Business news for the week of 21 June 2010 News section front
Past news briefs
Seismic crew survey reports CGGVeritas announces technology cooperation with Petrobras 16 June 2010—CGGVeritas signed a Technology Cooperation Agreement (TCA) Petrobras for the collaborative development and implementation of new technologies. The TCA sets the framework for collaborative research projects between Petrobras and CGGVeritas over a three-year period in specific areas such as 4D seismic processing, imaging, and reservoir geophysics. These research projects will be conducted at a recently opened CGGVeritas Technology Center in Rio de Janeiro. The TCA was signed by Robert Brunck, chairman and CEO of CGGVeritas, at the inauguration ceremony for this new technology center.
The Rio Technology Center is designed to offer oil and gas operators in Brazil direct access to geophysical technology developed or customized by a dedicated R&D team focused on solving local geophysical challenges. The Rio Technology Center is also developing partnerships with top universities recognized in Brazil as leaders in advanced geophysical studies such as the State University of Campinas, the Federal University of Pará, and the State University of North Fluminense. EBN publishes Focus on Dutch gas 2010 18 June 2010—EBN published its most recent vision of Dutch energy resources in Focus on Dutch Gas 2010. EBN participates in the exploration for and production of oil and gas on behalf of the Dutch State. The report shows that nearly 75% of all producing gas fields in the Netherlands are now in the tail-end production phase. This year, these fields will still contribute almost 20 billion cubic meters (BCM) to the total gas production from small fields in the Dutch territory, but in the long term there will be a decline. According to Jan Dirk Bokhoven, chairman of EBN's Executive Board, this calls for a strategy of adding reserves. He thinks that the main challenges over the coming decades will be to promote exploration activities and develop both conventional and unconventional resources. EMGS awarded largest marine 3D EM contract 19 June 2010—Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA (EMGS) has been awarded a multiyear contract worth a minimum of US $150 million by one of the world's largest oil companies. The 3D EM campaign will employ one of EMGS's purpose-built 3D EM vessels continuously throughout the duration of the contract period, providing substantially improved vessel utilization levels. Formal finalization of the contract is expected in approximately two weeks, with vessel mobilization towards the end of August. EMGS anticipates that the contract will generate 2010 revenues in the range of 20–25 million, and that the remaining contract value will be recognized in 2011 and 2012. Blueback Reservoir Americas LCC hires new staff and opens new office 19 June 2010— Terngu Utim has joined the Houston office of Blueback Reservoir Americas. Utim is a production and development geologist with experience in many green and brown field subsurface studies. His interests are unconventional reservoirs and conventional clastics. Neil McKone, also, has joined Blueback Reservoir as the Canada account manager. He will be based in Calgary, and as a point of contact for Blueback Reservoir's new Calgary office where he will provide Blueback Reservoir`s customers with 3D geologic modeling services and software development services based around the Petrel Ocean platform. McKone has over 15 years experience in 3D modeling, seismic inversion and reservoir characterization. TGS commences high density multiclient 3D data acquisition in Moray Firth 23 June 2010—TGS commences a 1650 km2 high-density, multiclient 3D seismic survey located in the outer part of Moray Firth off the Northeast coast of Scotland. The survey covers open as well as held acreage and is located in an area proven to be particularly prolific for hydrocarbon exploration. This has been confirmed by recent discoveries including Golden Eagle, Hobby, Pink, and Blackbird. TGS has contracted the Polarcus Nadia to acquire the Moray Firth 3D survey. The Nadia will deploy 8 ´ 5000 m of streamers for the acquisition and the project is expected to complete in the third quarter of 2010. The data processing will be done at TGS' imaging center in Bedford, England. Data from the Moray Firth survey will be available for customers in early 2011. The Moray Firth high-density, multiclient 3D survey is supported by industry funding. Guide for solving optimization problems now available from NAG 23 June 2010—Worldwide scientific researchers in a wide range of disciplines seeking the most appropriate way to solve difficult optimization problems can get step-by-step instructions on how to select the best-suited local or global optimization routines, from the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) Library, by making use of the decision trees for optimization. NAG, a not-for-profit numerical software development organization, devotes significant R&D resources to continually advance methods for solving optimization problems and similar computational challenges. The NAG Decision Trees are part of the documentation for one of the most rigorously tested and documented sets of optimization routines and other mathematical and statistical algorithms in the world, collected into the Numerical Algorithms Group Library The NAG Library of routines, including the optimization chapters, can be called from diverse environments such as C++, Fortran, MATLAB, and R. | 
