Business news for the week of 18 February 2009

Past news briefs

Seismic Ventures selects SMT Kingdom’s new forward modeling technology
3 February 2009—Seismic Micro-Technology announced today that Seismic Ventures has purchased SMT’s KINGDOM 1D Forward Modeling (1DFM). This module provides AVO modeling and fluid workshop capabilities in one place.

Seismic Venture’s use of 1DFM will enable the company to further enhance its modeling services and provide clients a comparison of real and synthetic seismic data to make geological inferences from the data. The resulting model from this analysis can be iteratively changed to accurately match real seismic data.

In addition to offering lithologic and fluid composition modeling technology from SMT, Seismic Ventures’ toolkit also includes advanced AVO and direct hydrocarbon analysis, as well as frequency and amplitude-based attributes.

Roxar releases new version of IRAP RMS

3 February 2009—Roxar ASA announced the release of RMS2009, a redesigned version of its reservoir modeling solution IRAP RMS.

RMS2009 provides a user interface, which resembles familiar software applications. RMS2009 enables users to:

  • update facies and petrophysical models based upon new data or interpretations
  • access quality modeling tools for both simple and complex structures
  • benefit from improvements to real-time geosteering and monitoring in IRAP RMS that allows users to import real-time data, compare the model with the well being drilled, and potentially make better decisions while drilling

The interface also offers data-importing capability with a standardized import dialog, which provides an array of import format options. This includes new bulk data import.

Microsoft locates worldwide oil and gas business in Dubai
10 February 2009—Microsoft announced that the leadership for the company’s worldwide oil and gas industry business is now located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Microsoft cites the worldwide economic downturn and credit crisis, along with the resulting industry trends including increasing mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, pricing pressures, continuing cost escalation, and the drive for productivity enhancements, as key focus areas for Microsoft and its global network of software and integration partners.

Several priorities at Microsoft include initiatives to help the industry do the following:

  • drive corporate performance and manage risk and compliance to reduce time-to-decision across the oil- and gas-tiered value network
  • accelerate the process of innovation to improve time-to-oil by leveraging new technologies, global collaboration teams, and new alliances and partnerships
  • enable a resilient and high-velocity supply chain performance network to respond flexibly to market changes and new opportunities across multiple enterprises and organizations, from the wellhead to the pump
  • build flexible and integrated refining and petrochemical operations to achieve high-quality performance at lower cost
  • observe and serve customers globally with insights into their specific needs

SeaBird awarded Agbami Field survey by Chevron 

13 February 2009—SeaBird Exploration and their local partner, Sonar, announced a letter of commitment with Star Deepwater Petroleum, an affiliate of Chevron Nigeria and the operator of Agbami Field, for the presurvey design and subsequent acquisition of a large scale ocean-bottom node seismic program of Agbami Field, offshore Nigeria. The program is scheduled to mobilize upon completion of the previously announced contract for BP on the Atlantis Field in the deepwater GoM and will be conducted with the survey vessel Hugin Explorer, the source vessel Kondor Explorer, and the proprietary CASE Abyss 4C autonomous seismic recording system technology. The contract has an expected duration of 6–9 months and is expected to yield revenues including mobilization and demobilization in excess of our previously published guidance rates for OBN surveys (Hugin Explorer) and source vessels (Kondor Explorer). Presurvey geophysical modeling, final terms, approvals, and execution of contract are expected to be complete by early Q2-09.



TGS begins 2D regional multiclient project in west Sumatra
17 February 2009—TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company has started acquisition of a new 9550-km multiclient 2D survey offshore west Sumatra, Indonesia.

The new survey is designed to complement the existing northwest Sumatra and Sunda seismic, bathymetric, and coring data acquired as part of the expansive TGS IndoDeep program. The IndoDeep program, previously referred to as Indonesia Frontier Basin, was acquired and interpreted from 2006 to 2008. It includes 34,000 km of 2D seismic, 400 000 km of multibeam bathymetric data, 1200 core samples, and covers approximately 1 million km2 of Indonesia’s deepwater basins. This integrated data set continues generating significant industry interest.

The initial interpretation of the northwest Sumatra and Sunda IndoDeep programs indicated that all elements of a potential petroleum system are present in the new survey area. Supported by industry funding, the new project includes both long-offset 2D seismic and gravity data acquired by the MV Mezen.