Business news for the week of 16 August 2010

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Past news briefs
Seismic crew survey reports

WHOI groundbreaking celebration

3 August 2010—Equipped with an US $8.1 million federal Recovery Act grant and a shovel, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) celebrated the groundbreaking of its new Laboratory for Ocean Sensors and Observing Systems (LOSOS) on 4 Wednesday August 2010 at the Clark Laboratory on the Institution's Quissett Campus.

The funding comes from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), which is part of the U.S. Commerce Department.

The building will house lab and office space for the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a $300 million infrastructure project sponsored by the National Science Foundation. WHOI is the lead implementing organization for the coastal and global components of this initiative. The structure will also include laboratory and office space for:

  • The Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO), a state of the art underwater research facility and test site constructed and operated by WHOI.
  • The WHOI Ocean Bottom Seismometer Instrument Pool (OBSIP), an NSF-funded facility providing instrumentation in support of marine geology, seismology and geodynamics research.
  • The Environmental Sample Processor Lab (ESP), where procedures will be performed for genetic identification of marine organisms and for clarifying their role in biogeochemical cycles.

Construction on the planned 27,000-square-foot building is expected to begin in March 2011, with a planned occupancy date of June 2012.

 

BGP selects ION's DigiSTREAMER

4 August 2010—ION Geophysical Corporation has signed a contract with BGP, China National Petroleum Corporation, to outfit their new flagship, 12-streamer vessel, the Prospector, with ION's DigiSTREAMER seismic acquisition system. ION plans to deliver the system by the end of the year.

ION and BGP have a history of collaboration, in both land and marine seismic data acquisition. Last year, ION outfitted BGP's 2D Challenger vessel with a number of systems from its portfolio of Intelligent Acquisition [IA] marine seismic acquisition technologies.

ION's DigiSTREAMER system is designed to acquire marine seismic data in a cost-effective, environmentally friendly manner. The solid gel design reduces noise and risk while continuously recording broad bandwidth data in a wider weather window for high productivity, safety, and data quality.

 

CGGVeritas launches the largest and most powerful X-BOW vessel in the seismic industry

10 August 2010—CGGVeritas launched the Oceanic Vega seismic vessel at a naming ceremony at the Ulstein Verft shipyard in Norway. The Oceanic Vega is the first of a new generation of Ulstein SX120 high-end, environmentally friendly vessels and the first of two X-BOW vessels commissioned by CGGVeritas, the Oceanic Sirius being due for launch in the fall of 2011.

The Oceanic Vega is purpose-designed to deploy a maximum of 20 Sercel Sentinel® solid streamers with Nautilus 3-in-1 integrated streamer control devices and is ideally suited for the acquisition of large 3D, 4D and high-resolution projects. The vessel offers the high bollard pull required for towing large spreads for increasing acquisition density as well as reducing the acquisition to first data cycle time.

The revolutionary design of the vessel diminishes slamming of the bow which reduces variations in speed, lowers turbulence in the wake zone and significantly decreases noise, ultimately leading to the acquisition of clearer seismic data.

The vessel is ideal for BroadSeis acquisition, the new CGGVeritas broadband marine solution, and can work in Arctic waters.

The Oceanic Vega has a range of features that minimize environmental impact, including engines compatible with low-emission fuel and a green passport. In recognition of her low environmental impact status, the vessel has been awarded a DNV Clean Design class certification.

 

Spectrum announces Andaman results

10 August 2010—Spectrum has completed the reprocessing of 10,600 line km 2D multiclient seismic data in the geologically complex area offshore the Andaman Islands on the East Coast of India. The results of this project, conducted under the agreement with the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) India, have revealed several new structures and zones of interest, which may yet improve the potential prospectivity of the Andaman Islands.

The data extend across 245,000 km2 of Indian waters in the Andaman Sea, an area defined on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) worldwide basins map as part of the Andaman Sea Basin. The results of the reprocessing have shown that successful hydrocarbon exploration trends and analog from adjacent basins could be extrapolated into this frontier area.

The data were reprocessed in both time and depth using modern processing techniques including surface related multiple elimination, high resolution radon demultiple, Kirchhoff prestack time and depth migration, and various specialist noise attenuation techniques. There were improvements of the imaging of the entire seismic section, both in shallow and deep sections.

The Andaman Sea Basin is between the well-explored, mature hydrocarbon provinces of Myanmar to the North and Indonesia to the south. Both areas contain world class producing fields and structures observed on the reprocessed seismic have shown that these successful hydrocarbon exploration trends and analogues could be extrapolated into this frontier area.

The Indian section of the Andaman Sea Basin is considered frontier in nature with only 15 wells drilled, all targeting the shallow water part of the fore-arc basin and most of them close to the Andaman Islands. Of these wells, the first drilled well (AN-01-1) discovered gas shows in Miocene limestones. The discovery proves the presence of working hydrocarbon systems with generating hydrocarbon source systems, reservoir and seal horizons as well as migration and trapping mechanisms.

The reprocessing has shown the Andaman Sea Basin contains all the elements for successful hydrocarbon exploration as it has identified likely source, reservoir, and seal intervals as well as structural and stratigraphic trapping geometries and direct hydrocarbon indicators such as gas clouds, bright and flat spots; and also bottom simulating reflectors indicating the presence of gas hydrates.

An adjacent subduction zone and frequent earthquakes in the area presented geoscientists with complex geological structures. Numerous steeply dipping events, with the angle and direction of dip varying dramatically within small areas, resulted in very complicated raypaths.

 

Gazprom signs access agreement with Paradigm

12 August 2010—Paradigm signed a multiyear software license access agreement with Gazprom Group Company "Gazprom geofizika" for the software usage by Gazprom Group companies. The agreement allows the group's enterprises to use Paradigm solutions for a broad range of subsurface E&P asset management requirements

Gazprom will deploy Paradigm solutions for seismic processing, interpretation, reservoir characterization, and modeling. Paradigm will also provide training to users at Gazprom who will use the software during 2010 and beyond. Geoscientists and engineers in ten Gazprom Group enterprises will have access to Paradigm software.

 

WHOI announces 2010 ocean science journalism fellows

12 August 2010—Ten writers and multimedia science journalists from the U.S. and Great Britain have been selected to participate in the competitive Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship program. The program takes place 12–18 September 2010, in Woods Hole, Mass., on Cape Cod.

This year's fellows are:

  • Jennifer Barone, Discover magazine
  • Brooke Borel, Freelance
  • Clarke Canfield, Associated Press
  • Emily Gertz, Freelance
  • Shar Levine, Author
  • Erik Olsen, New York Times
  • Frank Pope, The Times of London
  • Mindy Todd, WCAI - NPR
  • Jennifer Weeks, Freelance
  • Allison Winter, E&E Publishing

The WHOI Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship program was established in 2000 to introduce science journalists to the interdisciplinary and wide-ranging fields of oceanography and ocean engineering. Through seminars with top scientists and engineers, laboratory visits, and brief field expeditions, Ocean Science Journalism Fellows gain access to new research findings and to fundamental background information in engineering, marine biology, geology and geophysics, marine chemistry and geochemistry, and physical oceanography.

Topics range from harmful algal blooms to deep-sea hydrothermal vents; from sea floor earthquakes to ice-sheet dynamics; from the ocean's role in climate change to the human impact on fisheries and coastline change; from ocean instruments and observatories to underwater robots. Each year, the fellows experience a day on a research vessel to learn about how oceanography is conducted and, when possible, to participate in a research project.

The program is a one-week, residential experience open to professional writers, producers, and editors working for print, broadcast, radio, and Internet media. Fellows receive a travel allowance, as well as room and board for one week. During an optional second week, fellows are invited to immerse themselves in a more in-depth experience with a specific researcher, lab, or topic.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.

 

Expro announces Charles Woodburn as new CEO

16 August 2010—Expro has appointed Charles Woodburn as chief executive officer. Woodburn is a UK national who was educated at Cambridge where he graduated with a PhD in engineering. He joins Expro following a 15-year career with Schlumberger where he held many senior management roles including president of Wireline up to 2009. Latterly he was in charge of Schlumberger's engineering and manufacturing, reporting directly to the executive vice president of oilfield services.

 

Golden Software Announces Strater 2

16 August 12010 —Golden Software released Strater 2, an upgrade of Strater,. Strater 2 enables users to quickly create professional well logs from any type of interval or depth data.

Strater 2 supports 12 popular log types to graphically display subsurface data: bar, zone bar, percentage, graphic, well construction, lithology, post, classed post, complex text, line/symbol, crossplot, and depth logs. Strater 2 offers a multitude of new customization options, some of which include drawing or importing objects into the log area, specifying new colors and patterns, generating legends, setting decimal digits or adding a suffix/prefix to numeric labels, using one of the two new methods to adjust the scale of logs, and specifying transparency levels.

The improved data tables increase efficiency when working with data. The new data tables operate intuitively like Excel worksheets and support data from many common sources, including the current Access 2007 ACCDB and Excel 2007 XLSX formats.

One new feature in Strater 2 is the ability to display logs for multiple boreholes in one view to visually compare the data. Users can also draw lines connecting logs from the different boreholes to see correlations, and insert text to describe the correlations or emphasize specific data. Additional information may be added to the header and footer panes by drawing, importing, typing, or copying and pasting.

Templates and schemes are essential tools in Strater 2 and designed for efficient bulk log processing. Schemes load-drawing properties based on a keyword or range value to assign repeated properties when creating new logs. Strater 2 adds new USCS fill pattern scheme files, USCS patterns are frequently used in lithology logs. Improved template files store all the graphic features, schemes, and data tables without the imported data, so borehole designs can be reused in other projects or by other users. Strater 2 offers many new predefined templates and the option to create and save custom templates.

Strater 2 supports any Windows-compatible printer or plotter and also allows batch printing. A borehole design may be created to automatically print the design with data from multiple boreholes. Logs may also be exported in one of the many supported file formats such as EMF, EPS, PDF (vector/raster), JPG, BMP, or TIF for insertion into presentations or reports.

 

Paradigm and Petrosys to collaborate in the development of Petrosys Connectors

17 August 2010—Paradigm announced an agreement with Petrosys to develop Petrosys connectors to the Paradigm Epos infrastructure that will enable an effective integration of Epos repository data with the Petrosys mapping solutions. Petrosys will develop and maintain the links, which will be built using the Epos OpenGeo programming toolkit.

The cross-vendor interoperability offered by the Petrosys connectors complements Paradigm workflows that enable geoscientists to apply advanced software solutions on data across the Paradigm integrated, multidisciplinary integration framework. The OpenGeo programming toolkit makes it possible to extend workflows to include solutions from multiple vendors.

 

SeaBird awarded an OBN contract with Shell Nigeria Exploration & Production Company Limited

17 August 2010—SeaBird Exploration and Sonar Limited signed an agreement with Shell Nigeria Exploration & Production for the acquisition of an ocean-bottom seismic survey in Nigeria. The survey will be conducted by the Hugin Explorer with a capacity of 750 proprietary autonomous CASE Abyss nodes onboard and the source vessel Munin Explorer. Mobilization started 12 August in direct continuation from the node survey in the North Sea for Chevron. The survey will commence on the field around mid-September with an expected duration of approximately three months, including mobilization and demobilization. The contract is subject to the signing of a final agreement.

 

Spectrum multiclient data for Trinidad & Tobago 2010 bid round

19 August 2010—Spectrum signed an agreement with the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs (MEEA)—the primary state agency responsible for oil and gas activities in Trinidad & Tobago—to reprocess 12,240 line km of seismic data from the Trinidad and Tobago Deep Atlantic Area 2D survey situated off the eastern coasts of these two islands. The data is being processed under the agreement in preparation for a competitive bid round in the Deep Atlantic area.

There are 39 blocks delineated in water depths between 1000–3500 m. A decision is expected soon from the MEEA as to the number of blocks that will be included in the competitive bid round.

The primary aim of Spectrum's reprocessing will be to derisk the deep/ultra deep play targets that may be considered high risk by prospective exploration companies. Improvements in imaging will enable data ties into the shallow play area and provide key control allowing extrapolation of successful shallow plays types as well as new plays into the deep/ultra deep area.

The main advances in the reprocessing sequence are in the application of surface-related multiple elimination and enhanced high-resolution Radon demultiple techniques. Much improvement in the imaging has been gained by careful velocity modeling, taking into account the significant geological changes from shallow to deep water areas and allowing the identification of a slower deep velocity trend previously removed by an aggressive demultiple operator. Two passes of Kirchhoff prestack time migration have provided better resolution of deeper structures.