Business News for the week of 29 October 2012

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Seismic crew survey reports

INOVA Geophysical appoints Glenn Hauer president and CEO

22 October 2012—The board of directors of INOVA Geophysical Equipment Ltd. (INOVA) appointed Glenn Hauer as INOVA's president and CEO.  From the company's inception, Hauer has served on the executive team and led INOVA's research and development efforts as its senior vice president of product management. Prior to joining INOVA, Hauer held senior roles at ION Geophysical and ARAM Systems.

 

PanAmerican launches new microseismic technique for high reliability frac monitoring

23 October 2012—PanAmerican Geophysical has entered into an agreement with NanoSeis LLC to commercialize the narrow-beam scan (NBS) microseismic technique. The new technique is the result of research and development by NanoSeis seeking to improve the detectability, spatial mapping, and understanding of the nature of microseismic events during the hydraulic fracturing process. The technique uses a small number of patches of densely spaced geophones strategically placed over the fracturing zone of interest. The patches allow unaliased sampling of the 3D wavefields that are generated by the fractures, which enables a full suite of advanced seismic processing methods to be used to suppress noise and detect many more real events while eliminating false events caused by poor sampling and noise. The patch geometries facilitate accurate event positioning and the multiplicity of patches can provide increased confidence on the accuracy of each fracture location. The technique can be used in conjunction with a monitor well, or as a stand-alone service.

Pan American is now deploying the NBS capability to its operating companies in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, and in the United States, which will then serve as hubs to offer the service in neighboring countries.

 

EMGS expands multiclient basalt mapping project to the Norwegian Sea

26 October 2012—Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA (EMGS) has expanded the previously announced multiclient basalt mapping project in the west of Shetland area to the Vøring Basin in the Norwegian Sea. The vessel Atlantic Guardian will continue to acquire controlled-source electromagnetic and magnetotelluric data through to the second half of November 2012.

EMGS's data will be used with seismic data to determine the thickness of basalt layers and to improve the understanding of regional trends in geologically challenging basins with significant potential for hydrocarbon reservoirs.

The project is fully prefunded and may be expanded subject to additional industry commitment and vessel availability.

 

SHarp broadband 3D multiclient survey

26 October 2012—Dolphin Geophysical commenced acquisition earlier this year of a 5000km² 3D multiclient high-resolution, AVO friendly broadband, SHarp seismic survey which will be completed Spring 2013.

This new broadband 3D survey is over UK Quads 29 and 30. The survey was designed to image potential Catcher look-a-like plays as well as Jurassic, Zechstein, and Rotliegendes structural traps and stratigraphic features that may have been previously overlooked or simply not seen because of the lack of 3D data coverage.