ELKTON, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. (Gore) and Infoterra Ltd are working cooperatively to offer oil slick mapping and sampling services for offshore petroleum exploration, providing offshore exploration companies with near-real-time satellite imaging data combined with the most sensitive and easy-to-use sampling and analysis technique to characterize slicks and identify seeps from petroleum systems.

Infoterra have been using satellite imaging data to screen the world’s offshore basins for oil slicks for over 15 years. In 2008, Infoterra introduced Near Real Time imaging, which tasks the satellites to acquire data on slick locations which are then sent directly to a vessel at sea within hours after the imagery was acquired. The vessel is guided to potential seeps and the team on the vessel then uses Gore’s Slick Sampler to take surface geochemical samples for hydrocarbon analysis.

Cast onto a slick like a fishing lure, the GORE™ Surveys Slick Sampler contains strong hydrophobic adsorbents that Gore analyzes using state-of-the-art thermal desorption, gas chromatography, and mass spectroscopy to characterize petroleum compounds in the C₅ to C₃₅ range including important biomarkers.

This sampling and analysis of slicks, targeted using Infoterra’s mapping, is critical in any offshore exploration program to characterize a basin petroleum system and validate its thermogenic nature.

Founded in 1958, W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. has approximately $2.5 billion in sales and more than 8,000 employees worldwide. The Gore Survey Products group maps buried petroleum and mineral resources using Amplified Geochemical Imaging^SM technology to directly measure hydrocarbons and other volatile compounds seeping in nanogram quantities from deep buried deposits over reservoirs as deep as 25,000 feet and buried below thousands of feet of volcanic rock or anhydrite. www.gore.com/surveys

Infoterra, an EADS Astrium Company, is a leading provider of geo-information products and services. Their oil & gas division validate the presence of offshore petroleum systems by mapping the presence of persistent oil slicks. The company offers satellite and airborne data and product supply; Global Seeps Database, geological interpretation, onshore mapping, airborne lidar and aerial photography, ice monitoring and mapping, drainage mapping, pipeline planning and digital terrain models. www.infoterra-global.com/applications_oil.php

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