Seismic acquisition has now commenced on the major new Polarcus Capreolus 3-D multiclient project over the Phoenix area that contains the recent Phoenix South-1 oil discovery within the Roebuck Basin, offshore Western Australia, according to a press release. The survey is using two high-performance 12-streamer Polarcus vessels, Polarcus Amani and Polarcus Asima, operating in tandem in order to maximize production.

The Capreolus 3-D multiclient project comprises a substantial 15,000 sq km (5,792 sq miles) and has been designed by Polarcus' in-house experts in collaboration with the project underwriters to provide a basin-wide high-quality broadband 3-D seismic dataset over and adjacent to the Phoenix South-1 oil discovery announced in 2014. The basin is one of the few remaining underexplored parts of Australia's North West Shelf and considered to have the potential to become a major new oil province.

The data acquisition phase is estimated at about eight vessel months (four calendar months), with the resultant data being processed through a prestack depth migration routine by DownUnder GeoSolutions in Perth. Final data products are expected to be available within second-quarter 2016.