Business News for the week of 1 July 2013

News section front
Past news briefs
Seismic crew survey reports

CGG signs cooperation agreement with King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia

1 July 2013—CGG announced that ARGAS, its joint venture with TAQA in Saudi Arabia, has signed a cooperation agreement with the King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Jeddah. The agreement is the culmination of two years of informal cooperation between the ARGAS Technology Center in Al Khobar and KAU's Faculty of Earth Sciences.

Under the terms of the agreement, CGG through ARGAS will donate 24 licenses of Hampson-Russell's comprehensive software suite of reservoir characterization tools to KAU's Department of Petroleum Geology and Sedimentology, which is part of the University's Faculty of Earth Sciences. Ninety students at the Faculty of Earth Sciences will benefit from the terms of the agreement, which is worth over SR 26 million.

CGG through ARGAS has been cooperating with the KAU since 2011 with students regularly attending lectures at the ARGAS Technology Center in Al Khobar on seismic acquisition, processing, and reservoir characterization. CGG through the ARGAS Technology Center has also been working in close cooperation with the researchers and faculty from the Earth Sciences Department, System Engineering Department, Department of Information and Computer Science, and Electrical Engineering Department of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran.

           

PGS GeoStreamer multiclient acquisition begins in the Browse Basin offshore western Australia

3 July 2013—Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) recently commenced acquisition of a new GeoStreamer multiclient 3D marine seismic survey (Caswell MC3D), in the highly prospective Browse Basin offshore western Australia. The Caswell MC3D approval area has an extent of circa 15,000 km² with planned acquisition of new GeoStreamer MC3D data to be conducted in multiple phases within this defined area. The approval area covers several exploration permits where there has been recent drilling success in addition to three of the 2013 release areas (W13-1, 2, and 3) and adjacent open acreage.

The Caswell MC3D survey will be acquired between June 2013 and December 2014. The survey will utilize PGS's GeoStreamer technology.

 

Schlumberger opens reservoir laboratory in China

3 July 2013—Schlumberger announced the official opening of the Schlumberger Reservoir Laboratory in Chengdu, China. The state-of-the-art, 32,000 ft² facility is the newest addition to the Schlumberger global network of reservoir laboratories. The laboratory offers an integrated suite of petrophysical and geomechanical services.

 

PGS releases first data sets ahead of licensing round in Greece

4 July 2013—PGS has acquired 2D multiclient data in western and southern offshore Greece for the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Environment, Energy, and Climate Change, and the first fast-track data sets are now available. Seismic data including marine gravity and magnetic data can be obtained by contacting the PGS multiclient team.

The objectives of the acquisition program are to improve understanding of regional structure and depositional basins and identify petroleum systems in advance of the license round in Greece, scheduled for mid-2014. The program comprised 12,500 km of new data acquisition using GeoStreamer GS. Data available also includes 6000-line km vintage data reprocessing that will be combined into a regional interpretation.

The processing is ongoing and is estimated to be completed in late 2013 or early 2014. Fast-track PSTM lines representing each of the different areas are now available in PGS data rooms for viewing.

 

BGP deploys Zland for historic African game reserve seismic project

3 July 2013—FairfieldNodal announced that BGP has deployed 15,100 ZLand nodes for a large 3D seismic acquisition project in the famous Murchison Falls National Park and Game Reserve in Uganda. The project marks the largest seismic acquisition ever allowed in this or any of the country's nine parks and game reserves.

The Murchison Falls area is an extremely sensitive environment, attracting large numbers of wild game, including elephants, giraffes, hippos, leopards, buffalo, Nile crocodile, and over 450 species of birds, along with hundreds of visitors each year. The seismic equipment being used for the survey must be as invisible as possible to ensure the protection of the treasured wildlife as well as that of the seismic acquisition itself, which sparked BGP's decision to use ZLand.

 

New CEO to lead Spectraseis

5 July 2013—Spectraseis appointed Todd Chuckry as interim CEO, to be confirmed in the next shareholders and board of directors meeting. Chuckry has been the VP of sales and business development prior to this appointment.

Spectraseis also announced that effective immediately Ross Newman would be stepping down as CEO. Newman has served Spectraseis as the company's CEO since the founding of the company. Newman has also resigned from his positions as director in both Spectraseis AG and Spectraseis Canada Inc.