A range of oil companies and their suppliers saw their market value enrichened Monday for reasons that included oil skipping its usual end-of-month dip in December, as WTI and Brent in 2020 still looking like 2019.
With oil stable, even “minor” management moves and drill bit gains were making an impact on company capital. Norway-based Argentina player, Interoil Exploration & Production, saw its stock most at 10% before settling at nearer 7% on oilfield news.
That news was that partner and operator, Selva Maria Oil, drilled its Campo exploration well down to 2,247 meters, when logging revealed conditions of fine sandstone worthy of completion and testing. Gas shows of 193,000 parts per million were shown, and that bodes well for area gas production with markets nearby.
Noreco, which was up over six percent in midday trading announced that it was buying back shares after a successful debt sale to fund the takeover and renewal of former Shell assets in Denmark. Noreco, which produces about 42,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, has already begun earning from two months worth of ownership in those assets.
Among suppliers, drilling outfit Seadrill was up nearly 6%, and seismic survey outfit PGS had made gains of three percent by mid-afternoon. Energy investor North Energy, construction and engineering outfits Subsea 7 and Aker BP and surveyor Polarcus were also up over a percentage point.
Seismic signs
The most bellwether-like stock might be PGS. Its gains mark the interest of the oil companies everywhere, and the company this week announced it’s not only developing a new, greener tech for seismic shoots, but will offer new data for the latest Norwegian acreage awards.
PGS GeoStreamer data library coverage of Norway’s 2019 Awards in Predefined Areas (just announced by Oslo) will be augmented by new, related acquisition projects in 2020. New areas of the arctic Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Viking Graben and Central Graben will be shot.
“We have good coverage in the APA awarded areas, with opportunities to grow the recent GeoStreamer X acquisition, opening up prospects in this area with improved illumination and data quality,” Gunhild Myhr, VP New Ventures at PGS, was quoted as saying.
“Modern GeoStreamer multi-sensor data, preprocessed and imaged using the latest technology and tailored workflows will make it easier to find nearfield potential, spot hidden targets, rank, and de-risk exploration in mature areas.”
At the weekend, Oslo-based PGS also brought news of a second Lebanese licensing round. Applications for Blocks 1, 2, 5, 8 and 10 are due by the end of April for “frontier acreage already covered by modern 2D and 3D seismic data (and) … the reassurance of proven hydrocarbon plays and recent discoveries in the vicinity”.
Lebanon might be reeling amid political strife, but all sociohistorical outcomes suggest a continued need for PGS support offshore as an official provider of resource data.