Houston-based land seismic and transition zone specialist Geokinetics is buying the land seismic data acquisition business and onshore multi-client library business of PGS in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $210 million, of which approximately $184 million will be paid in cash. PGS expects an estimated gain on the transaction in the range of $10−20 million to be reported in Q1 2010. Following the closing of the transaction, PGS is expected to be the second largest shareholder in Geokinetics with a 19% holding.The combination of Geokinetics and the onshore business of ...
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Emerging marine seismic contractor Polarcus held a double naming ceremony in November for Polarcus Nadia and Polarcus Naila. The ceremony, at the Drydocks World – Dubai shipyard in the United Arab Emirates, was attended by over 200 local and international guests. Both are modern, purpose-built 3D seismic vessels incorporating the ULSTEIN X-BOW hull along with many advanced features and maritime technologies for minimizing the vessels’ environmental footprint, including the risk of accidental pollution into the marine environment. With a top speed of 15 knots, the identical vessels have an ...
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PGS has converted its entire marine seismic fleet to solid streamers. The company said that the process started in 2004 was completed when Ramform Challenger recently sailed from the yard equipped with 12 new GeoStreamers. Today the company employs around 11,000 solid 75 m streamer sections on its marine fleet and in spare. These include the GeoStreamer dual sensor streamers.
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Houston-based Fairfield Industries has sold a Z700 nodal seismic data acquisition system to Russian company Sevmorgeo. The system is designed and manufactured by Fairfield to operate in shallow water depths of between 1−700 m. The St Petersburg-based company, which focuses on seismic data acquisition and processing, has purchased 500 of the Z700 system’s completely cable-free autonomous recording units (ARUs), or nodes.Z700 is one of three entirely cable-free seismic acquisition node systems developed by Fairfield. The systems, including deepwater Z3000 and Z Land. The individual Z700 ...
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UK energy consultant Hannon Westwood has released its 26th Round Screening Study in advance of the opening of the next UKCS licensing round, anticipated in January 2010. Over the last decade, Hannon Westwood has been developing several databases in order to understand the resources remaining on the UKCS. To date, these include the reserves and production rates in producing fields, 448 undeveloped discoveries, and 1591 undrilled prospects. The Screening Study looks at all the unlicensed undrilled prospects and unlicensed undeveloped discoveries that are held within the Hannon Westwood ...
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German company DMT has put its Explorer 5 shallow marine seismic vessel into service. The boat will be used for seismic measurements in the transition zone, the boundary area between deep sea and onshore seismic operations. The Explorer is a further proprietary development by DMT in this class of boat. It is distinguished by its lightweight aluminum design, its flexibility in deployment, and its practicality in service.DMT department manager Rene Pool said: ‘The boat can be readied for use in no time at all and can be conveniently transported inside a standard shipping container.’ The ...
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Australian company AuDAX Resources has chosen Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) for a 620 km2 3D seismic acquisition project in the Kerkouane permit offshore Tunisia. It expects to acquire the 3D survey in the first quarter of 2010 over a number of leads and prospects, including the Sambuca prospect and the Dougga field. PGS will be applying its Geostreamer dual sensor technology for the first time in Tunisia. The Kerkouane permit is said to contain one of the largest undrilled structures in the Mediterranean Sea and several other prospective structures with a total recoverable resource potential ...
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Statoil has signed Fugro-Geoteam for the acquisition and QC processing of a 2400 km2 3D marine seismic programme around Statoil’s leases in the Chukchi Sea. The project is valued at approximately $26 million with an estimated duration of up to three months. The survey is planned to take place from approximately early August into October 2010.To meet the challenging conditions of the Chukchi Sea, combined with the limited acquisition window, Fugro-Geoteam and Statoil have agreed to utilize one of Fugro’s C-class vessels. The large and modern C-Class vessels have a DNV ICE classification as ...
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Rock Solid Images, the wholly owned subsidiary of Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping (OHM), has been awarded one of its largest rock physics and seismic inversion projects to date, with an order value approaching $1 million for a client operating in West Africa. Work on the project is expected to begin in January 2010. Richard Cooper, CEO of OHM, said: ‘We are very pleased that we continue to attract a significant proportion of the seismic inversion and reservoir characterization work available in West Africa. Since the start of calendar year 2009, we have been awarded approximately $3.5 million ...
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WesternGeco says it has deployed the company’s UniQ point-receiver land seismic acquisition and processing system in Kuwait for Kuwait Oil Company (KOC). The system is acquiring data from 45,000 live point-receiver channels utilizing WesternGeco DX-80 Desert Explorer vibrators and MD Sweep technology. Part of the Q-Technology portfolio, the UniQ system is designed to combine extreme channel count point-receiver technology with support for advanced simultaneous source techniques. Building upon the fidelity provided by the broad bandwidth geophone accelerometer sensor, UniQ is said to be able ...
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Total and its partners on Block 15-1/05, have discovered oil in the Lac Da Nau prospect, in the southern part of the block offshore Vietnam. 15-01/05 LDN-1X exploration well is the first well drilled and the first discovery made on Block 15-01/05. It is located approximately 110 km to the East of Vung Tau, about 65 km off the coast, and was drilled in a water depth of 45 m. The well produced 4200 b/d of 44 API° oil during tests performed in the basement. Phu Quy Petroleum Operating Exploration and Production Company is operator of Block 15-1/05 with a 40% stake. The other partners on Block ...
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Geomodeling Technology, a provider of software for the upstream oil and gas industry, has released SBED 4.0 and SBED 4.0 for Schlumberger Petrel near-wellbore modelling software. SBED provides technology that models small-scale sedimentary details and generates accurate reservoir properties for use in reservoir modeling and simulation. SBED 4.0 is a cross-platform version offered on both Microsoft Windows and Linux. SBED 4.0 includes a redesigned user interface and many new features that enhance its realistic core-scale modelling and fluid flow simulation workflows, including a new workspace ...
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Lundin Petroleum has completed its exploration well 25/4-10A, drilled on the South Kneler prospect in PL203, 6 km south of the Alvheim FPSO in the Norwegian North Sea. The objective of the well was to prove petroleum in the Heimdal Formation of Paleocene age. The well encountered gas in Lista sands just above the main Heimdal reservoir. The reservoir rock is thinner than anticipated and the gas discovery will be evaluated in connection with the Gekko gas discovery within the same licence. The well was drilled as a second branch of a dual branched exploration well to a vertical depth of 2167 m ...
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CGGVeritas is undertaking a seismic survey for Chariot Oil & Gas, the Africa focused oil and gas exploration company. It is a second 3D seismic acquisition programme in the northern blocks, 1811A&B, offshore Namibia. This programme will cover 600 km² focusing on an area of specific interest over the previously identified Zamba prospect.The programme is expected to be completed by the end of December and processing and interpretation will commence immediately after completion. This activity complements the previously acquired 900 km² which will be available for review in the dataroom ...
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Bergen Oilfield Services (BOS), a relatively new marine geophysical contractor, has initiated a merger process with Global Tender Barges (GTB) with the intention of establishing a platform that will benefit both companies and their shareholders. BOS currently owns three seismic vessels and manages the whole value chain from vessel ownership and management, data acquisition to data processing. Funds managed by Sector Omega represent the largest ownership share in BOS, with 78% of shares, and these interests are also the largest owner in GTB with 33%.Meantime BOS has confirmed the award of two ...
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Hess Libya Exploration (HLEL) has carried out a successful test of its discovery well A1-54/01 offshore Libya in the Mediterranean Sea. Well A1-54/01 was originally drilled in the Arous Al-Bahar prospect in 2008 and encountered hydrocarbons in several intervals with a combined gross section of approximately 500 ft.Hess recently re-entered and perforated the well over a 300 ft carbonate interval and performed a drill stem test. The well flowed at a rate of 27 million standard ft3 of good quality natural gas per day and 533 barrels of condensate per day on a 52/64 in choke. The test was ...
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Central Petroleum has awarded Fugro Data Solutions a contract to implement its Trango data management technology solution as support for oil and gas exploration and production development activities within Central Australia. Fugro’s Trango Manager suite of applications is designed to allow for a more seamless workflow between managed source data and their interpretation environment.Central Petroleum has awarded Fugro Data Solutions a contract to implement its Trango data management technology solution as support for oil and gas exploration and production development activities within ...
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RWE Dea has started drilling its first of three wells exploring for oil deposits in Lower Saxony, north of Gifhorn, in an area containing depleted oil fields.*****The purpose of drilling the exploration wells is to test for the presence of oil deposits at a depth of 1500 m. Following the completion of the first well, near Ummern (Herzogsbrunnen 1), a further two exploration wells are planned to be drilled: one between Wesendorf and Wagenhoff (Quellenburg 1), and the other near Hahnenhorn (Hahnenmoor 1).At the end of 2006, a seismic survey was carried out here within the Hahnenhorn concession ...
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Global oil productive capacity will grow though 2030 with no evidence of a peak in supply before that time, according to a report by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) based on analysis of more than 10,000 projects around the globe.The report The Future of Global Oil Supply: Understanding the Building Blocks extends IHS CERA’s global oil outlook through 2030 and expects global oil productive capacity to grow to as much as 115 million barrels per day (mbd) through that period from the current level of 92 mbd, a 25% increase. Post-2030 supply could struggle to meet demand but ...
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Petrobras and Angolan state oil company Sonangol have made an oil discovery with the well Manganês-01 in deepwater Block 18/06, 200 km from Luanda. Drilled at a depth of 1500 m from the waterline, the Manganês-01 well proved the existence of an excellent quality reservoir in an 82 m column in sandy Miocene reservoirs. In testing operations, oil of some 200 API was produced at high flowrates with an excellent productivity index.Sonangol is the concessionaire of Block 18/06 with Petrobras as operator, holding a 30% interest. Sonangol Sinopec International (SSI) holds 40%; Sonangol P&P, ...
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The European Commission has held preparatory meeting for its new knowledge-sharing network of carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects. The meeting gathered delegates from 22 projects in 13 European countries. The network, which is set up to speed up the process towards full-scale industry implementation of CCS technology, is being coordinated by DNV.Twenty-two European CCS demonstration projects participated in the launch at Høvik on 2 and 3 December. The purpose of the network is to facilitate a process to shorten the time from policy making to industry implementation of ...
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Swiss-based Manas Petroleum Corporation reports that DWM Petroleum, its 100% owned subsidiary, has completed its first year work programme on blocks 13 and 14 in Mongolia, ahead of schedule. The work was originally expected to be completed in April. The project entailed the collection and processing of geological data from previous exploration campaigns, geological mapping, geological structural sections, gravimetry etcetera. The resulting technical data were merged into a data base which was then queried to identify geologically interesting structures. The results are said to have produced ...
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