Posts tagged ‘Joint Venture or Merger’
Palantir, Fekete Form Software Alliance
Palantir Solutions announced an alliance with Fekete Associates Inc., which provides reservoir engineering software and services to producing companies worldwide. Fekete’s F.A.S.T. Harmony™ is being integrated with Palantir Solutions’ planning tool PalantirCASH. The production forecasts flow directly into Palantir’s cashflow and portfolio models to create a seamless link between technical analysis, economic, financial and portfolio planning. The result is an integrated planning system that is efficient, responsive and dynamic. Changes in the technical or commercial environment can be modeled and updated on the fly as new business opportunities arise.
PalantirCASH is an economic evaluation system for doing accurate and reliable economic analyses in a secure and standardized manner. It allows planning teams and asset managers to access rapid economic valuations of global portfolios to enhance decision making.
F.A.S.T. Harmony is the core component to Fekete’s reserves evaluation and production analysis software toolkit. It brings together all of the accepted methods of evaluating reserves and forecasting production plus advanced methods for unconventional reservoirs.
Jason Ambrose, CEO and co-founder of Palantir Solutions, commented: “The synergy of integrating Fekete’s reservoir management and Palantir Solution’s economic planning brings a nose-to-tail production data analysis and reserves evaluation toolkit. Oil and gas companies with access to this rapid and accurate analysis will be at a natural competitive advantage.”
Kevin Dunn, Fekete’s VP of Software Business Development, added: “Fekete and Palantir Solutions are working with many progressive producers who want the efficiency and reliability that this solution will provide. The first implementations of these tools will give early adopters a competitive edge in the market.”
ION, BGP Team Up to Provide Global Seismic Products
ION and BGP have signed an agreement to create a joint venture that will provide land seismic products worldwide. The joint venture will align ION’s innovative land equipment business with BGP’s expertise and experience in land seismic operations to create a new enterprise with the resources, technology and experience required to provide state-of-the-art products and services on a global basis.
ION will significantly enhance its financial position through total cash proceeds of $175 million from BGP. BGP will receive a 51% interest in the joint venture and a 16.66% interest in ION. Prior to the joint venture closing, ION will also receive up to $40 million of bridge financing arranged by BGP. At the transaction’s closing, ION will refinance and reduce its long-term debt and receive an expanded replacement revolving line of credit. Overall, after closing ION expects to have over $100 million in liquidity from cash and spare capacity on its revolving line of credit.
ION CEO Bob Peebler commented: “Our Board of Directors and senior leadership team are delighted to be forging this transformative partnership with BGP. ION and BGP have been doing business together for more than two decades, with each company contributing to the other’s growth and success. This transaction will create not only a new global leader in land seismic equipment capable of seizing high-value opportunities in the fastest-growing geophysical markets, but also a financially stronger ION through a significant de-leveraging of the company.”
Wang Tiejun, President of BGP, added: “As an ION customer for many years, BGP has always been impressed with ION’s vision and products, which have proven to be capable of improving the operational efficiency and the safety and environmental effectiveness of land seismic acquisition. By joining forces through our planned joint venture, we believe we can combine BGP’s operational knowledge and experience and emerging land seismic product portfolio with ION’s innovative products and culture to become the leading land seismic technology company of the 21st century. It is the intention of both ION and BGP that our joint venture will provide products and field support services to all land seismic contractors around the world, not just to BGP. The sale of products and the provision of field-support services to both in-house BGP crews and third-party land seismic contractors is a proven industry model that will benefit the broader land contractor community and the hundreds of seismic crews that operate around the world.”
The transaction is subject to the completion of regulatory reviews and receipt of applicable approvals in the US and the People’s Republic of China, which are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2010. Prior to closing, ION and BGP will file a joint voluntary notice of the transaction for review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government inter-agency committee chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury.
The terms of the agreement have been unanimously approved by BGP and by ION’s Board of Directors and is not subject to approval by ION’s shareholders. ION’s current bank group has amended ION’s credit facility to the extent necessary to allow the transactions to proceed.
The joint venture will provide ION with preferred access to the world’s largest land seismic contractor, currently operating 110 seismic crews around the world. In addition to improved economies of scope and scale and enhanced supply-chain efficiencies, the joint venture will enable joint engineering teams to develop innovative, market-leading land recording systems, 3C (full-wave) sensors and vibroseis products.
Key Aspects of the Joint Venture
- ION will contribute its Land Imaging Systems assets and intellectual property to the joint venture, including its ARAM, Aries®, Scorpion®, and FireFly® product lines as well as its VectorSeis® land sensor and vibroseis businesses, but excluding ION’s Sensor geophone business. All other ION businesses – including ION’s Marine Imaging Systems, Concept Systems, Data Management Solutions, GXT Imaging Solutions, Integrated Seismic Solutions (ISS) and BasinSPANTM seismic data libraries – will be retained by ION and will not become part of the land joint venture.
- BGP will contribute land seismic equipment assets and intellectual property to the joint venture, including an innovative land recording system currently under development, its vibroseis business, and various complementary land seismic equipment businesses. BGP’s geophone business, including associated BGP geophone joint ventures with other parties, will be excluded.
- The joint venture will be governed by a board of directors consisting of representatives from both owners. The joint venture’s board will appoint management, approve strategic and operating plans, and govern the direction and performance of the company.
- After taking into account the value of tangible and intangible assets contributed to the joint venture by both parties, BGP’s cash investment to be paid to ION with respect to the joint venture will be $108.5 million.
Tierra, StatoilHydro Jointly Develop Seismic Imaging Software
StatoilHydro and Tierra Geophysical have signed a contract for joint development of seismic imaging software technology, which is expected to improve StatoilHydro’s ability to assess exploration and production targets in areas of complex geology.
Tierra President Dave Diller commented: “We are very pleased to be partnering with StatoilHydro on this project. StatoilHydro is one of the most technically adept companies in the world in geophysics, with broad expertise and experience. StatoilHydro aggressively pursues research, but they also enhance their internal projects by watching outside their company for new technology. Tierra has spent years optimizing our finite difference propagators, and combining that with StatoilHydro’s imaging expertise and experience is an ideal marriage of complimentary skills and technologies. Today people may think of Tierra as ‘The Forward Modeling Company,’ but the same underlying technology has other uses in seismic imaging, which this project will leverage.”
Rolf Helland, project manager in the StatoilHydro Exploration research program, said: “The development of these tools in collaboration with Tierra Geophysical is an important component in our strategic effort to increase our capability to determine improved, reliable images in complex geological settings with large velocity variations. One of the key criteria in such projects is fast imaging turnaround time, and this will be achieved using the finite difference core from Tierra. Tierra will be commercializing the software that is developed during the project. The first results from the project, a highly optimized reverse time migration (RTM), are available as both a software product and as services in the third quarter of this year.”
Aclaro, Charlotte Software Partner to Provide Optimization Solutions
Aclaro Softworks Inc. and Charlotte Software Systems LLC announced a partnership to provide optimization applications that will improve how oil and gas companies allocate capital and schedule projects. The integration of Charlotte Software’s optimization technology into Aclaro’s petroLook Forecast application will create a decision support platform for companies to manage their asset portfolio, create optimal operating and capital budgets, schedule projects and monitor the performance of capital programs in near-real time.
Constantly changing conditions require companies to revisit and revise their capital program and operating budget frequently over the course of the year. Many companies also have reduced staffing levels, leaving fewer resources available to conduct analysis required to create, manage and revise their budgets. Software applications that reduce the manual effort involved in these processes allow companies to manage their spending more efficiently without taxing their resources, and optimization technology enables improved decision-making workflows that can increase overall capital efficiency.
The petroLook Forecast application from Aclaro provides a platform for integrating, analyzing and reporting technical and financial data, while providing a secure and flexible work space. The petroLook actual-versus-forecast monitoring highlights both successes and problems in near-real time, allowing the company to take quick, corrective action.
By integrating Charlotte Software’s optimization technology into petroLook Forecast, users can gain further insight into how individual projects contribute to the overall success of the organization’s capital program, ensuring that the correct projects are included or excluded. After planning the capital program, schedule optimization will ensure that projects are executed in an order that maximizes overall return while respecting business, operational and regulatory constraints.
“We’ve been interested in extending the petroLook suite to include optimization in response to interest expressed by our clients, but until now we have not been able to find the right partner to do so,” said Christoph Faig, CEO of Aclaro. “The principals of Charlotte Software are recognized as leaders in the optimization software field, and with their technology and expertise we are confident that we will be able to provide an industry-changing solution.”
“Aclaro’s leadership position in the upstream oil and gas industry, combined with their petroLook platform, made Aclaro a natural partner for us,” said Kevin Kostiuk, CEO of Charlotte Software Systems. “Capital portfolio and drilling program optimization are sweet spots for our technology and great places to leverage our optimization platform. We are very pleased to partner with Aclaro to bring this new solution to the energy market.”
NOV, Schlumberger Form IntelliServ Joint Venture
National Oilwell Varco (NOV) and Schlumberger have created a joint venture to provide high-speed drillstring telemetry systems to improve the efficiency and safety of oil and gas operations. The IntelliServ joint venture is expected to accelerate development and delivery of intelligent drilling solutions through the expanded use of the IntelliServ® Broadband Network, a patented technology that provides high-resolution data in real time to and from the bottom of oil and gas wells as they are being drilled. IntelliServ also will provide along-string evaluation services that will enable real-time monitoring of drill string conditions, and an unlimited ability to actuate downhole tools on demand. The current speed of 57,600 bits per second is up to 20,000 times faster than the transmission speed that is available using conventional mud pulse technology.
NOV owns 55% of the joint venture and provides manufacturing, technical and operational support, while Schlumberger owns 45% and brings evaluation and measurement expertise, and will pursue the development of advanced drilling-related systems enabled by the IntelliServ Broadband Network. The joint venture will maintain the open access architecture of the IntelliServ Broadband Network and will seek to become the industry standard for all drilling tools utilizing high data transmission rates.
Pete Miller, Chairman, President and CEO of National Oilwell Varco, stated: “Our new joint venture with Schlumberger will permit us to better serve our customers by opening a range of new, intelligent drilling possibilities and expanding the global reach of the IntelliServ Broadband Network. We are excited about the possibilities this joint venture brings to the marketplace, and we look forward to working closely with Schlumberger to expand further the commercial use of IntelliServ.”
Commenting on the new arrangement, Andrew Gould, Chairman and CEO of Schlumberger, remarked: “The combination of our respective strengths in drilling measurements and telemetry brings a unique opportunity for a step-change in the development of technology capable of significantly improving drilling performance through continuous information about the well and the reservoir as the well is drilled.”
PetroComputing 