Business news for the week of 20 September 2010 News section front
Past news briefs
Seismic crew survey reports EMGS awarded contract extension worth minimum US S3 million in Asia 15 September 2010—Electromagnetic Geoservices has been awarded a contract extension worth a minimum of US $3 million in Asia. This contract is a continuation of the previously announced global 3D EM campaign for a major oil company, the first part of which was a survey performed in the Caribbean in the first quarter of 2010. This campaign totals approximately $15 million to date, including the contract extension which will start shortly using the vessel BOA Galatea. It is expected that this 3D EM survey will be completed in mid-October. RDAS and Infoterra bring TerraSAR-X Data and Solutions to geospatial community
15 September 2010—ERDAS will collaborate with Infoterra, the exclusive holder of commercial exploitation rights to TerraSAR-X data. Together, they will develop operational applications for TerraSAR-X radar satellite imagery.
In recent years, the use of radar imagery has greatly increased. New sensors like TerraSAR-X offer high spatial resolution, excellent geometric accuracies, short revisit times and a variety of polarizations and imaging modes. At the same time, innovative techniques have been developed to extract and process information from radar data.
Radar data is consequently making a rapid transition from research and development applications to solving real-world problems. ERDAS and Infoterra plan to work together to rationalize this plethora of data into clearly defined application scenarios. A key component of this transition is dedicated software that enables the problem solver to extract the needed information from the imagery without deep domain knowledge. Experts at intelligence and military agencies, state and local governments, civil organizations, crisis response organizations and non-governmental organizations will easily be able to transform TerraSAR-X imagery into timely, relevant and accurate geoinformation.
The new agreement is effective immediately and includes the creation of dedicated training material for ERDAS users. In addition, there will be joint evaluation of existing tools and potentials with regard to stereometric and interferometric data sets. Fugro Airborne surveys to acquire data in Tanzania 16 September 2010—Fugro Airborne Surveys has been contracted by Beach Petroleum (Tanzania), a wholly owned subsidiary of Beach Energy, for the acquisition and processing of airborne gravity gradiometer (AGG) and high-resolution airborne magnetic (HRAM) data using the FALCON AGG system. The survey, consisting of approximately 27,000 line km, commenced September 9, and will take approximately three months. The survey will be flown over a 7,160 km2 block covering the southern portion of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. Naturally occurring seeps and surface slicks are well known on Lake Tanganyika, and significant hydrocarbon discoveries have been made in the Ugandan portion of the Eastern African Rift Zone. TGS Updates 2010/2011 offshore Africa seismic campaign 17 September 2010—TGS announced that Sonangol has advised TGS that the negotiated right for TGS to acquire multi-client programs in Angola was terminated. TGS will continue to work with Sonangol to identify future business opportunities in Angola.
Although the termination will have a limited negative effect on revenues for Q3 and Q4, TGS has received industry funding and is positioned to expand its 3D coverage in the Africa Transform Margin region where it plans to conduct multiple surveys with the Fugro Geo-Caribbean. This vessel, originally expected for delivery in early September, has been delayed and will be available for TGS in late September for the Africa Transform Margin work. This region has been an active area for TGS in the past few years. To date the TGS Library has more than 20,000 km2 of multiclient 3D data in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Schlumberger releases Merak Peep 2010 19 September 2010—Schlumberger released Merak Peep 2010 software. The 2010 release delivers a complete refresh of the application allowing clients to proactively respond to complex operational conditions and rapidly answer their unique business challenges. The release was developed in collaboration with 15 oil and gas companies, majors, nationals, and independents. Input from this diverse group of clients drove many improvements, which include greater integration and customization capabilities. Extensive usability research contributed to significant productivity enhancements, in some cases reducing the time to complete workflows from hours to minutes. Schlumberger introduces new multifrequency dielectric dispersion service 19 September 2010—Schlumberger announced the release of the Dielectric Scanner multlifrequency dielectric dispersion service. This service offers petrophysical measurements for enhanced hydrocarbon saturation computation. Schlumberger has completed more than 250 jobs in 20 countries around the world providing continuous measurement of dielectric dispersion for precise petrophysical interpretation. The use of multifrequency dielectric dispersion science is unique in the industry. Used in conjunction with traditional logging measurements, it is now possible to determine residual oil saturation in carbonate reservoirs, hydrocarbon volume in low-resistivity or low-contrast shaly and laminated sand formations, and hydrocarbon volume and mobility in heavy oil reservoirs. Knowledge Reservoir announces upgrade to North Sea knowledge base
20 September 2010—Knowledge Reservoir announced a major upgrade to its North Sea Reservoir Knowledge Base.
The North Sea data set is available as a module within the company’s ReservoirKB Web portal service, and may be subscribed to independently, or at a discounted rate with other modules. The North Sea module presently includes field data for the UK and Norwegian sectors, and UK onshore, with future additions planned. This upgrade will include a migration to the GIS based KBFrameworkSM engine that currently runs the Gulf of Mexico module. In addition Knowledge Reservoir will focus an expanded team of engineers and geologists to provide analysis, case studies, and statistics on key data and fields. Lane Energy Poland and Schlumberger deliver first shale gas well in Baltic Basin 20 September 2010——Lane Energy Poland and Schlumberger announced an update on the first exploration shale gas well evaluating the shales in the Baltic Basin of Northern Poland. In addition, drilling on a second well in the area is at an advanced stage. The drilling program operated by Lane Energy constitutes an important milestone for shale gas in Europe. Łebień LE1 is the first of two-wells that Lane is drilling in the onshore Baltic Basin region. Total depth was reached in record time, including coring operations of the target shales. Drilling on the second well, Łęgowo LE1, began on August 27 and operations are proceeding on schedule. Schlumberger will be providing completion, stimulation and well testing services during the production evaluation phase of the operations. The Completion program has been submitted to the Polish Mining Authority and completion operations are scheduled for October. Ingrain opens digital rock physics lab in Abu Dhabi 21 September 2010—Ingrain announced the opening of its newest digital rock physics lab, located in Mussafah, Abu Dhabi.
Ingrain’s digital rock physics lab provides special core analysis services (SCAL) on oil and gas reservoir rocks using 3D imaging and computing. Using whole core, core plugs, sidewall cores or even drill cuttings, Ingrain can deliver information faster than physical labs, and at a lower overall cost.
The new 950 m2 lab has installed and commissioned a high-resolution macro scanner (with a scan resolution of 0.5 mm) that is capable of scanning whole core and plugs in a very rapid time frame. The lab also has a micro CT scanner that can scan a range of resolutions sufficient to resolve the micro pore space associated with carbonates in the Middle East. Additional scanners will be added as required by workload.
Ingrain currently has seven employees in the Abu Dhabi lab and is supported by staff from their Houston-based headquarters. The company plans to increase the number of Abu Dhabi employees up to 15 by year-end and continue to add facilities as demand continues to increase. Ingrain now employs over 60 people worldwide. Joint Fugro-EMGS survey for Woodside 22 September 2010—Fugro has been awarded a CSEM contract by Woodside, Australia's largest publically traded hydrocarbon exploration and production company. The acquisition part of this contract, which is worth in excess of US $2 million, will be subcontracted to Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA. The survey will take place on the North West Shelf offshore Australia in the fourth quarter of 2010 using the 3D EM vessel BOA Galatea. Statoil and ffA sign a research and development collaboration to develop next generation 3D seismic analysis tools. 22 September 2010—Foster Findlay Associates (ffA) and Statoil Production have agreed on a continuation of their ongoing research and development collaboration. This is the sixth phase of the collaboration, which has allowed the companies to work together in producing 3D seismic analysis capabilities. These capabilities are deployed within the Statoil advanced volume interpretation software application that has resulted from this ongoing collaboration. To further enhance AVI, this new phase of the R&D collaboration will develop and give Statoil preferential access to new capabilities aimed at calibrating 3D seismic derived analyses to enable easy integration into modern interpretation workflows that also leverage rock physics capabilities. An aspect of the collaboration is definition of Statoil specific best practice workflows designed to enable Statoil to obtain competitive advantage through utilization of these new techniques. | 
