New Trends in the Global Offshore Oil Geophysical Prospecting Market

Under the background of high oil prices, offshore and especially deep-sea oil and gas exploration and development have become investment hotspots of major international oil companies, and the offshore geophysical prospecting market is in a new round of rapid growth. 2007 is not only the year with the most frequent mergers and acquisitions in the marine geophysical prospecting market, but also the year when the major geophysical prospecting companies have divided up the marine geophysical prospecting electromagnetic market.

1. The market scale is constantly expanding, service capacity is becoming tight, and service costs still have room to rise further

In recent years, due to the booming offshore geophysical prospecting market, the market scale has been expanding. From 2002 to 2007, the global offshore geophysical technology service market size increased from US $ 2.1 billion to US $ 6 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 31%. According to PGS (Petro1eu Geo-Services) internal estimates, the global offshore geophysical technology service market will continue to expand, with an average annual growth rate of 23% in 2005-2010. According to the French Institute of Petroleum (IFP) statistics, due to the prosperity of the offshore geophysical prospecting market, the demand for seismic vessels, acquisition equipment, processing software and interpretation technology has shown a clear upward trend, and the utilization rate of offshore geophysical prospecting technology service equipment has become saturated. High utilization rates have led to a continuous rise in service prices, rising 10% in 2005 and more than 30% in 2006. As the tightness of global geophysical prospecting technical service capacity cannot be alleviated in the short term, coupled with the increasingly complex operating environment and rising raw material prices, equipment and labor costs, it is expected that there will still be room for further increase in marine geophysical prospecting technical service fees in the future.

2. The market develops into multiple regions, and a few large companies are still market leaders

International geophysical prospecting companies have more and more obvious market advantages, and the service market is gradually developing from a region dominated by the Middle East, the Gulf of Mexico, and the North Sea market to multi-regions; the two-dimensional team has decreased significantly, and the three-dimensional team has increased significantly. The Gulf of Mexico, West Africa, and Brazil will continue to lead the global trend of offshore oil and gas exploration and development. At the same time, many promising new offshore areas will be put into exploration, such as Southeast Asia and the Australian continental shelf, the Caspian Sea and the bipolar continental shelf. It is estimated that by 2015, more than 50% of global offshore oil production will come from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America; more than 70% of offshore gas production will come from North America, Western Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

At present, the geophysical prospecting technology service market is still in the situation of a few big geophysical companies oligopoly competition. According to PGS estimates, the total number of streamers in the four companies WesternGeco, CGGVeritas, PGS and Fugro will reach 814 in 2010, accounting for more than 80% of the global streamer market. In addition, the vast majority of seismic vessels with a maximum streamer capacity of more than 6 cables are in the hands of these 4 companies. In 2008, the world's largest streamer with a capacity of more than 6 cables will have 60 ships, of which the above 4 companies operate 48 ships, accounting for 80% of the global market.

3. Offshore oil and gas exploration costs continue to rise

In 2006, the average exploration and development cost of 228 companies worldwide was US $ 14.42 per barrel of oil equivalent, which was an increase of 29% compared with US $ 11.78 per barrel of oil equivalent in 2005, of which the cost of exploration increased by 77% to US $ 7.26 per barrel Oil equivalent. Rising costs of raw materials, equipment, labor, and technical services are the main reasons for the rapid increase in costs. Nordic Securities (Enski1da) analysis report shows that since 2004, the price of 3D contract seismic services and the cost of 3D data collection have gradually increased, and the price of 3D contract seismic services has increased most significantly (see Figure 1), from $ 5200 in 2006 / The square kilometer increased to $ 6,600 per square kilometer in 2007, an increase of 13.5%. It is expected that the contracted seismic service prices in 2008 and 2009 will further increase to $ 7,600 / km2 and $ 7,800 / km2, an increase of 1.3%.

4. Global demand for offshore geophysical equipment is strong

With the increase of investment in the marine geophysical prospecting market, the global supply of 3D seismic vessels and source vessels above 6 cables appears to be in short supply. Mainly manifested in the following: high utilization rate of marine seismic vessels and skyrocketing daily fees. Many seismic vessels have already signed contracts for many years, and there are almost no suitable drilling platforms on the market for sale. In addition, the demand for offshore solid towing units, offshore drilling platforms and floating production units is also increasing. In order to meet the growing demand for offshore geophysical exploration equipment, global offshore equipment manufacturers are working hard to increase equipment production capacity and expand output. Even so, deep-sea equipment could not be supplied in a timely manner, and orders for deep-sea equipment from French SERCE1 company have been arranged to 2010.