Geco-Prakla's New Eagle Breaks World Records on Maiden Voyage

Schlumberger Geco-Prakla's new seismic vessel, Geco eagle, has sailed from the Bergen, Norway shipyard where it was built to Brazilian waters, where it has begun its first seismic acquisition, a major 3D shoot in the Campos and Santos Basins for Amerada Hess and partners.

The most remote start-up of any seismic acquisition vessel, the Eagle took just seven days from deploying the first streamer section to recording the first commercial 10-streamer production. Now in full production, the vessel is the world's first to deploy 60 km of streamer and, with ten 6,000-meter streamers in tow, is the both the largest single-vessel tow and the largest footprint ever recorded.

Only days before the Eagle arrived in Brazilian waters, Geco-Prakla's seismic vessel Geco Marlin had set a record of its own by recording more than 254 km in a single day of production, towing an 8,000-meter streamer for the Brazil '99, 85,000-km nonexclusive 2D seismic program being shot offshore Brazil in a joint venture with TGS-NOPEC.

Elsewhere, Geco-Prakla has received contracts for three new acquisitions offshore Norway—a 1,200 sq km, 3D shoot with eight streamers over the Asgard, Gullfaks, and Sleipner Fields, that will be performed by the Geco Topaz for Statoil; a 1,500 km 2D survey off Greenland for Statoil and Phillips to be done by the Geco vessel Professor Polshkov; and a 3D survey over the Ekofisk Field for Phillips by the vessel Akademik Nemchinov.