquisition followed a multibeam survey conducted by another contractor to assist in the select of core locations for TDI-Brooks’ surface geochemical exploration (SGE) study.
The total number of SGE cores and heat flow sites to be acquired is approximately 450 and 80 sites, respectively. Acquisition was completed in early October 2006.
Figure 1. Deployment of a 2,000-lb, 20-ft (6-m) piston corer from the R/V GEOEXPLORER. Note USBL beacon in the core weight head.
The coring program consists of the acquisition of 6-m (20-ft) piston cores over core targets selected from the 2-D and 3-D seismic data in the blocks as well as multibeam data acquired by RELIANCE earlier in the year (Figure 1). The sampling protocols (Figure 2) are TDI-Brooks’ standard SGE/HF protocols that consist the subsampling of the core at three (3) sections in the bottom half of the core for interstitial (headspace) gas, total scanning fluorescence [TSF, measure of aromatic high molecular weight (HMWH) content], and C15+ Gas Chromatography (measure of aliphatic HMWH content). Selected samples are analyzed for aliphatic and aromatic biological markers on the HMWHs and gas isotopes on the individual interstitial gas components. The goal is to obtain critical information on gaseous and HMW hydrocarbon generation and migration in the areas ahead of the drillbit. The purpose of the heat flow measurements is to help constrain thermal maturity models in the basins.
Figure 2. Subsampling the core material from the 20-ft (6-m) piston cores. Cores are in clear plastic core liner that is sectioned and geochemically subsampled.
SGE studies worldwide over the last 25 years have been dominated by the technology that Dr. Brooks et al. developed during the early 1980’s at Texas A&M University. Since TDI-Brooks was formed in 1996, it has dominated the SGE marketplace both domestically and internationally. TDI-Brooks has collected and analyzed nearly 8,000 SGE cores during this period, which far exceeds any of our rivals. All the major international oil companies have participated in numerous of TDI-Brooks’ private and consortium SGE and heat flow programs.
