Unlocking Latin America
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of Beneath the Subsurface we're focusing on Latin America and how the recent Spectrum acquisition has enriched and expanded TGS' data library. Erica interviews Richie Miller and David Hajovsky, our experts in this prolific region. We'll explore the hottest regions in the South Atlantic margin as well as the bidding climate in Brazil and the path forward for data and technology investments.
EPISODE NOTES
In this episode of Beneath the Subsurface we're focusing on Latin America and how the recent Spectrum acquisition has enriched and expanded TGS' data library. Erica interviews Richie Miller and David Hajovsky, our experts in this prolific region. We'll explore the hottest regions in the South Atlantic margin as well as the bidding climate in Brazil and the path forward for data and technology investments.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
00:00 - Intro
01:20 - Geopolitical Climate in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil
07:12 - Frontier Activity in Latin America
10:28 - G&G Technology Applications
12:22 - Equatorial Margins
15:02 - Investments in the Region
16:47 - Brazil Bid & Licensing Rounds
19:58 - Identifying Leads
23:54 - Data, Beyond Seismic - Geological and Geochemical
26:38 - Old Technology, New Applications, New Techniques
30:00 - Predicting New Plays
34:27 - Conclusion
EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODE
Erica Conedera:
00:00
Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that explores the intersection of geo science and technology. From the software development department here at TGS, I'm your host, Erica Conedera. This episode we're focusing on Latin America and how the recent Spectrum acquisition has enriched and expanded TGS' data library. As you'll hear, Spectrum brings not only a strategic library of seismic data, but also a team of proven and qualified experts in Latin America. We'll explore the hottest regions in the South Atlantic margin as well as the bidding climate in Brazil and the path forward for data and technology investments. I'm really excited today to be in the studio with Richie Miller. He ran things in Latin America for Spectrum and David Hajovsky, our VP of Latin America. So we're here today to talk about how the spectrum acquisition is adding value to our library of data in the Latin America region. So to start off Latin-America is a huge region. There's plenty of geographic diversity there. What are some of the hallmarks of the industry in this region?
David Hajovsky:
01:20
Yeah, well, I think first off, I guess, thanks for having us on here. It's a pleasure to sit here and kinda talk about something that I know Richie and I have both been working on for for a number of years now. I think for me, when I look at Latin America one of the big pieces is the kind of geopolitical ups and downs. You see where markets open markets close and it makes it complicating and interesting when it comes to trying to find the right way to invest there. I think a good example of that is Mexico. It's a market that had been closed off to foreign investment for over 70 years. And during the energy reform, it opened up and you had a lot of multi-client activity both from a spectrum and TGS. And now under the new administration you're seeing things take a turn in the other direction. So it's, it's interesting to kind of see how these things evolve and go and how it makes us manage and be very insightful about our business and how we make our decisions.
Richie Miller:
02:21
And I think we're still real positive on Mexico. It's a huge footprint and the government's indicating they, over the next couple of years, they may move forward again. Like industry wants, it's a great opportunity there. And, we're, we're in a great position.
David Hajovsky:
02:37
Yeah. And I think when you look in Mexico as an example on that, we're still seeing, despite some of the political rhetoric, when, when a more nationalist government gets in office, the exploration that's currently moving forward is still moving forward. You're still having seismic shot, you're still having wells get drilled. So that momentum is still carrying through. And, and that's the thing about our business. It's a long term business. So everything there, we typically ride out all political cycles. So it's just a matter of timing on how that happens.
Richie Miller:
03:07
Yeah. And it's even longer for the, for our customers in the E&P world, they, they look at, at, at decades where we seem to be tied into a four to six, eight year cycle similar to Argentina. I mean, in Mexico, we have an election coming up in Argentina. But the talk to the, our customers, there's not a big concern. We may see a government flip there but it's longterm we're positioned for it. And I think it'll work out just fine.
David Hajovsky:
03:37
Yeah, I think that brings up a, I mean we were both down in Buenos Aires for the ABG international conference. It's a conference of petroleum geologists and certainly I would think we both agree the, the views and the rhetoric coming from all the oil companies there who are our clients was very favorable, very positive on kind of longer term investment outlook. So this makes us feel optimistic about the region. And then just the business in general.
Richie Miller:
04:03
Yeah, that's- and companies like Shell and Chevron, et cetera. They've been in country for quite a long time when there was a different government in place and different price controls. They're the same companies that came in and picked up blocks offshore. Not Chevron, but Shell was pretty aggressive. Yup.
Erica Conedera:
04:22
What do you see happening with round two in Argentina?
Richie Miller:
04:25
A round two is, is pretty exciting. So we have an election coming up. First elections actually late October. The way that's gonna work. If no one gets a majority, then there'll be a runoff in November. We understand from the government that they're going to announce this round the first week of November to open up in April and close in October. That works out real well for us because it hits this budget year cycle for our customers that are looking for some end of year deals. We've had the data that we'll be ready in February that's going to be in the Colorado basin that will be on that round. After the first round, we've seen more interest from, from industry that have come in and, and picked up some data. We even with the uncertainty in the election, we think round two is going to be a bigger, a bigger deal than round one, which was obviously a huge deal for the Argentinian government.
David Hajovsky:
05:22
I think it's one of the things that it's an observation we have, that on that initial round. A lot of the players that end up participating are companies that have some sort of presence in Argentina already. You have a few new players that come in from the international space. But once you get that hub and you have some of that acreage, it makes the investment point that much lower. So as you move into around two companies that already have an established position are able to be more aggressive as they go forward. And because of the success of round one, we're also introducing more international applicants coming into to attract it. So it kind of builds up on itself, builds a scale that we need. And I think that kind of goes to a lot of the rationale behind the, the merger between Spectrum and TGS is prior to this, TGS would not have had the same type of conversations or the same position. But Spectrum has done a fantastic job of understanding the above ground environment and understanding the below ground potential and moving on that and allowing us to, to now work together and try to build a, a better position.
Richie Miller:
06:21
What the ministry has indicated is they've put sectors out that cover the Colorado basin, the deep water area of a Southern area of Argentina as well as the ultra deep of the Northern and Southern parts of Argentina. So they've asked for the E&P business or industry to nominate specific areas. And a real positive thing for TGS is we've got that area completely covered with new data. It's really the only data that's out there to, to help with this round. It's just in this round. So they've also asked us to do some of our G&G work and, and nominate areas based on what we think is prospective. The good thing about our businesses is everybody has a different idea on prospectivity and that's why we see different companies bidding on different areas. And that works well for us.
Erica Conedera:
07:12
So looking at other countries in the region, certainly Brazil has had a lot of activity, but what other countries do you guys have eyes on right now?
David Hajovsky:
07:18
Well, I mean, a big piece of the market for, for both Brazil- I mean for TGS and Spectrum was Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. These are the big kind of established markets where you have a lot of investment already from our client's side and kind of justifies us being there in that way. We're always looking and screening all the other potentials that could be there. You can go down the list. I mean, what we're seeing right now, offshore Guyana where Exxon and now Tullow have had just a string of discoveries. It's really opening up new ideas and play concepts, not just for Guyana but along the entirety of the margin. And so I think that's, those are sayings that we watch out for in, from a business development point of view and try to understand how can that concept be an analog somewhere else that we're maybe not currently working or are currently working and trying to build up a new narrative to attract industry.
Richie Miller:
08:14
Yeah, there's a, I think Apache's just spudding a well in Surinam, and it's right next door. So hopefully that will, will lead to more success for that that basin. There is a data footprint for the companies for TGS in Barbados and Trinidad. And we understand BHP moving forward with a potential well in Barbados. That's not been confirmed yet, but that's, that's positive at different play type. But there's always the thought that maybe the, the Cretaceous wonder basin underneath Guyana extends underneath Trinidad and Barbados. So there's a lot of activity and looking around in that, in that region right now it's pretty active.
David Hajovsky:
08:55
And when you say, I mean, that's, that's to me been a key insight into the business and in my short time in the business is that new data opens up new ideas, new concepts. A lot of these places have had acquisition or seismic acquisition for 30, 40 years. And it's when you come in with new technologies and new ways of, of trying to acquire this that you can get different concepts and ideas that come out of that and that, that starts the whole new process of, okay, next round of exploration. Here we go.
Richie Miller:
09:26
And that's really true for Trinidad, that there was a lot of MC activity in the 90s and early two thousands, and it's just been dead. Now there's they're L&G outputs going down there looking for new exploration. So there's opportunities and it could be reprocessing, et cetera. But you're starting to see more companies BHP, BP, Shell, all drilling new Wells to try to increase that gas production there. You know, gas is our future. So it's, it's Trinidad's working towards that.
David Hajovsky:
10:02
Yeah. Especially areas like Trinidad where you have a a hundred plus years of production in place, you have a lot of legacy infrastructure. So the cost to get that to a economic point is much lower than being in a ranked frontier area for something like that. And it's for that reason that you do is, as Richie mentioned there, these companies will continue to invest in and explore there.
Richie Miller:
10:22
Yeah. And Barbados is a great place to go visit for oil and gas. So
David Hajovsky:
10:26
Yeah, I can imagine. Well, if got your Barbadian shirt on.
Erica Conedera:
10:28
So you had mentioned, using other G&G technologies in the region. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What exactly we're using? What's exciting to you?
David Hajovsky:
10:39
Yeah, so a lot of we tried to think about, and we, we interact a lot with our clients, try and understand what are the tools that they need or what are the types of data they need in order to de-risk these positions and decisions. And, you know, historically 2D seismic is your, is your frontier tool. You go in, can acquire regional grid at a relatively economic basis. It allows for large screening and then you'd move on to 3D seismic to go beyond that. But I think TGS, in recent years we've taken an approach of looking and introducing different technologies. So for example, we've been working with multi-beam and coring data to try to build a larger geochemical database. So we have the geophysical database and now we're building up the geochemical database and you integrate that data in and you're able to update your geologic model. And these are the sorts of tools that, that explorers who are our clients can then utilize to better de-risk their position in decisions.
Richie Miller:
11:37
Yeah. One of the I think both companies (TGS & Spectrum) or one company now, that we is, how do we generate derivative products to generate additional revenues off of these, you know, some of the legacy surveys. And I know that a, we were working on some different potential fields, products in Latin America. It's still trying to get traction with, with these, E&Ps or some exploration products. The, you know, then you add in the multibeam products and things like that. It's really what do the customers need and what will they pay for. And, and we're starting to get, go down that path to find out what's gonna work and what won't work.
Erica Conedera:
12:22
So David, you had mentioned Guyana and activity in Brazil. Can we go back to that a little bit?
David Hajovsky:
12:27
Yeah, I think in part of what we see when, when all companies are having the type of success they're having in Guyana and testing play concepts successfully in testing new concepts, we didn't think about where those analogs might be. And I think one of the areas that we think has a lot of untapped potential is equatorial margin Brazil. So we were just going further down the coastline really. And, and one of the issues we have is you've had some very successful license rounds up there. You've had some seismic shot and certainly one of our plans is to continue to invest on a geophysical data because we feel it's needed, but we need to see some drilling activity. And that's been one of the slowdowns in the ability for the Brazil equatorial margin and truly get unlocked is from a permitting point of view, regulatory point of view. It's been very slow process to get Wells permitted and then drilled.
Richie Miller:
13:21
Yeah. That too. To move to the next phase we need wells drilled in an equatorial margins. We've been working with the government on that. The government knows that the oil and gas companies and our customers are working towards that. We understand that a, there's, there's two, two big permits that the industry is watching. It's a BP permit and a Total permit. And, in the Amazonous region, we understand those permits are very close. We anticipate seeing a well drilled there next year sometime. Well let's hope that moves forward. Those leases were granted in 2013 so they should be onto the second phase of their exploration period, which then they ended up dropping some of that acreage, which spurs our activity in sales in the, in the data there we own that area of, of Brazil from French Guyana around the corner to Potiguar.
Richie Miller:
14:15
And I think we've only seen seen two or three Wells drilled since that round. And there's been a couple of rounds since then. There was 14 or 15 with some scattering of acreage. But to really take advantage, Brazil needs to get these Wells drilled and, and they know it. They, there's a very large push within the government. You know, it's a relatively new government administration and, and they have license rounds that are scheduled out through 2021. We'll see a lot of acreage taken. But again, I go back to, we have to have Wells drilled and that's what part of our, our whole strategy in Brazil with the, with the team we have working there is to work on the political side as well.
Erica Conedera:
15:02
So from what I'm hearing, you're not seeing a lot of investment in the region. How does that impact your own investment in the area?
Richie Miller:
15:10
Well, there actually is a, some investment from TGS coming up in the equatorial margins. The, the pioneer, which is a, a BGP vessel that's worked for us for quite some time. It will be mobilizing into the Para-Manhao area of Brazil in early November. And we're going to acquire about 10,000 kilometers. It's an infill program of one of the Fugro surveys we've picked up. We're starting to see movement in our in our client base on, in that area. And it's a sector and round 17 is right in the middle of it. So we'll, we'll acquire this survey. We'll have it processed to be available in probably April of next year. So it is a continued investment. It's also an area that, that we see some lookalikes to the Guyana plays the Ranger and, and also Liza discoveries. It's pretty exciting that that Brazil can can have instead of the salt basins that, that is very prolific as we, we, we see the opportunity for a whole new oil and gas province to open up. What about a consultant named Pedro Zalan it's been doing quite a bit of work up there and he's he's working on a new area there right now that we will be presenting at an exploration seminar that, that we have scheduled for November 7th here for our new venture customers. So we'll during that seminar we'll be showcasing really an Atlantic Margin portfolio of projects and and he'll be speaking at that.
Erica Conedera:
16:47
So you guys mentioned bid rounds in Brazil. Can you explain how these bid rounds work for those of us who are not in the know such as myself?
David Hajovsky:
16:54
Yeah. So so Brazil's a, an interesting place. They actually have a number of different types of, of contracts that they offer up in these bid rounds. So they have what they call concession licensed rounds. So these are areas that are outside of the, the salt basins. Back in 2010, Brazil, after having some of these massive pre-salt discoveries, the government made a decision to kind of hive off an area that they call the pre-salt polygon. And within that area, a new acreage opportunities were kind of pushed to the side and for the time being, and outside of that is where you could get acreage if you're an outside investor starting in 20, well, they've, they've gone through a multitude of different things. But starting in 2017 there had been a hiatus on rounds and Brazil brought them back in a big way. So the concession license round means an oil company enters into a concession contract where you just pay a royalty fee. Inside of the pre-salt polygon, they offer up what they're called production sharing agreements. And so what companies are actually bidding on is profit oil that they would pay to the government. So as they move into production, they agree to pay X percentage to the government as a result. So it's just different mechanisms by which the government is able to recoup some of their, their resource or, or monetizing their resource. I should, I should say.
David Hajovsky:
18:16
And Brazil is also introduced to a new thing called the open door policy. So open round and effectively like a lot of open door policies, companies can come in, review the data and we have some of this data that we're reworking right now to try and promote that. But then they would put an offer on a block on a given set of minimum. And then if nobody counter bids and they're able to take that acreage. And what this does by having these very different round mechanisms out there, you have a multitude of, of companies and players that come there. So for the pre-salt rounds, which are the production sharing contracts, you tend to have a very large IOC. So the international oil companies some of the larger national oil companies because these are very capital intensive investments. You need to have a big balance sheet and a big portfolio enabled to do that. On the concession rounds you'll see the same mix of players, but you also introduce some of the more independent companies, so a little bit smaller and more exploration focused and they're able to get some of the, the acreage that's away from the salt basins.
David Hajovsky:
19:17
So a little bit lower value point in terms of getting acreage access and if they're able to work that up and do it in a way that is accretive to their portfolio. And with the open door policy, I think Brazil is really trying to push to even another tier of players to bring smaller companies, both local Brazilian companies and international companies to help diversify the mix of, of players that you have in the place. And so for a company like ourselves, we try to provide data that's going to target all, all three of these. And having a larger client mix is always a good thing. It allows us to take more risk and allows us to feel comfortable with taking that risk because there's more need for the data products that we create.
Richie Miller:
19:58
It's encouraging that we're seeing a new entrance into Brazil. And just recently within the last quarter, we've seen, two new companies come into license data that, that are currently not players in Brazil that is very positive compared to some other other areas in the world. But they're looking for these smaller opportunities, like David said, on the, these permanent round blocks. And we have every permanent round block is covered by some sort of TGS data, legacy data, some of the new data that, that we've acquired. And extremely positive. They, they're coming to us. There's nowhere else to go to right now. We're working in this data where we have a G&G group in the Houston office here and also over in Woking that that help with identifying leads on this data that help us push out to clients. So traditional way of just selling the data in a line by line basis based on the line quality, the data quality, we're taking that a step forward and, and developing leads by a group of explorationists. These are people that have worked with oil and gas companies understand what oil and gas companies are looking for. And that's what we're being, we're, that's what we're pushing out to market right now.
David Hajovsky:
21:14
And I think one of the interesting things that we see on that front historically for these sort of G & G value add products the, the client mix for that are tend to not be the super major clients. They have their own internal staff that will work and do that. It's kind of into their, their value point. But it's typically made for companies, smaller companies that may not have the resource for that sort of staffing or certainly some of the national oil companies who like to have different viewpoints and perspectives. But I think what we see now in today's world, even the super major clients see value in what we're providing there. And I think a lot of that is kind of based on the quality of, of the, the staff we have and the work effort that's being put there. So it's a, it's certainly helped us to better understand what our client needs are and the way they're kind of thinking about problems and allowing us to better address those problems in a way.
Richie Miller:
22:06
Yeah. And I, I think it's, it's also on the investment side. We're, we're saying new ideas based on, on the data that's been interpreted that helps us develop more programs and, and make those investments that we have planned over the next few years in Brazil. And Brazil is open for business and we're going to hit it in a, in a big way. We speaking to the rounds on round 17 we've just completed a, a Potiguar 3D survey. It's about 10,000 kilometers and there's, in round 17, which will be next year. There's about 4,000 kilometers of that. That's over open acreage that we're seeing companies that are, they're interested in that. It's, it's gonna provide that, that opportunity for the industry really, and we're not seeing that much in Brazil, but they're going to have 3D prior to the rounds. Versus the, just the 2D portfolio.
David Hajovsky:
22:59
Yeah, I think that was one of the things that that we've tried to do is, I mean, as a, as a geophysical contractor, we want to make sure we can provide the best quality data ahead of a round and for this upcoming round 16, which is less than two weeks away at this stage we were able to get out there and get 3D data ahead of the round for both Campos Basin and the Santos Basin. And these are proven to be very well received by industry. These are the type of products that helps them de-risk major decisions, I mean, when we talk about Campos basin, one of the blocks that's on offer there, the minimum signature bonus. So this is what an oil company is going to be obligated to pay at a bare minimum is $350 million for one block. And so to have the seismic that's going to de-risk that structure and allow them to better understand what the real potential is there, it's a, it's a huge benefit. So we're, we're happy to be able to provide that.
Erica Conedera:
23:54
So you had talked about the different G&G data products that we're offering aside from the 2D and 3D seismic, can you talk a little bit about what else?
David Hajovsky:
24:05
Yeah, so we, we've been offering we've touched on some of the derivatives that you receive off of the 2D and 3D. So work effort that happens beyond that, can be something as simple as an interpretation, can be different kind of attribute work, different sort of packages that we can customize for whatever the client needs are, integrating different data types. So TGS, I mean, obviously the, the Wells business is a huge piece for us. So this is where we would go into a given country, get access to their well database. A lot of times this data is very old. It's very spotty. It needs a lot of cleanup. So we've kind of honed that process down where we're able to take these well logs cleaned them up, make them interpretable, integrate them into packages that our clients are able to access.
David Hajovsky:
24:56
On the geochemical side, we've been doing a lot of work effort with these large scale multi-beam projects. As an example in Mexico, when that market opened up, we acquired a multi-beam over 600,000 square kilometers of offshore Mexico. So effectively covering everything and utilizing that data, we're then able to high grade a coring location. So piston course something that oil companies have done from for a very long time, for 50 plus years. But by using this technology of the high res multibeam data, we're able to better high-grade where to take these cores. They'll find the right sort of areas to, to try to find hydrocarbon samples on the sea floor. And, and what we found is a very high success rate there. And you're able to correlate that back. And so for oil companies, when they're trying to do their, their basin modeling and understand where they need to be thinking about these are the types of data sets they can integrate in with our regional seismic or 3D seismic and better de-risk the play.
Richie Miller:
25:55
No, it's, it's what, what do our customers need and that that was one of the items in a multibeam that came back and, and it's, it's working with our core key customers to understand what they need and what else we can provide. And the industry is changing that way and it's real positively. You put the two companies together, there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of geographic space to, to put together products.
Erica Conedera:
26:22
In our last episode, we actually talked about multi beam, so we had a whole episode on that.
David Hajovsky:
26:26
Good. Well then they've dove, they know a lot more about it than than I do, which is which is a good thing cause then they can go focus on that.
Richie Miller:
26:34
Yeah. When I listened to it, I learned a lot more about multibeam.
David Hajovsky:
26:38
No, but I think it's a, one of the things is it's taking old technologies and applying them in a new way. It's just like reprocessing data, which is a big part of our, our businesses. When you have legacy data, so data that might've been acquired in the 90s in the 1980s even more recent vintages, a lot of times the, the processing flow and the algorithms that were used to try to create an image were, were very antiquated either by a limitation on compute or for just the limitation in the code. But even taking legacy data and applying today's technology on it, we're able to see significant uplift. And, and a lot of times we'll go and capture that data and try to uplift that data to help compliment in what we're doing from a new data acquisition point of view. And it helps us better set the parameters on this new acquisition to ensure that geophysically, we're going to address the geologic problems in that area.
Richie Miller:
27:32
Yeah. Imaging technology is, is we try to keep up with it on with the acquisition is not changing a lot, but imaging technology changes day to day. It's it's really breakthrough technology that's coming through and helping the E&Ps discover more resources and, and it's a big part of TGS is moving that imaging into the next the next phase.
David Hajovsky:
28:00
And I think we've seen in, you know, you can take data sets that were acquired five years ago and, and processed with the latest and greatest five years ago and applying the technologies today. And we'll talk specifically about technologies like full wave form inversion to help better resolve the velocity field and you'll see a significant upgrade in that image quality. It's probably tantamount to the photo quality I have on my iPhone 11 compared to on my original, you know, iPhone three. If they even had that name back then, I mean, it's it's incredible resolution and detail and it's those sort of upgrades and insights that allow people to think about different plays and different concepts in ways that we need to be moving the needle.
Richie Miller:
28:48
It's a big part of our business is we have to have refresh data ready when the opportunity arises, whether it's a discovery well there's a discovery that spurs is a, is a good tar trigger on, on, on sales of data. And then for license round, sometimes they surprise us some of these governments. And if we don't have that, the data ready and it's been reprocessed with the latest technology we may miss. So it's our job to identify what we think will, will the be, the surveys that we need to upgrade. Yeah.
David Hajovsky:
29:22
Yeah. I think it's a, when you, when you mentioned that thing about the licensed rounds gets sprung upon us, it's Brazil for this round 16 that's upcoming here in two weeks time. When we were talking about trying to get 3D data ahead of the round that was certainly one of the big challenges we had was how can we, under this limited time frame and the way that this round has been earmarked, how can we get out there with a vessel, acquire the data, process the data, get a workable product to the client base. And it puts a lot of pressure on us to come up with creative solutions. But I think in most of these instances we've been able to luckily enough, stay ahead.
Erica Conedera:
30:00
So it sounds like one of the challenges is predicting where the next big play is going to be. What about the Santos Campos?
Richie Miller:
30:08
Well, I think, you know, that's a great question because back geez, it's been two years ago now, we, we made, we took the risk to move offshore into the outside the BEZ or the Brazilian economic zone which was out at that point. It still is at 200 miles. We started acquiring a survey and with TGS we, we partnered saw the opportunity and it's a new play, very similar to what's inbound on, on Santos. But some of the, some of the data we're seeing already and some of the experts that are working that they think it can be just as big as what's already been discovered in the Santos Basin. And so we're, we're talking 30 to 50 billion barrels. It's a big number to, to even throw out there because people will disagree with you. But we've, we've made an investment already. We've acquired 7,000 kilometers, 8,000 kilometers. We're going to go ahead and pick up the rest of that later this year. It's a big risk. But I think there's a very big reward for TGS and, and also our customers cause we're going to provide that data 3D data instead of 2D data before the rounds. And we're hearing that, that, EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone). The rounds good chance there'll be offered in and round 18, which will be in 2021, which gives us a good time to plenty of time to get the data processed and out and for the customers to interpret it and have it ready for the round.
David Hajovsky:
31:49
Yeah. And I, and I think that, you know, it, it is true. It is risk, but I think it's calculated risk. I mean, when just talking about the, the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) process. So this is the process by which a company can extend out their current exclusive economic zone. Brazil was the second country to apply for that back in 2004. So these things take time. But certainly I think what we saw as we looked at that area is there's great momentum. The government realizes there's good resource potential there. Technically it makes sense to extend this out. And you're getting all the right stakeholders in place, both with the UN with the Navy, with A and P with the government to, to see this move forward. And so, yes, it was a risk. It was a calculated risk. But I think it's the, certainly gonna prove to be the right decision where I've seen that I think kind of payout in itself
Richie Miller:
32:41
That, yeah, that's right. That we and Argentina, they've, they've been granted the rights and Uruguay has been granted the rights. There's a few little areas in Brazil they're still working on in New York. You know, ironically Pedro Zalan on who we we mentioned earlier is working with the UN and the Brazilian government on that. Our country manager draw credit has been very involved in this whole process with the couple of the universities. We're, we're the only ones that have data that, that show the prospectivity outside the 200 miles. And we're using that and, helping the government move forward and we expect some very big results not only out of the expiration but also out of for TGS on the, on the data sales.
David Hajovsky:
33:26
Yeah. And I think that this is the, this is part of the positioning, right? Is that we want to be viewed as allies to the governments and we're trying to help them promote their areas as we're trying to help our clients promote their own interests. And so it becomes a mutually beneficial relationship among all three. And so this has been the key strategy for, for TGS and Spectrum, and now we're bringing those strengths together.
Richie Miller:
33:52
Yeah. Yeah. We, it's a footprint that we're putting together that with, when all said and done, we'll probably end up with about 40 to 50,000 square kilometers that's continuous. It's it's a must be basin. We have to be in Santos and Campos similar to some of the large basins and, and in the U S a on shore with the sale markets. They're the hottest basins in the world right now. And TGS is in, in all of them.
David Hajovsky:
34:20
Yeah. We hope to continue that and I don't see any reason why we won't be able to keep moving that ball forward.
Erica Conedera:
34:27
Well guys, it sounds like a, you have a lot of work ahead of you and we're definitely very excited about the value that the spectrum acquisition has added to our data libraries. So very glad you guys could be with us today.
Richie Miller:
34:39
I appreciate it. It was it's going to be a fun group to work with. The the, there was a lot of success with this library, you know, not only in Latin America but in Africa and other areas of the world that, that we've added to. But it was, it's a top down approach that you know, the support, getting the financing to do some of these projects, the processing groups the finance groups, you got to invoice this. Everybody's touching it. Everybody in the office, the, you've got the, the it groups and the computer centers. It's, everybody's working on this together and it made it successful. So it's it's now to capitalize on the opportunities moving forward.
David Hajovsky:
35:18
Yeah, and I think that it's a, it's a huge benefit to TGS to be bringing in this, this established Spectrum team. I mean, these guys have proven track record and we're creating, I think one of the strongest teams in industry. I think we could be Dallas Cowboys-like probably mid nineties Cowboys on that Superbowl run, I think is probably where we'll end up being. We'll see what happens this year.
Erica Conedera:
35:43
All right. Thanks guys.
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