Two more seismic ships for Eastern Echo

Scan completes GEMS/DEOCOM survey off Sri Lanka
Scan Geophysical has successfully completed a specialised 2-D seismic acquisition programme for GEMS International NV (GEMS) offshore Sri Lanka.
The survey was carried out on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka (DEOCOM) and is part of its outer continental shelf delimiting studies for EEZ (exclusive economic zone) purposes. Scan’s Geo Searcher acquired the?survey.
“Both GEMS and DEOCOM were satisfied with our performance and results and actually provided Scan with one extra week’s worth of extension work,” said Kjell Karlsson, vice president of marketing and sales for Scan. “We are looking forward to similar specialised seismic projects in the near-future as our vessel is well suited for this kind of work,” he added.
Scan Geophysical has?also announced that the company successfully completed its 2-D seismic acquisition programme for Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) in the Caribbean region on time.
Scan Resolution acquired close to 4,200km?of 2-D seismic during the last six weeks using 8,000m streamers and a 4,000in3 source.
“Our vessel, its crews and our operational support team all performed well,” commented Mr Karlsson. “That high level of performance, plus an excellent working relationship with PDVSA, resulted in a smooth operation from beginning to end.”
After a short port call for re-supply, Scan Resolution was due to?transit to Venezuela to continue working for PDVSA on other seismic projects.

Wavefield Inseis secures seismic contract west of Shetlands
Wavefield Inseis?has been contracted by BP to carry out a seismic survey to the west of the Shetland Islands. The project, due to commence in May 2008, is expected to take 35-45 days and will involve a 4-D marine survey within block 204 of the UK Continental Shelf.
Located over the Schiehallion, Loyal and Foinaven fields, approximately 190km west of the islands, the survey will be acquired by one of Wavefield Inseis’ large capacity 3-D vessels and a source ship for undershooting.
This is the first time that the companies have worked together, and the 4-D survey will rely on Wavefield Inseis’?acquisition technology and experience of 4-D marine projects.
“The agreement with BP represents another significant step forward for Wavefield Inseis,” commented Rick Donoghue, Wavefield Inseis’ vice president sales and marketing. He continued, “We are delighted to be awarded this 4-D survey and look forward to working with BP on many other projects.”
On the other side of the globe, OMV has also awarded a contract to Wavefield Inseis for a major 2-D project offshore New Zealand. The programme of over 17,000km is due to commence in October this year and will be acquired by the 2-D vessel?Discoverer II over areas of both the Great South Basin and the Taranaki Basin.

CGGVeritas promotes updated seismic fleet
CCGVeritas says the creation of the new CGGVeritas fleet of seismic survey vessels has produced not only the largest fleet in the industry, but also what it claims is “the most flexible and adaptable fleet in terms of streamer capacity and acquisition configurations.”?
The company is currently in a position to offer vessels all around the world, optimising global availability and servicing the whole range of market demands.?
“The specific geophysical requirements of any market or project can be met, including long-offset, single-streamer 2-D; high-capacity multi-streamer 3D; densely sampled highly repeatable 4D; and wide-azimuth, multi-azimuth, high-resolution and long-offset surveys for imaging complex substrates,” said the company in a statement. “Thus our fleet, with its combination of availability and flexible configurations targeted at specific market segments, affords us an unrivalled capability.”
“Through the difficult years in the seismic industry, as seismic spending dramatically decreased, it became an industry characteristic that seismic vessels were rarely retired, but were continually renewed and modified through cycles of upgrades and re-builds.?We are now entering a new era where our clients recognise increasingly the value that advanced seismic technology can bring to the reduction of risk associated with exploration and development,” said the company. “Accordingly, CGGVeritas commenced a programme to not only expand our global marine acquisition capability and to align our fleet performance with the high-end requirements of the market, but also to achieve strategic renewal.”
“Today, having been active in upgrading our fleet continuously, we are moving ahead with our renewal programme. This consists of retiring progressively the older, less flexible hulls and replacing them with high-end, advanced specification vessels specifically configured to deliver optimum performance and to comply with, and surpass, industry requirements far into the future.”
“CGGVeritas is perfectly placed to follow this strategy,” claimed the company, “as we own many of our vessels and the charter periods for the others are offset, so that we retain maximum flexibility regarding our fleet size and configuration over the next 10 years.”

Bergen Yards completes conversion of Malene Østervold
Bergen Yards in Norway has completed the conversion of Malene Østervold for seismic work on behalf of Wavefield Inseis, and the ship has?started operations in the North Sea.?The vessel, which had?already?been converted several times, has a history as a?trawler, seismic ship and coastguard boat.
The vessel was drydocked at Halsnøy in May this year. During the conversion, 300 tonnes of new steel were?fabricated and fitted, mainly for hull sponsons and a seismic hangar. Most of the auxiliary ship and pipe systems have been renewed and upgraded.
New machinery and main switchboard rooms have been arranged below the main deck to accommodate new generators, HP air compressors, main switchboard and transformers.
Malene Østervold?is specifically designed for long offset 2-D or small 3-D acquisition.

SCAN Stigandi delayed
SCAN Geophysical?has been informed that delivery of?SCAN Stigandi will be delayed compared with the date announced in the company’s stock exchange notice of 20 August.
The upgrade is taking place at Irving Shipbuilding in?Halifax, Canada. Neptune Offshore AS, which is?supervising?the upgrade on behalf of the owner Neptune Seismic AS, is in discussions with the shipyard to agree on a new delivery date.
Based on this information, SCAN has estimated a delayed start up of operations until early 2008, compared to?late November 2007, as previously announced.

SBX completes conversion of Harrier Explorer
SeaBird Exploration Ltd (SBX) has announced that the?conversion of Harrier Explorer into a 2-D/source vessel has been?completed, and it has successfully completed sea trials from?Delfzjil, The Netherlands. The ship has?now?commenced a four year charter with Petroleum Geo-Services.

Odim secures further order from Eastern Echo
The Norwegian handling specialist Odim has secured an order worth some NKr160 million from Eastern Echo for automated handling solutions for 3-D?seismic survey vessels.
The?contract covers complete aft deck systems with the capacity to handle up to 12 streamers apiece for delivery in 2008 for?two newbuildings, conditional on the availability of construction finance.
In addition, the contract includes?upgrading the handling capacity of four other ships from 10 to 12 streamers each (see separate item in this feature).

Wavefield Inseis completes purchase of Optoplan
An option to purchase the remaining shares of Norwegian optical sensor specialist Optoplan AS from former owner Weatherford has been exercised by Wavefield Inseis.
The option was available until the end of 2008 and was part of the original deal when the company purchased an initial 35 per cent of Optoplan in December 2006.
The 100 per cent ownership has been accelerated so that the company can move ahead aggressively with bringing to market the Optowave 4C permanent OBC system which has been developed by Optoplan, and developing further applications of its optical sensing technology.
“During the period of shared ownership with Weatherford we have gained sufficient confidence in Optoplan’s best in class employees and unique IP portfolio to take this to the next level,” said Wavefield Inseis chief executive officer Atle Jacobsen. “The fibre optic reservoir monitoring system is developed to a fully commercial product complete with high volume manufacturing. This generates a solid platform for us to further develop the company into a world leader in optical sensing technology for the E&P industry.”
Morten Eriksrud, chief executive officer of Optoplan, said: “The new ownership will give us a unique opportunity to access the seismic market with our fibre optic sensing technology. With its aggressive marketing strategy, Wavefield Inseis is a perfect partner for us.”

WesternGeco expands wide-azimuth surveys in Gulf of Mexico
WesternGeco has?announced?an expansion of its multi-client wide-azimuth (WAZ) survey in the?Gulf of Mexico as a result of underwriter demand for high-quality sub-salt imaging and optimised data resolution.
The E-Octopus project is in its third phase of acquisition and WesternGeco will add a fourth phase in November, with a fifth phase early in the first quarter of 2008. These WAZ surveys offer the unique advantage of more precise base and edge of salt definition through the integration of magneto-tellurics (MT, a geophysical technique that uses naturally-occurring – or man-made –electromagnetic fields to probe the structure of the earth), gravity and Q-Marine data through MMCI multi-measurement constrained imaging.
“We are currently conducting targeted MT surveying in the most challenging imaging areas for all phases of the E-Octopus programme,” said Aaron Gatt Floridia, vice president of WesternGeco Electromagnetics. “Previous pilot studies using marine MT have successfully indicated salt thickness variation. Based on these results, we are offering the addition of integrated MT measurements as part of our WAZ service. This technology step-change and the project expansion will greatly improve the critical base salt and sub-salt images required by our clients.”
The E-Octopus project, the first multi-client wide-azimuth programme in the Gulf of Mexico, commenced in July 2006. Since then, more than 700 OCS blocks of wide-azimuth data have been acquired. The third phase of acquisition began in May 2007, which covers more than 450 OCS blocks of the highly prospective Green Canyon area in the Gulf of Mexico.
To date, more than?45 per cent of the survey area has been acquired and, in?response to client demand, a second Q-vessel WAZ fleet will arrive in November to begin additional acquisition in the Gulf of Mexico.
WesternGeco has also developed what it claims is the world’s first onboard pre-stack wave-extrapolation (WEM) depth migration in the third phase of E-Octopus through the use of its proprietary Q-Xpress technique. This provides quick-look migrated data volumes for interpretation, quality control, illumination and in-fill acquisition requirements.
The final deliverables for these surveys will include the latest state-of-the-art technologies such as anisotropic multi-azimuthal tomography, wavefield extrapolation
de-multiple and shot domain WEM with angle gathers. OSJ