Business News for the week of 20 May 2013

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Seismic crew survey reports

Jason launches new 3D Interpretation software

20 May 2013—CGG announced that Jason, a CGG company specializing in seismic reservoir characterization software and services, has added a new product, 3D Interpretation, to its reservoir characterization software suite. The new software helps asset appraisal and development teams achieve a thorough and complete picture of their subsurface reservoirs. 

 

Year one status of the AGI Center for Geoscience Education and Public Understanding

20 May 2013—Royal Dutch Shell  has awarded a significant five-year grant to the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) to aid in the implementation of the new Center for Geoscience Education and Public Understanding. The new grant, which will provide the Center with US $500,000 over a five-year period, will help fund projects already underway, including various Earth science and energy education initiatives.

Founded earlier this year, the AGI Center for Geoscience Education and Public Understanding serves as a centralized hub for essential geoscience information and a vehicle for greater collaboration among the nation's geoscience societies to achieve greater impact. The Center provides educational material, current information on geoscience topics, and a home for the Critical Issues Program that defines the state of science knowledge on key topics relevant to society.

Year one deliverables for the Center focused on four key areas: Earth science education, energy education, the Critical Issues Program, and the status of the geoscience workforce. Significant strides have already been made to address these crucial topics.

  • The Center is working to produce and disseminate a report on the Status of U.S. Secondary Earth and Space Science Education. This report will be released in June 2013, and will serve as a baseline for assessing the impact of the national Next Generation Science Education Standards, which were released in April 2013.

  • The Center has launched an energy education web site with classroom activities for secondary-level students.

  • AGI and the Center are working together to advance the Geoscience Critical Issues Program: in August 2012, AGI released the revised "Critical Needs for the Twenty-first Century: The Role of the Geosciences" document. This report provides congressional members with information about the important geoscience issues of our time.

  • Additionally, the Center has helped increase the circulation of AGI's geoscience career materials and workforce data sheets. During Earth Science Week, a world-renowned event that reaches more than 50 million people, topics focused on Discovering Careers in the Earth Sciences and highlighted AGI's Careers that Change the World brochures, emphasizing the importance of geoscience careers to society.

 

EMGS extends charter agreement for Atlantic Guardian

22 May 2013—Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA (EMGS) has entered into an agreement with North Sea Shipping to extend the charter hire period for the vessel Atlantic Guardian from 1 September 2013 to 1 March 2014. Furthermore, EMGS has agreed to charter the vessel for an additional period of at least two years, with three optional one-year extensions.

Under the terms of the agreement, the vessel owner will conduct upgrades, which will provide improved fuel efficiency and station-keeping capabilities. It is expected that this work will be done during a five-week yard stay in the early 2014. At the same time, modifications will be made to the vessel to accommodate EMGS's next-generation equipment.


Cooperation agreement between EMGS and TGS

23 May 2013­­­—Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA (EMGS) and TGS have signed a cooperation agreement to develop joint multiclient projects in defined areas of northwestern Europe. With this agreement, EMGS will be given access to TGS's 2D seismic data as the basis for planning new 3D controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) projects, while TGS obtains access to 2D/3D CSEM data to design and acquire new 3D seismic projects.


Blueback Reservoir announce the release of the Blueback Toolbox v14

23 May 2013­­­—Blueback Reservoir, a technology company specializing in providing Ocean plug-ins and 3D geomodeling services for the global oil and gas exploration and production industry, has released Blueback Toolbox version 14.

The Blueback Toolbox suite of Petrel plug-ins contains Petrel functionality features not available in standard Petrel. It was developed by the Blueback Reservoir development team using the Petrel development framework called Ocean. All functionality has been developed based on requests from Petrel users around the world and the development is coordinated with the Petrel software teams at Schlumberger.