Business news for the week of 25 March 2009

Past news briefs

TGS announces planned changes in leadership
25 March 2009—The Board of Directors of TGS-NOPEC Geophysical announced the following planned changes in leadership, to become effective following the company's Annual General Meeting on 4 June 2009:

Claus Kampmann will retire as chairman and director. Kampmann was first elected to the Board in 2002 and has served as its chairman since 2004.

Hank Hamilton will retire as chief executive officer. He will continue with TGS as a non-executive advisor and will be proposed by the current Nomination Committee for election as the new chairman of TGS. Hamilton has served as the chief executive officer of TGS since 1995 and as a director since 1998.

Robert Hobbs will become chief executive officer of TGS. Hobbs joined TGS in January 2008 as the chief operating officer. Prior to joining TGS, Hobbs was manager, Worldwide Geoscience, with Marathon Oil. Earlier in his career, Hobbs spent nine years with Veritas DGC in a wide range of roles including president and managing director of the company's UK subsidiary, where he was responsible for all product lines in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. He also worked 10 years as both a geologist and a geophysicist with ARCO Oil and Gas, Exxon, and Union Texas Petroleum. He holds a MSc in geology from the University of Southern California.

Golder and Geosoft to collaborate on data management solutions
19 March 2009—Geosoft announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Golder Associates, a global group of consulting companies specializing in ground engineering and environmental services.

The MOU focuses on Geosoft and Golder Associates working together to deliver data management solutions based on Geosoft DAP server technology.

Fairfield Industries completes third deployment of cable-free Z Land System
23 March 2009—Fairfield Industries announced it has completed the third successful deployment of its cable-free, continuous-recording Z Land nodal seismic data acquisition system designed for operation on dry land.

The single-component autonomous Z Land recording system can acquire 288 hours, or 12 days, of continuous seismic data unattended. The number of days an individual nodal unit can remain in place may be extended by cycling the unit into and out of a sleep state at predetermined times.

Z Land was initially deployed in September 2008 in the Piceance Basin in the high plateaus of western Colorado. The land system has acquired seismic data in the ranchland pastures of central Texas and the woods of east Texas.

Z Land has successfully acquired data using conventional VibroSeis, simultaneous-sourcing VibroSeis, and dynamite sources. For each field trial, the self-contained autonomous recording units of the system were deployed and left unattended to continuously gather data for one to two weeks before being retrieved to download the data.

KMS Technologies completes participation by employees
3 March 2009—KMS Technologies has completed an employee participation in the company. KMS employees now hold 20% of the company’s stock, issued as preferred stock with no voting rights. EMGS and RXT will continue as major shareholders with 80% of the company’s stock with the original shareholder arrangement being unchanged. In Europe, KMS will focus on the company’s interaction with KMS’ parents in Norway as well as on shareholder generation value and business development of reservoir monitoring technology.

DONG Energy adopts Paradigm Geolog as corporate standard
24 March 2009—Paradigm announced that DONG Energy has selected Paradigm Geolog software as their corporate standard for petrophysical analysis and wireline/LWD/core data management and integration.
 
Paradigm Geolog combines petrophysical analysis tools, presentation graphics, well data management, and geological interpretation in a software interface.

PGS exposes Trinidad and Tobago potential
25 March 2009—PGS acquired three new multiclient 2D projects covering the offshore Trinidad and Tobago area in 2008. Two of the surveys benefit from new dual-sensor GeoStreamer technology. The triplet surveys together enable a full evaluation of geological plays ahead of licensing rounds, expected to start later this year. Processing of the GeoStreamer surveys is now complete.

The surveys—North Coast Marine Area (NCMA), Tobago Trough, and Deepwater East Coast Marine Area—each cover prospective zones north and east of the island group. Adjacent recent discoveries raise expectations of the potential of the area, with much of the deepwater zones previously unexplored. Geologically, the offshore area is varied. Thick sediments and highly complex structures mark the juncture of the Caribbean and South America plates in the Tobago Trough. Meanwhile, in the deepwater East Coast zone, abundant sediment sequences are complicated by layers of shale and hydrates. 

Processed results demonstrate clearer imaging of the basin architecture in the under-explored Tobago Trough, to the north of Block 22. Over 2500 km of GeoStreamer MC2D data were acquired here in an 8 x 8-km grid. A 12-km dual-sensor cable and length of 14 s was used over the survey area. The exploration objectives consist of the upper Miocene and lower Pliocene deltaic sandstones, with the intent also to image deeper turbiditic sandstones.

In addition, a GeoStreamer MC2D survey was acquired over the Deepwater East Coast Marine Area with identical parameters. Results confirm that dual-sensor acquisition improves resolution and yields better penetration than a conventional streamer. The 2000-line km reconnaissance grid ties several key wells and provides improved imaging and geological understanding of this challenging frontier area.

The NCMA  4 & 5 survey was acquired using hydrophone-only acquisition. The resulting high resolution MC2D data provided by this survey offers coverage over the entire blocks. Better illumination and fault definition of the Orchid and Iris discoveries, along with other potential leads, render these data imperative for the upcoming license round.

SMT helps university geoscience departments with expanded donations program
25 March 2009—SMT announced the expansion of its software donation program to geoscience students in 160 colleges and universities in key oil and gas regions around the world.  

The goal of SMT's Educational Grant Program is to place software in the classroom so students graduating from universities are equipped for the job market with hands-on workstation experience. SMT KINGDOM software donations are utilized for both teaching and research at academic institutions in 27 countries worldwide.

SMT offers KINGDOM software for teaching labs and professors' use in classes. Beginning in 2001, three-year grants, including all maintenance support and updates, have been donated with a total estimated value of more than $150 million.