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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room
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To: energyplay who wrote (14479)11/3/2002 9:30:10 PM
From: Sharp_End_Of_Drill  Read Replies (3) of 206316
 
Energyplay - seismic was, is, and probably will be dead.

The combination of the majors resulted in their inhouse seismic libraries and prospect lists being merged. What often happened was the list of exploration prospects was long enough that between them, and development drilling, there wasn't any demand for new exploration plays.

I know for certain that happened when BP bought Vastar - with the end result that most of Vastar's hot prospects got shelved because the BP criteria for size and level of risk were not met. Multiply that by X number of mergers and the effect is large.

The effect of development drilling has been even greater, few companies are out plying for new discoveries as many are in a mode of developing known prospects.

Also, as Jim P has pointed out PGO kept shooting seismic on spec during the downturns - with the effect that there is an oversupply.

And, to cap it off the gains in efficiency from the new boats has been tremendous. I don't have the figures at hand, but the new boats can trail a much larger number of streamers - and much wider and longer ones too - so each new boat is capable of doing the work of several older ones.

Throw in a dash of speculative overbuilding, stir, add heat - then you can serve up a meal of companies that grew too fast choking under the load of their debt.

Sharp
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