Company Announcement - Recently, the oil & gas exploration industry has experienced a significant shift in strategic emphasis towards value over volume. Recognising the need to accurately assess the future potential of licensed and unlicensed acreage, CGG’s Robertson group and Wood Mackenzie are launching EV2 – a brand new exploration valuation tool – with an advance release of ten ‘hot’ basins. EV2 combines Robertson’s unique geological knowledge with Wood Mackenzie’s industry-leading commercial analysis expertise to create the most formidable tool for exploration valuation available.

As leaders in their respective fields for over 40 years, Robertson and Wood Mackenzie have provided rigorous and impartial advice based on proprietary databases of the world’s oil and gas fields, wells; and subsurface data and analysis. With EV2 they have developed an innovative analysis tool which combines extensive geological risk assessments of individual plays with advanced Monte Carlo economic simulations. This tool allows business developers and new venture explorationists to differentiate exploration blocks and open acreage - in terms of subsurface risk, volume and value potential - to find the best opportunities, particularly in frontier basins where data is often scarce.

Paul Chowdhry, Head of Research for Wood Mackenzie, said: “EV2 fills the last remaining gap in Wood Mackenzie’s upstream valuation capability. We are delighted to be partnering with CGG on this exciting new product. This offers clients consistent, transparent and comparable valuation estimates for exploration volumes, that will help them gain a competitive advantage at the basin, play or block level. We believe that EV2 will set a new industry benchmark in exploration analysis.”

Sophie Zurquiyah, Senior Executive Vice President of CGG’s Geology, Geophysics & Reservoir Division (GGR), said: “EV2 is a natural extension of Robertson’s global geological expertise and successful multi-client knowledge base for the New Ventures market and is a perfect fit for our strategy of Geoscience innovation. We are delighted to partner with Wood Mackenzie on this new project. EV2 will help our clients identify which basin, and more importantly, which part of the basin, they should focus their efforts on to achieve maximum returns per exploration dollar.”

“Making a clear connection between volume and value has never been more important. However, valuing company exploration acreage can be challenging as it requires extensive time and resources, global basin knowledge and independent third party estimates. EV2 gives fast and easy access to this information. It allows rapid evaluation of company acreage portfolios within a given basin by providing the potential risk, volumes and value associated with each block,” Zurquiyah adds.

With this advance release, clients can now access ten ‘hot’ basins with the full package, of 200 basins around the world, due to be released in phases through 2015 and 2016. Wood Mackenzie’s Chowdhry adds: “Subscribers of the advance release will have the opportunity to have their input into the development of the final product.”

Wood Mackenzie and Robertson have a track record of bringing together their respective expertise having successfully delivered a number of joint multi-client studies, including ‘Future of Shale Oil’ which was published in 2012, and ‘Future of the Arctic’ in 2006.