Business news for the week of 10 September 2008

Past news briefs

EMGS has also been awarded several smaller contracts worth US$10 million by customers in Norway. A majority of these stem from an initiation of the late sales phase of the Barents Sea multiclient 3D EM project.

Vanco Energy awards contract to Rock Solid Images
28 August 2008—Rock Solid Images announced that the company will provide technical services, including rock physics modeling, well and seismic data conditioning, and prestack reservoir property inversion, to Vanco Energy. Studies are underway in Vanco's Côte d'Ivoire blocks CI-101 and CI-401 and the Corisco Deep, Block K, Equatorial Guinea, and will be extended to other of Vanco's blocks, such as Cape Three Points Deep, Ghana, and the Prykerchenska contract area, in the northern Black Sea, Ukraine.

Study finds record oil and gas development spending
4 September 2008—Worldwide upstream investment of 232 oil and gas companies was unchanged at US$402 billion in 2007, according to the2008 Global Upstream Performance Review,released by oil and gas research firmIHS Herold and upstream corporate advisorHarrison Lovegrove & Co. However, record development spending, up 20% from 2006, generated just a 0.3% increase in reserve volumes to 264 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Acquisition spending fell 30% from 2006 record levels to $90 billion, but remained at a historically high level.

The IHS Herold/Harrison Lovegrove study found returns to oil industry shareholders during 2007 remained robust.  Dividends increased 11% to $92 billion, and common share repurchases totaled $94 billion, 5% higher than in 2006. Combined, these payouts amounted to just over 50% of corporate net income and the payout ratio has been virtually unchanged over the past five years.

Fusion appoints vice president for Arabian Gulf Region
4 September 2008—Fusion Petroleum Technologieshas appointed Kevan Hanson as vice president for the Arabian Gulf Region. Hanson will be responsible for the daily operations of all Fusion services in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and expansion of the business in the UAE and other countries in the region.

TGS charters 3D vessel capacity
9 September 2008—TGS-NOPEC announced that it has signed a letter of intent with Bergen Oilfield Services for the recently converted M/V BOS Arctic 3D seismic vessel. The contract begins in November 2008 and lasts for a minimum period of 12 months with an option for TGS to contract one of BOS's 3D vessels for another 12-month period under the same terms. The BOS Arctic has already successfully completed two projects since her launch in June 2008.

With this agreement TGS will have three 3D vessels under charter for all or part of 2009.  TGS currently expects the BGP Pioneer 3D vessel to be off charter for approximately the first nine months in 2009, before returning for another nine months beginning in the autumn of 2009. 

Bangladesh selects Geotrace's Tigress software
9 September 2008—Geotrace announced that its Tigress software was selected by the Bangladesh Gas Fields Company as its primary 3D interpretation system. Tigress will be used to determine accurate reserves figures, guide drilling programs, and maximize future production of gas for the company and country. It will be the first time 3D technology will have been implemented in the Bangladesh gas fields to quantify assets.   

The 3D seismic acquisition program will take three years to complete and is scheduled to start later in 2008. This will be supported by the creation of data bases covering all five fields and collating legacy data from the past four decades. The system will be based in Dhaka.

AGI releases 2008 Earth Science Week Kit
10 September 2008—AGI’s Toolkit is an educational support product for Earth Science Week 2008 (12–18 October) that enables teachers, students, and the public to explore this year's theme "No Child Left Inside.

The 2008 Toolkit includes the new editions of the Earth Science Week Activity Calendar and classroom poster with activities suitable for all ages, provided by AGI, its member societies, and other organizations. This year AGI's education department teamed with Walden Media to create a "Journey 3-D" educator guide to explore where science fact meets science fiction in the movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D." 

Several organizations contributed materials for the Toolkits.  The U. S. Geological Survey provided a 3D geosciences poster.  NASA supplied a CD-ROM of Earth Observations from Space.  NOAA provided climate literacy information while ESRI included a CD-ROM on GIS technology and activities.