Petronas Carigali will soon begin a seismic survey over the M1 field offshore Sarawak, where the company plans to use depleted reservoirs to store the CO₂ from its Kasawari carbon capture and storage project.

Malaysia’s national upstream company will acquire a 3D-4C (three dimensional, four compartment) ocean bottom node (OBN) seismic survey over the M1 field.

The Malaysian Coast Guard said that Seabird Exploration’s survey vessel Eagle Explorer has been lined up for this shoot. The Oslo-listed seismic contractor did not name Petronas as its client, simply stating it had signed “an OBN source contract for the Eagle Explorer in the eastern hemisphere”.

The contract, which is expected to take around two months including mobilisation, will start in June in direct continuation of the vessel’s current 2D seismic shoot.

Petronas Carigali last November took the final investment for the Kasawari CCS project (Kasawari phase two).

The project, located in Block SK 316 about 200 kilometres offshore Bintulu, is expected to reduce carbon dioxide volumes emitted via flaring by 3.3 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per annum, making it one of the largest offshore CCS projects in the world.

Up to 76 million tonnes of compressed CO₂ from the Kasawari CCS project will be reinjected into the M1 field over the project life.

The main Kasawari field development scheduled to start up later this year. Phase two, with the related CCS scheme, is due to be operational in late 2025. This second phase will exploit part of the field where the gas has a higher carbon dioxide content.

Petronas Carigali’s chief executive Hasliza Othman earlier said: “This project is expected to become the catalyst in achieving end-to-end CCS capability development within Petronas and the first step in unlocking Malaysia’s potential as a regional CCS solutions hub.”

The upcoming OBN seismic survey over the M1 field will be supported by vessels including MMA Vigilant, Stanford Buzzard, Genesis and Camellia.