The Alamo City hosted the 77th annual meeting of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) this year. San Antonio, with its lovely Riverwalk and associated attractions, drove attendance to nearly 8,500. The city, and the current up-cycle in the E&P industry, contributed to an overall feeling of optimism throughout the show. We were glad to have so many positive people in attendance, given all that we had going on.
Our ‘main event’ was the roll-out of our new corporate identity. From now on, I/O will be known as ION. We started hinting that something was brewing about a month ago. But speculation was rampant on what was to be announced. Guesses ranged from the launch of a new product (a great choice, given that we launched FireFly at the SEG two years earlier) to a charity mud-wrestling event featuring Bob Peebler and a couple of other industry CEO’s! We actually like this idea, and will place all of our money on Bob to prevail should it ever take place.
But the time had come for a change. The Input/Output name reflected our heritage in land seismic instrumentation. Proud as we are of this legacy, we simply had outgrown our roots. Through a series of acquisitions over the last decade, we’ve added capabilities in marine equipment, command & control software (Concept Systems), advanced data processing (GX Technology), and data libraries. Our customer base has expanded beyond the contractors to now include oil & gas companies. And our strategy envisions direct collaboration with our customers so that we can design and deliver tailored imaging solutions that address their most vexing business problems.
We chose ION for a number of reasons. One is that the addition of the ‘N’ provides a simple departure from I/O, conveying either I/O Next or I/O Now depending on one’s time horizon. In addition, we liked the fact that ions are constantly in flux, combining and recombining in all sorts of dynamic forms. This restless energy reflects our employee spirit, how we have come to be as a company, and how we see solutions coming together for our customers. You can learn more about our new identity by visiting our branding page or by viewing the video we used to launch our new identity on Tuesday morning at the show.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering…just about everyone loves it (to be fair, some of our competitors apparently didn’t, which means we love it even more!). Our employees are raving – they feel unified under the new brand and own the notion of what it stands for. Our existing and prospective customers were coming up to us saying that they felt the ION brand better reflected what we had become and what we could offer in the way of products, services, and solutions. We achieved exactly what we wanted to with the rebranding, and then some. Thanks to all within the extended ION family for their support and encouragement!
On the product side, we announced that PGS was going to become our first commercial customer for DigiFIN. They plan to outfit the full six-streamer spread of the Atlantic Explorer with the DigiFIN system for lateral streamer control. Combined with their earlier-in-the-year purchase of DigiRANGE II, PGS will now have control of its full streamer spread and be able to implement the most complex HD3D, 4D, and complex azimuthsurveys.
We also featured XinChang in a big way. In August, our GXT Imaging Solutions group delivered the final results on this large-scale, full-wave imaging project to the Sinopec subsidiary that had commissioned it. We’ve been waiting for some eye-popping results related to full-wave, and now we have them. At XinChang, we helped identify the most productive horizons in this thin, highly fractured gas reservoir using a series of advanced processing and geophysical techniques. Based on our interpretation, Sinopec’s subsidiary drilled the most productive well in the Sichuan province. And while we were at SEG, we were informed they just drilled another. For those so inclined, more information is available in a case study that GXT presented to packed, invitation-only audiences on several occasions during the show.
On the community affairs front, ION announced a contribution of $400,000 to the SEG Foundation. This investment will allow the SEG to construct a state-of-the-art, web portal that enables members to exchange the latest technical approaches and successes, and to collaborate with one another on some of the most challenging problems in geophysics.
To cap off the show, we held a customer appreciation event that featured our favorite SEG performer – Dilana of Rockstar Supernova fame. She and fellow Supernova finalist, Magni, captivated the hundreds who were in attendance with new renditions of old classics as well as some new material from a soon-to-be-released album. She brought down the house and absolutely delighted all who were in attendance. Rock on Dilana…we hope you join us in Vegas for SEG ’08 next November!!!
