Back from the SEG annual meeting in San Antonio, Andrew McBarnet detects stirrings in the market for ocean bed seismic services.Ten years ago when the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) held its annual meeting in San Antonio, the event…
Mindful of Offshore Europe in Aberdeen this month, Andrew McBarnet explains why seismic companies keep coming back to the mainly mature offshore hydrocarbon province of northwest Europe.It's not the most elegant of sayings but 'there's life…
At the EAGE annual meeting in Vienna Andrew McBarnet discerned a mood of surprising equanimity in the marine seismic community.Some titles are hard to live up to. So, even though the recent annual meeting of the European Association of Geoscientists…
Andrew McBarnet detects a rebuilding of industry confidence in marine controlled source electromagnetic surveys after a troubled period for the operators of the technology.It is now almost exactly 10 years since a somewhat historic scientific…
The Industry Technology Facilitator (ITF) has gone from strength to strength in the past year or two, with some of the new technologies it has supported making a real difference in the field and its global expansion progressing well. Managing…
Integrating several imaging and modeling technologies can reduce exploration risk. Ian Bryant (Schlumberger) and Paul Xu (formerly of Ipex) present an integrated basin and petroleum system study that predicted many oil and gas accumulations in a relatively unexplored region offshore Brazil…
Andrew McBarnet reviews some of the history of Norwegian marine seismic ventures to assess the aspirations of the latest entrant into the market.The launch of yet another Norwegian-inspired company dedicated to making its mark on the marine seismic business is so déjà vu…
Multi-client specialist TGS took the marine seismic business by surprise last month with the purchase of Stingray Geophysical, a UK-based start up company focusing on seismic-based permanent reservoir monitoring (PRM). Andrew McBarnet discusses what prompted the move…
Andrew McBarnet tries to fathom the future of permanent seismic reservoir monitoring projects.A big pow-wow of industry specialists at the end of last month in Trondheim, Norway, was hoping to get to the bottom of the future prospects for…
Andrew McBarnet reviews the implications of a new report on the value proposition of E&P data and how it is managed.To get the most mileage out of any personal achievement, it is always better if the recognition comes from a third party. This…
Andrew McBarnet weighs up the value of research in the E&P marine geoscience sector and draws some surprising conclusions.We hear a great deal about the hard to find oil which needs to be discovered if the world's supply needs are to be met in the coming decades before…
The latest top end 3D graphics cards can now support GPU rendering for volume visualization and instantaneous processing of volume data. Paradigm's Huw James, Evgeny Ragoza and Tatyana Kostrova explain what this generation of cards makes possible…
It’s amazing how little it takes for perspective on a business to change more or less overnight and be seen through a completely fresh set of lenses. Andrew McBarnet reviews some surprising developments.A month or so ago at the annual meeting…
The overhaul of the reservoir model of the giant Forties oilfield – from data management to full field simulation – is described here by operator Apache North Sea’s Jeffery Pyle and Schlumberger’s Gordy Shanor.Production from the Forties field began in 1975…
One or two recent asides from major seismic contractor bosses implies that they expect that the global seismic fleet to move closer to some kind of equilibrium next year where the supply of vessels is no longer so out of kilter with the demand for survey work…