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- Volume 18, Issue 6, 2000
First Break - Volume 18, Issue 6, 2000
Volume 18, Issue 6, 2000
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Shareholder value looks to be main guide as major oil companies reset their goals after two years of upheaval
By A. McBarnetAs oil companies reap unprecedented profits from the recent highs in oil price, Andrew McBarnet takes at look what oil industry leaders are saying in public about the future of their business. Competitive they may be, but there is a remarkable unanimity among the major oil companies about their view of the business which they dominate and the world in which they operate. At the moment companies are basking in the glow of financial results which can only be described as a spectacular rebound from the oil price and restructuring turbulence of 1998-99, but the company chairmen confess there is a lot of work ahead to satisfy 'shareholder value', the touchstone of all undertakings. First, those results. ExxonMobil, the biggest of them all, reported first quarter earnings for 2000 of $3350 million excluding the merger expenses and gains on regulatory divestitures, an improvement of 108%. Net income of $3480 million was a quarterly record and improvement of 135% from the equivalent period the period before. The story at the other supermajors Shell and BP Amoco was much the same. The Shell Groupís adjusted earnings were an all time record of $3129 million, double the previous year, and reported net income for the quarter at $3335 million was also record. BP Amoco registered a first quarter replacement cost profit before exceptional items of $2707 million, which was a record increase over the first quarter of 1999 of a staggering 256%. Looking just a little down the food chain, much the same success has been achieved. Chevron reported a first quarter net income of $1044 million, more than three times the equivalent figure in 1999 and the record operating earnings of $1106 million were nearly four times last yearís figure. Texaco's normalized earnings for the first quarter were $602 million, the highest quarter since 1981. Earnings at aspiring supermajor TotalFinaElf are harder to decipher and compare, because consolidation has been so recent, but the group's first quarter report suggests a 71.6% increase in consolidated sales over the same period last year. All these major conglomerations recognize that their exceptional performances have been facilitated mainly by the extraordinary turnaround in the price of oil. Brent crude was ticking along nicely at $19 per barrel in early 1997 before dropping, at one point to less than $10 per barrel last year. Earlier this year Brent had vaulted to over $30 per barrel for a short period. A clear concern for industry leaders is whether the volatility of the past two years will continue. The consensus seems to be that we are in for a period of greater stability although, given that the price lows of 1998/99 were not predicted by the majors, this may not be totally reassuring.
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Western man ushers in new era at PGS
By A. McBarnetAs appointments go, the arrival of Chris Usher at PGS is one of the more interesting of late signalling a new emphasis in the companyís business strategy. Andrew McBarnet spoke to the man in question. The emergence of Petroleum GeoServices (PGS) as a major hitter in the geophysical services business must count as one of the great industry success stories of the 1990s. But Chris Usher, newly recruited from Baker Hughes Western Geophysical, believes that some of the story has still to be told and that he is the man destined to tell it. From his vantage point working at Western, Usher lived through the period which saw the founding of PGS in 1991 by a team of ex-Geco executives. Like everyone else, he watched the company vault to the forefront with what at the time was a highly innovative approach to 3D marine seismic acquisition. PGS's instant success was based on the revolutionary technology offered by the Ramform design vessel designed to maximize productivity. The delta-shaped Ramforms, with their 40†m beams offered a quantum leap in the number of streamers which a seismic vessel could tow. PGS made eight streamers the norm and proved that 10 and even 12 streamers were workable with correspondingly impressive km2 acquisition rates. This was not just a technology-led advance. The company was also aggressive in its building of a 3D non-exclusive seismic data library. PGS's dramatic entrée undoubtedly put pressure on the competition. In addition, the market for seismic - both proprietary and non-exclusive - seemed to offer limitless opportunities for new technology vessels as deep water acreage worldwide appeared to be opening up for exploration and production. The result was a spate of new buildings and upgrades in the late 1990s by virtually every player in the market. Unfortunately the hoped-for survey opportunities turned into something of a mirage, impacted by oil price woes and oil company consolidations.
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Source signal estimation - attenuation of the sea-bottom reflection error from near-field measurements
More LessKnowing the far-field signature (pulse shape) of a marine seismic source array allows deconvolution of the shot-to-shot variations of the signature, improving consistency of data quality. With the increasing need for higher quality data, suitable for high resolution reservoir monitoring and time-lapse imaging, source-singature deconvolution becomes a requirement. Discussion of the relative merits of the Notional Source Method compared to other methods of estimating the farfield signature are not presented in this article, the reader is reffered Laws et al. (1998) for such a discussion. For further details of the method itself the reader is referred to Zilkowski et al. (1982) and Parkes et al. (1984). The Notional Source Method is proprietary to Schlumberger and is implemented in theTRISOR digital airgun control system.
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 42 (2024)
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Volume 41 (2023)
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Volume 40 (2022)
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Volume 39 (2021)
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Volume 38 (2020)
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Volume 37 (2019)
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Volume 36 (2018)
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Volume 35 (2017)
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Volume 34 (2016)
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Volume 33 (2015)
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Volume 32 (2014)
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Volume 31 (2013)
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Volume 30 (2012)
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Volume 29 (2011)
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Volume 28 (2010)
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Volume 27 (2009)
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Volume 26 (2008)
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Volume 25 (2007)
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Volume 24 (2006)
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Volume 23 (2005)
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Volume 22 (2004)
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Volume 21 (2003)
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Volume 20 (2002)
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Volume 19 (2001)
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Volume 18 (2000)
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Volume 17 (1999)
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Volume 16 (1998)
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Volume 15 (1997)
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Volume 14 (1996)
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Volume 13 (1995)
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Volume 12 (1994)
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Volume 11 (1993)
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Volume 10 (1992)
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Volume 9 (1991)
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Volume 8 (1990)
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Volume 7 (1989)
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Volume 6 (1988)
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Volume 5 (1987)
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Volume 4 (1986)
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Volume 3 (1985)
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Volume 2 (1984)
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Volume 1 (1983)