Grapevine

Friends of Science

The Friends of Science is holding a very special Luncheon Event with guest speaker R. Tim Patterson, PhD, Professor and Director Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre

“The Sun as the Primary Driver of Climate Change?”

Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 11:30 am
Metropolitan Conference Centre
333, 4th Avenue SW Calgary, AB
Advance Tickets are $50
403-236-4203
fos@telus.net

For more information on the event or the non-profit group Friends of Science, please visit their website at www.friendsofscience.org.

Calgary Mining Forum Final Reminder

The 16th Calgary Mining Forum, “Building the Future” will be held this year March 20-23, 2007 at the Ramada Hotel, Downtown Calgary, featuring presentations by mineral exploration companies, mining service companies, and provincial and federal geological surveys. Topics will include minerals exploration projects, exploration methods, current research and investment opportunities. Also included are a Keynote Address, short courses and a poster session.

Early Registration Deadline is March 5, 2007.

For more information and registration forms, booth information and short course information, contact:

Glen Jones: 403-202-8683
Henry Lyatsky: 403-282-5873
www.meg.calgary.ab.ca

IHS

Englewood, Colo. (Jan. 11, 2007) – IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a global provider of integrated oil and gas information, software and consulting services, announced today it has acquired Geological Data Services Inc. (GDS) of Addison, Texas, a provider of interpreted subsurface data “formationtops” covering the Permian Basin, U.S. mid-continent and Rocky Mountain regions. The GDS dataset provides correlated formation-tops data for more than 640,000 wells, which are picked by geologists using a consistent and rigorous methodology.

The GDS tops will be integrated with the IHS E&P data and software solutions, including PETRA®, a leading software tool for geologic interpretation acquired from GeoPLUS in April of 2006. This integrated solution will further enhance IHS datasets and tools, increasing the value to IHS customers. For example, integrating the GDS formation tops data with the IHS datasets will simplify the delivery of data, allowing the customer to spend more time generating prospects and less time loading data and manipulating multiple datasets.

“We are pleased to acquire such a valuable interpreted dataset that will combine with our other rich datasets to aid geoscientists striving to better understand subsurface geology and generate prospects,” said Mark Rose, senior vice president of the U.S. Energy Business Unit for IHS. “This acquisition is one of several recent acquisitions of companies or assets intended specifically to increase the value we deliver to our customers by deepening our U.S. content offering and enhancing the decision-support tools our customers use to analyze that information.”

“We had numerous suitors seeking to buy GDS, but we chose IHS because of its longstanding reputation for providing quality data, and for being good stewards of vital E&P information,” said Joe Haynes, CEO of GDS. “IHS and GDS have a long history of collaboration, and IHS was the only company we felt we could entrust with our data and customers. We began building these interpreted data assets more than 20 years ago — so it was very important to us that they continue to be improved and maintained, and our customers be supported. Since many of our customers are also IHS customers, we knew it would be a fairly smooth transition, and for our customers not familiar with IHS, we felt strongly that they would benefit from the additional support resources and complimentary products that IHS provides.”

CGGVeritas

CGGVeritas announced today its participation in the launch of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau’s 3rd Licence Round.

Petroguin, the National Oil Company, is concessionaire for Guinea-Bissau and has retained CGGVeritas and First Exchange Corporation to manage data packages and distribute all technical and legal information related to the round.

The round will run from now until April 30, 2007 and covers key acreage, both onshore and offshore Guinea-Bissau.

Commenting on the round, Jim Gulland, CGGVeritas Business Development Manager, EAME Data Library, stated, “This is an important chance for the industry to participate in the exploration of this key region. The potential of the acreage in the round is clearly highlighted by the data package being offered. The seismic, the well correlation studies and the geologic interpretation give unrivalled insight into these under-explored structures.”

New opportunities for exploring open acreage are scarce and this round brings a welcome spotlight onto Guinea-Bissau’s potential.

Richard Morgan, CGGVeritas Geological Services Manager, commented that, “Maastrichtian and Albian sands offer shelf-based opportunities in closures associated with salt diapirism. Modern salt imaging techniques could bring new life to this under-exploited play; the petroleum system is there, the reservoirs are there, the traps are yet to be found. On the shelf edge and slope, Cretaceous reefs offer further potential particularly where faulting, that defines the shelf margin, provides an additional trap-forming mechanism.”

Access to the full details of the licensing round, downloadable maps and the itinerary for data rooms and roadshows are available at the following link: http://www.cggveritas.com/default.aspx?cid=15-59-263 and www.petroguin.com.