Annual Report 2011 - PGS

Operations
MultiClient
Exploration pathfinders
Enabling exploration success
Global reach and local presence
The world’s most diverse high-technology MultiClient library
Over the cycle, PGS has
experienced MultiClient
profitability to be less
volatile than proprietary
contract work
Securing Strong
Performance Through
the Cycle
MultiClient manages, markets and sells all
the seismic data that PGS acquires on a nonexclusive
basis to multiple customers.
MultiClient has two main revenue sources:
pre-funding and late sales. Customers who prefund
surveys are committed to license the data
during acquisition and processing. Pre-funding
survey revenues are recorded on a percentageof-completion
basis. The other key revenue
stream, late sales, represents sales of data sets
that were previously acquired, processed and
integrated into the MultiClient library.
Value Proposition
The MultiClient business unit helps PGS’
clients achieve exploration success by locating
commercially viable hydrocarbon resources
more rapidly, more cost effectively and with
less risk. PGS and its MultiClient customers
share the same investment rationale: to acquire
survey data in regions with good prospects
of finding oil or natural gas. MultiClient’s
Reservoir Services organization, a team of
experts in geology, geophysics and reservoir
interpretation and characterization, initially
localize surveys optimally and enable PGS to
effectively profile the geology and prospectivity
of survey regions.
The PGS MultiClient business unit leverages the
full range of PGS acquisition and data processing
technologies and fleet capacity. A range of
MultiClient business models provide targeted
solutions to meet each client’s survey objectives.
Over the cycle, PGS has experienced
MultiClient profitability to be less volatile than
proprietary contract work. This is linked to a
number of factors. Firstly, solid pre-funding
is required, in the range of 80-120 percent of
capitalized cash investments on average, which
de-risks the initial investment. Secondly, late
sales occur in subsequent years that are, to
an extent, detached from the vessel pricing
scenarios that develop in the contract market.
PGS can ensure optimal performance through
the cycle by proactively managing its vessel
and processing capacity between the Contract
and MultiClient business units. In a soft
contract market more capacity is allocated to
MultiClient and vice versa.
Why MultiClient?
The traditional advantage of MultiClient 3D
in mature basins is that it combines several
individual survey requirements over licensed
acreage into a single large seismic survey.
This reduces participants’ costs and makes
project turnaround considerably more efficient
than acquiring each survey independently.
Participating clients also gain a better
understanding of the surrounding geology and
exploration potential.
In areas that are more frontier, with more open
acreage, MultiClient 2D and 3D surveys provide
a cost-effective way for oil companies to gain
critical insight into new areas before making
significant investment decisions, such as
selecting blocks and determining pricing ahead
of bidding in a licensing round.
MultiClient Library
PGS owns a substantial international library
of marine MultiClient seismic data acquired
in all of the world’s major oil and gas basins.
22 PGS Annual Report 2011