MEO Australia - Environmental Impact Statement

Site Survey Activity

On Monday October 1, 2001 the MEO site survey team departed from Darwin harbour for Tassie Shoal. This survey was designed to recover detailed bathymetry and side-scan data over the extent of the shoal and all of the proposed subsea pipeline routes. These pipelines include the two gas production flowlines from the wellhead locations on the Evans Shoal gasfield and the return seawater cooling pipeline.
In addition to the data acquisition, underwater video was recorded at various points along the pipeline routes and the two proposed subsea wellhead locations.
The purpose of this data is to provide a clear three dimensional picture of the seafloor at the facility locations for engineering and design considerations, and to establish a visual record of the seafloor and benthos at the deeper locations effected by the subsea pipelines for the environmental approval process (EIS).
The vessel used during the survey is the Island Explorer, a Darwin based site survey boat. The specialist consultants responsible for the data acquisition are Fugro Surveys Pty Ltd and Underwater Video Systems Pty Ltd. The survey encountered excellent weather, all data has been successfully acquired and the vessel returned to port on Sunday October 7, 2001.
The next survey departed on November 5, 2001, again utilizing the Island Explorer. This survey was required to deploy two metocean instrumentation buoys, one on the top of the shoal and one at the end of the proposed seawater cooling pipe. The instruments measured and recorded current, temperature and salinity data during the wet, cyclonic season. The survey was managed by WNI Oceanographers.

During this survey, a series of core sample were recovered. The samples were collected on the top of Tassie Shoal in water depths of between 12 and 18 metres. Each sample will penetrated up to 3 metres. Core samples along the subsea pipeline routes in the deeper water (11om) were also be recovered utilizing a drop-corer. These samples have improved the geo-technical and geo-morphological understanding of the shoal's substructure.
The final survey undertaken by the Company was the deployment of a directional wave measurement buoy, from November 2002 to March 2003. This activity was again managed by WNI Oceanographers. The buoy was equipped with a recording system that relayed data via satellite to the WNI offices in Perth. The purpose of this deployment was to capture wave activity during the cyclone season.

Fortunately, we captured significant wave data during Tropical Cyclone Craig, from 7 to 12 March, 2003. The storm passed underneath Tassie Shoal in a west to east direction, therefore the study site was exposed to the strong side of the cyclone allowing optimum wind fetch to generate the maximum recorded waves of up to 5 metres.

The data collected during the various surveys form a fundamental component in the design of the Company's gas-to-liquid projects.

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