A conventional industry approach is to curtail seismic activity during a downturn, focusing on limiting new exploration and drilling production wells instead. This paper demonstrates how maintaining investment in high-quality 3D seismic during the last downturn, together with selective exploration, quality geoscience, application of new technologies, and efficiently maturing discoveries to early cash flow, was successful in sustaining future production while deploying capital efficiently.
Challenge in Oman Block 6
Investment in 3D seismic does not contribute to immediate cash flow and, when funds are scarce, is an early candidate for cost reductions. By mid-2014, the seismic sector was the worst-performing segment in the upstream industry. However, without continued investment in seismic, future exploration success is threatened.
