I/O aims to convert E&P industry to digital full wave imaging technology

Input Output, the company synonymous with the supply of land and marine seismic acquisition technology, is emerging from the turbulence of the last few years in the geophysical services industry, led by a man with a plan. Andrew McBarnet reports. Less than a year into the CEO job, Bob Peebler has already made some big changes at Input Output (I/O), convinced that the company has to catch a new wave of technology. ‘In the future,’ he says, ‘we don’t see the core competence of I/O as a manufacturer. It will be in working with E&P companies and contractors to understand imaging problems, developing technology, and being a project architect. We will continue to manage our part of the manufacturing process but more and more on an outsourced basis.’ The radical rethink of I/O’s business strategy is nothing more than you would expect from the man who spent much of the 1990s building Landmark Graphics into one of the big two integrated geoscience and engineering software solution companies, and the man often spoken of as an industry visionary. Peebler’s vision these days is that I/O should lead a new technology cycle based on digital full wave imaging, which has applications in the growing area of 4D and multi-component seismic surveys as well as conventional 2D and 3D. Since the mid 1990s I/O has been quietly pioneering digital sensor technology which makes imaging of both the ‘p’ and ‘s’ wave data possible, with momentum building in the last couple of years. A key ingredient is the MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) micro g accelerometer developed by I-O and produced at a facility in Stafford, Texas established in 1997. Last year saw the unveiling of the first commercial VectorSeis digital sensor and System Four cablebased recording unit for land seismic, offering multi-component data acquisition capability, something of a breakthrough for an industry thirsty for innovation.