Viridien has started the first phase of a 3D seismic survey in Guyana's offshore waters. The earth data and technology company is running the multi-client programme alongside Guyana's Ministry of Natural Resources and BGP, a geophysical services provider. The work is intended to map hydrocarbon potential in shallow-water areas of the country's continental shelf.

The initial phase covers the acreage known as Lot 3. BGP will handle the physical acquisition of seismic data in the field. Viridien will then process the results using its own imaging methods, including time-lag full-waveform inversion and techniques designed to remove multiple reflections in shallow water. These processes are aimed at producing clearer images of the subsurface than earlier surveys allowed.

Once the new data has been gathered, Viridien plans to combine it with legacy seismic surveys from the same region. Those older datasets are due to undergo reimaging using current processing methods, a step that should improve their resolution and bring them in line with the new acquisition.

Dechun Lin, Viridien's head of earth data, said the project is intended to give the industry a better understanding of the basin's subsurface structure. He added that this should allow companies to plan future exploration more precisely, reducing the guesswork involved in identifying drilling targets.

Guyana has become one of the most closely watched offshore oil regions in the world following a series of major discoveries in the Stabroek Block over the past decade. Output from existing projects has grown quickly, and interest from exploration and production companies in adjacent and undeveloped acreage has grown alongside it. A more detailed picture of shallow-water geology could make some of that acreage more attractive to prospective bidders.

The survey is also expected to feed into Guyana's national geological database. Data gathered through the programme will sit alongside information already held by the government, expanding the country's own record of its offshore geology rather than remaining solely with the companies involved in the survey. Officials have previously indicated that better subsurface data supports more informed decisions when structuring licensing rounds, including how blocks are defined and which areas are offered to bidders first.

For Viridien, the project extends a role it has held in the region for some years, providing seismic data and imaging services to companies operating in Guyanese waters. Multi-client surveys of this kind allow the cost of acquisition and processing to be shared among several companies that later purchase access to the resulting data, rather than each operator commissioning its own survey. This model has become increasingly common in frontier and emerging basins, where the cost of independent surveys can be difficult for individual companies to justify before exploration results are known.

No timeline has been given for when the reprocessed legacy data or the newly acquired Lot 3 results will be made available to licence holders and prospective bidders. The pace of similar surveys elsewhere suggests initial results could take several months to process fully, given the scale of the imaging work involved.

The programme comes at a time when Guyana's government is weighing how to manage growth in its oil sector, balancing continued exploration with questions about revenue distribution and long-term economic planning. Additional subsurface data is unlikely to resolve those debates on its own, but it will give officials and companies alike a firmer basis for decisions about where future exploration is likely to be most productive.

Neither Viridien nor BGP has disclosed the value of the contract underpinning the survey. Guyana's Ministry of Natural Resources has not yet commented publicly on how the resulting data will be incorporated into upcoming licensing decisions.

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