Now known as S3 Smart Seismic Solutions, I met with Jean-Baptiste Chalvidan and Patrick Robert at the EAGE Annual in Vienna last week.
“Compared to the years with CGG, where we mainly focused on services for the oil and gas sector, we have really diversified our portfolio”, said Jean-Baptiste. “We have been looking for geothermal resources during several projects in Western Europe, including a major one in Geneva, but also covered a European CCUS project, performed research towards water resources in Burkina Faso, and gas in Albania and Papua New Guinea”, the company chairman and co-founder adds.
“Especially the geothermal sector has recently been and continues to be an important new market for us”, says Patrick, who also co-founded the company. “As an example, we will soon acquire seismic in Luxembourg, where the government has recently confirmed the potential of geothermal energy in decarbonizing urban heat.” The company will acquire two lines of a total length of 35 km, which will form a better understanding of where future drilling locations could be.
In our home country, France, exploration for new geothermal energy production sites is just starting”, says Jean-Baptiste. “The country hosts several geothermal hotspots in the Paris basin, and in Alsace we will be working this summer for Lithium de France and in the south-west of the region.”
All in all, it is interesting to see how newly established companies such as S3 Smart Seismic Solutions are balancing a project portfolio consisting of renewable energy projects and the more traditional oil and gas – something that can clearly be seen with other players in the subsurface energy domain as well.
See also: How an oil service company is moving into renewable space.
