Page 28: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2015)

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Geology & Geophysics

Acquiring geotechnical data for platform foundation design in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche

Image from Fugro.

What lies beneath ith the historic energy reform Bay of Campeche

Most of the Mexican side of transforming Mexico’s petro- Much of the early work consisted of the Gulf of Mexico remains

W leum sector, what will oil understanding the site conditions and companies and service providers need to soils in the Cantarell feld, one of the unexplored. Dan McConnell know about working in Mexico? world’s offshore “supergiant” oil felds, explores the geotechnical

Fugro has been a major supplier of off- located in the shallow waters of the Bay shore survey and geotechnical services to of Campeche. knowns and unknowns in

PEMEX since 1983, providing position- Oil and gas felds in these waters have the basin. ing, geotechnical engineering, integrated been under intense development for over geophysical studies, data collection of 35 years. New operators entering produc- ocean currents, site characterization, risk tion sharing contracts in these developed modeling, and earthquake engineering. areas as a result of the energy sector

Working closely with Mexican oil reforms will need to understand where feld services provider Grupo Diavaz, the existing man-made infrastructure

Fugro has produced more than 1500 is. Dense developments in these areas geotechnical investigations and geo- require the use of dynamically posi- physical surveys both in shallow and tioned vessels, instead of anchored work deep water offshore Mexico. barges, in order to avoid interference. An

March 2015 | OE oedigital.com 30 030_OE0315_G&G_fugro.indd 30 2/22/15 12:11 PM