Seismic (public)

SNE Oilfield Operator Cairn Energy has announced a timetable for the development of the offshore oilfield that encompasses development concept selection this year and first oil between 2021 and 2023. Cairn, with a 40% working interest in three blocks offshore Senegal (Sangomar Deep, Sangomar Offshore, Rufisque Offshore) counts Australian independent Woodside (35%), Melbourne-based exploration junior Far Ltd (15%) and the Senegal National Oil Company, Petrosen (10%) as its JV partners. In...

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SUPERMAOR ExxonMobil has signed a sale and purchase agreement with Eni to acquire a 25% indirect interest in the natural gas rich Area 4 block, offshore Mozambique. In a joint statement the two companies said terms included a cash price of approximately US$2.8 billion and that the acquisition would be completed on a number of condition precedents being met, notably clearance from Mozambican and other regulatory authorities. Eni holds a 50% indirect share in the block via a 71.4% stake in...

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Australian listed oil and gas exploration, development and production company, Po Valley Energy Ltd (ASX: PVE), which has energy assets in northern Italy, has been granted the large onshore Torre del Moro oil exploration licence, located southeast of Bologna, in the eastern Po Valley region of Italy. Po Valley said the licence covers an area of 111km2 and contains a large, attractive oil exploration target. The licence has a six year initial exploration period. Its main exploration play is...

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Spectrum has completed of the 17,700 km2 Santos Campos Ph.2 2D seismic survey offshore Brazil. Spectrum said the new acquisition program was an outboard extension of Spectrum’s 2012 Santos Campos Phase 1 survey, and ties other programs in the Santos, Campos and Espirito Santo Basins producing a continuous dataset covering the prolific pre-salt oil fields in these basins. The survey has been acquired with a 12,000m cable to record data necessary to understand basin architecture as well as...

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MARINE geophysical company PGS was hit by a 33 per cent decline in revenue in the fourth quarter, but revealed in its quarterly report that its net loss had dropped to US$156.1 million compared to US$334 million in the corresponding period of 2015. The company’s net loss before tax was US$118.7 million, compared to US$357.1 million in the prior-year quarter. The company recorded impairment charges, excluding impairment of MultiClient library, of US$12 million for the full year 2016 and...

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Shell has submitted its decommissioning program for the Brent oil and gas field in the UK sector of the North Sea to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Shell said that after submission of the plan, an extended 60-day public consultation on recommendations to decommission the Brent field would commence. Located 115 miles north-east of the Shetland Islands, the Shell-operated field has produced about three billion barrels of oil equivalent since production...

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Marine seismic acquisition firm Polarcus has been awarded a 4D marine seismic acquisition project offshore West Africa. Polarcus announced the contract award but did not disclose financial details or reveal who the client was. The marine seismic player said that the project is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2017 and it would run for approximately one month.The project represents Polarcus' second in West Africa since the start of 2017. In early January it announced a letter...

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Multi-client geoscience data provider TGS returned to profit during the fourth quarter of 2016, reversing a substantial loss compared to the corresponding quarter of 2015. TGS reported a profit of US $23.9 million for 4Q 2016, as opposed to a US$121.5 million loss in the prior-year quarter. The company’s revenues increased to US$164.7 for the quarter, significantly up from US$131.7 million in Q4 2015. TGS said its backlog had decreased by 65% to US$51.2 million, compared to 4Q 2015,...

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Spectrum, in partnership with BGP, has announced the commencement of a 6,000 km Multi-Client 2D survey offshore Brazil in the Potiguar Basin. The new acquisition program is an extension of Spectrum's 2013 Potiguar phase 1 survey as the company said it continues to add to an extensive equatorial margin database offshore Brazil, which now totals more than 110,000 kilometers of modern 2D data and 11,300km2 of new 3D broadband data. The survey ties the Pitu discovery - announced by Petrobras...

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