Shearwater Geo seeing rising demand for multi-client, OBN seismic acquisition offshore

Shearwater Geoservices has issued an update on its current offshore programs in a results statement.

The company’s streamer acquisition activities have focused of late in the North Sea and offshore East Coast Canada, Brazil, India and Australia.

Earlier this year, the company completed a survey related to Spirit Energy’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) project for the Morecambe Bay gas fields in the East Irish Sea.

Offshore India, the ROV vessel SW Tasman has been acquiring a large ocean-bottom node (OBN) survey for ONGC, deploying more than 4,000 of the in-house developed Pearl node in a range of water depths.

Work got underway in April on a multi-client survey over the Pelotas basin offshore Brazil. This is due to complete shortly, with Shearwater then processing the data.

The company has booked further sales offshore Namibia and the UK, and it signed an memorandum of understanding in June with Petrobras on joint research and innovation for seismic processing and acquisition.

The five-year agreement establishes a platform to support work on innovative technologies to improve subsurface insights while also reducing the time, cost and environmental impact of seismic acquisition projects.

It is in addition to the company’s existing collaboration with Petrobras concerning its Marine Vibroseis technology and Reveal software licensing.

Market activity has slowly been increasing with more tenders coming into the market, but tendering processes remain impacted by permit uncertainty and general process delays. So there remains continued uncertainty over when projects will materialize.

In the OBN sector, there are larger tenders in Brazil but with low returns. So Shearwater is bidding selectively for new projects with a focus, leveraging its SW Tasman and Pearl node project arrangement.

Demand is rising for a multi-client contract model, the company added, under which clients look to fast-track their E&P projects through using existing permitting conducted by a contractor.

Overall, oil and gas companies have increased their capex budgets for 2024 and growth opportunities are also emerging in CCS and offshore wind.

While market activity in the year to date has been slower than expected, the pipeline of potential projects for the coming winter season is stronger than around the same time last year.