Seismic survey vessel owners are benefiting from new contracts and demand growth as energy companies invest in offshore exploration and production assets
Oslo, Norway-listed seismic surveyors are gaining orders and charters for their vessels and services, providing year-on-year improvement in vessel utilisation and revenues.
TGS is the latest to win a contract for offshore seismic activity that highlights the value of shooting these surveys over existing oil and gas fields.In April, it secured an award for acquisition of a 3D survey using ocean-bottom nodes (OBNs) deployed in shallow waters offshore Trinidad to last around 80 days, beginning in July 2025.
“Our OBN technology continues to be the preferred choice of the industry and exposes TGS to clients’ production budgets and asset optimisation initiatives,” said TGS chief executive Kristian Johansen.
This contract will employ one of TGS’s six seismic survey ships in Q3 and Q4 2025. The Norwegian company already has high utilisation of its fleet.
In Q1 2025, of total fleet operating days, 37% were on contracts, 36% on multi-client work, 11% transiting between jobs and 13% on standby with just 3% in shipyards.
“We are pleased with the Q1 2025 asset utilisation, showing a significant year-on-year improvement,” said Mr Johansen. “Additionally, we saw healthy multi-client activity levels, particularly in frontier areas, and higher-than-expected investments in new data this quarter.”
TGS expects Q1 2025 multi-client investment to be around US$130M.
“Despite short-term uncertainty in geopolitics, TGS is well positioned to help our clients realise exploration ambitions from a combination of a strong balance sheet, leading assets and technologies and the world’s largest multi-client data library.”
