Over 4,700 E&P professionals gathered in Vienna for the 68th annual meeting of the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE). ION was well represented and, based on activity in the booth and in private venues throughout Vienna, interest in the company’s products and services continues to grow.
Ironically, even though Vienna is 300 nautical miles from the nearest body of open water, one of the hits of the show was DigiFIN. Seismic vessel operators and oil & gas companies alike were interested in this latest innovation from ION’s marine imaging systems division. As the requirement to tow more streamers closer together continues to build, DigiFIN promises to address a significant need throughout the industry. Though it’s still in the beta stage of field trials, DigiFIN grew its backlog along the shores of the Danube. Our customers look forward to a successful late 2006 launch.
Not to be outdone, FireFly continued its momentum. Several acquisition contractors and oil & gas companies visited with us to learn more about the FireFly vision and to get an update on product development and the upcoming field trials for BP and Apache. We were encouraged by several requests for a second field trial program in the EAME region and will continue our efforts to pull together a second group of early adopters on the ‘other side of the pond.’
Customers always like to see data, and we hope we didn’t disappoint them in Vienna. We shared great examples from several key projects we’ve been involved in around the world. There was tremendous interest in our new reverse time migration (RTM) technique, which is showing great promise in imaging steeply dipping reflectors such as those found along salt flanks. In the full-wave area, we shared some startling images that were acquired from the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico using VectorSeis Ocean (VSO) and from a 4D land field trial we have underway in North America.
Other products and services also attracted significant interest. Concept Systems continued to sign up customers for its recently released Orca command & control system for streamer operations. We showcased the latest version of System Four – currently being rolled-out to field crews around the world, the middleware at the heart of System Four3 promises to deliver significant productivity and reliability improvements in the most challenging land acquisition environments. And GXT engaged customers about recent additions to the Span data library family, notably in West Africa and India.
Throughout Vienna in 2006, visitors from around the world are celebrating the 250th anniversary of one of the greatest composers of all time – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We hope that the sounds we were hearing in the halls of Vienna become ‘music to our ears’ for a long time to come.
