BRIEFS

CGG has entered into an agreement with Topicus and Vela Software for the sale of CGG’s GeoSoftware business. Topicus will own 60% and Vela will own 40% of the business. Sophie Zurquiyah, CEO, CGG, said: ‘GeoSoftware has a leading position in its market niche. We expect that together they will further invest and develop the GeoSoftware product suite’. 

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate is gradually reopening Geobank, which is available for viewing core samples and extracting samples for studies. The facility has been closed since 4 January due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The NPD stores core samples and cuttings from exploration and production wells on the Norwegian shelf, as well as oil and reference samples for geochemical standards. 

Geodevice has expanded from its European base and opened an office in Calgary in order to serve the increasing demand for geophysical equipment and software in Canada, the US and Central and South America. The Canada office will also serve as the development centre for Tesseral Engineering – the software for near-surface seismic data modelling. 

Saudi Aramco has confirmed that company files were leaked after hackers reportedly demanded a $50 million ransom. Earlier press reports had suggested that 1 terabyte of Saudi Arabian Oil Co. data had been held by an extortionist. The state-owned driller was offered the chance to have the data deleted in return for $50 million in cryptocurrency, the AP said. 

BGP has completed a 3D seismic data acquisition for Oil & Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) in Pakistan within 8 months, 27 days ahead of schedule. The project comprised 600 km2 while both dynamite and vibroseis sources were used. The project concession area was challenging because of its complexity and varying terrain, e.g. desert, cultivation, swamp, salty lakes as well as a big junction of the Nara canal along with tributaries.