Technology-Driven Seismic Solutions

The CGG group is a global participant in the oilfield services industry providing a wide range of seismic data acquisition, processing and geoscience services and software to clients in the oil and gas exploration and production business. It is also a global manufacturer of geophysical equipment .

In 2001, the gross amount of expenditure on Research and Development by the CGG Group represented almost 5% of total revenues. The research thrust focused on a continued improvement in the productivity of our geophysical services and on the development of new technologies.

After undertaking a far-reaching program to consolidate our resources in 2001, the CGG Group stepped up the massive implementation of new data processing technologies by installing more than 6,000 PC clusters mainly in its London and Houston centers. It also launched one of the most powerful data centers in Europe in Redhill, UK, to serve CGG’s Eastern Hemisphere centers. R&D efforts have not only focused on improving our expertise concerning clusters, but also on developing tools to simplify the work of our production centers and thereby bring new productivity gains.

In 2002, CGG has introduced a brand new family of integrated products, the Vista family following on from its offering of integrated services for 4D data processing to optimize hydrocarbon recovery. Since its launch at the 2001 SEG convention, A+ Processing , which, for the first time in the history of the seismic industry, takes into account the anisotropic property of the underground rock layers, to provide oil companies with a better image of their reservoir, is being used as a standard. Optimization of our tools for pre-stack time and depth imaging on PC clusters is, without doubt, the most significant event in R&D of 2001. This technological breakthrough enjoyed noticeable success with our clients

More generally in geophysics, 2001 capitalized on the advances made in 2000, notably in the realms of imaging. CGG also maintained a market share of over 75% in client-dedicated centers, and took advantage of its client-dedicated 4D centers to mature its expertise in 4D data processing. On the basis of their strong commercial reactivity and good client proximity, CGG’s regional centers performed well in 2001 and continue to play a key role in guaranteeing our clients worldwide access to our technology .