2025: strong start for offshore seismic surveyors

Bergen, Norway-headquartered Shearwater Geoservices has commenced a second season of multi-client 3D seismic surveys in the Pelotas Basin in Brazil. 

Its 2015-built, 112-m surveys vessel, SW Empress, is expected to shoot 10,000 km² of surveys to help energy companies to identify geological structures for further investigation.

These surveys cover large areas of open acreage expected to be available in the fifth cycle of the Brazilian open-acreage release, and blocks awarded in the fourth cycle in 2024.

“Shearwater has already acquired over 26,000 km² of multi-client data, further establishing our position in the multi-client space,” said Shearwater chief executive Irene Waage Basili.

“Shearwater and Searcher Seismic have built a highly successful partnership in one of the world’s most prosperous frontier areas and the new season’s work is a great opportunity to extend this success.”

Pelotas Basin has similar geological properties to those found in the Orange Basin in Namibia and South Africa, an emerging hydrocarbon basin of rising importance due to recent discoveries.

On 2 January, Shearwater listed US$300M of bonds on the Euronext Oslo stock exchange after securing approval by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway, secured on 30 December 2024.

Oslo-listed Electromagnetic Geoservices (EMGS) is mobilising its survey ship Atlantic Guardian to India to begin a controlled-source electromagnetic survey for an unnamed energy company. EMGS has received a letter of intent covering another of these surveys with the 2001-built ship as an extension to its current contracted work.

This extension is expected to have a contract value of around US$10.0M, subject to the issuance of a callout order, which EMGS expects to receive in the coming weeks. This is likely to keep Atlantic Guardian busy for most of H1 2025. It was previously completing multi-client surveys in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea in Q4 2024. EMGS expects to record around US$9.4M in multi-client prefunding revenue Q4 2024.

French vessel owner Viridien reported strong growth in its geoscience division 2024 and launched the Laconia project to enhance the value of its seismic data in the Gulf of Mexico. It successfully executed its transform plan for the sensing and monitoring segment and achieved net cash flow of US$50M in 2024. Viridien forecast it would gain US$100M net cash flow in 2025.

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