Petro Matad gears up for Mongolia survey

Petro Matad has contracted the Bell Geospace to conduct an airborne survey of two onshore blocks in Mongolia. The US gravity gradiometry company will acquire 11,000 square kilometres of data in Bogd block 4 and Ongi block 5 in central Mongolia, which together comprise an area of around 50,000 square kilometres of mountainous desert and steppe. The survey will begin in September 2015 and is the first of its kind in the country.

“The programme is designed to provide high-resolution gravity coverage, capable of resolving prospect scale structural features, to aid in correlation between 2D-seismic profiles and extrapolate structural networks into frontier areas to optimize future exploration work,” Petro Matad said in a statement.

Last week, Petro Matad announced it had given a 2D-seismic contract to local company Khet covering 2,000 square kilometres in the same blocks, also slated to start in September. Petro Matad, a Mongolian-owned company that is listed on the London Stock Exchange, holds a 100-percent ineterst in blocks 4 and 5, as well as Matad block XX in eastern Mongolia near the Chinese border.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, Mongolia produced 21,000 barrels of oil equivalent in 2014.