Since the early 1990s, CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. (CSA) has been providing marine environmental services to support nearshore and offshore development in Trinidad and Tobago’s oil and gas industry. CSA has served this industry during pre-regulatory and regulatory environmental permitting regimes. Over the last 5 years alone, staff have safely implemented environmental sampling projects in Suriname, Trinidad, and Barbados in water depths ranging from 100 to 3,000 m.

CSA is now pleased to announce that local staff from the CSA Trinidad office were successfully trained and deployed to conduct a deepwater environmental monitoring project 78 km offshore Mexico in water depths of approximately 2,000 m. Expanding the local capabilities of personnel at the CSA Trinidad office and recruiting these staff for international opportunities was made possible by leveraging CSA’s global experience delivering deepwater projects and existing experience of Trinidadian staff.

This recent Mexico-based 15-day deepwater monitoring project followed a previous environmental baseline survey conducted in 2020 and was successfully concluded in November 2021. Data collected in 2021 were compared to 2020 data to assess changes in the marine environment. The survey included environmental sampling within distinct sampling areas; 132 km², 730 km², and 930 km² located in a northerly direction from the coastline. Sampling was conducted at 60 stations to assess water, sediment, biological, and physicochemical characteristics. In each survey area, 20 stations comprising of 10 complete stations and 10 complementary stations were evaluated. Complete stations included sediment and water sampling and marine fauna observations; complementary stations did not include water sampling.

CSA personnel were responsible for the safe deployment of a box corer for sediment sampling, a rosette equipped with 10 Go-Flo bottles for water sampling, and a conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensor outfitted with five sensors to collect water quality data. Sediment and seawater samples were analyzed at a laboratory for hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and nutrient content, hydrographic profiles, and plankton.

Trinidadian trained Project Scientist Keda Deonarine along with Operations Specialist Jeffery Landgraf from CSA, ensured the safe deployment and retrieval of all deepwater equipment and implemented quality control checks on samples and CTD data. CSA developed project specific Health and Safety documentation, which were implemented by CSA staff during the campaign. This documentation included hazard identification and mitigation, a job safety analysis, and standard operating procedures. Special attention was paid to Health and Safety protocols due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as well as challenging weather conditions offshore Mexico.

CSA’s approach for developing and training Caribbean based staff allows CSA to manage the cost competitiveness of jobs and provides an excellent opportunity to cross train individuals at our local offices to provide high quality internationally accepted survey products. This is in keeping with CSA’s goal to support an expanding regional and international energy industry.