Area Development
A provider of geophysical technology services for the global oil and gas industry, ION Geophysical Corporation, expanded its seismic data processing network with the opening of its GX Technology center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and significant upgrade to its Houston, Texas, high performance computing hub.

“These moves support ION's desire to satisfy increasing customer demand for proximity of technical expertise, coupled with the ability to deliver complex imaging solutions in reduced time frames,” the company said.

Chris Usher, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of ION's GeoScience division, said, "Our data processing business has grown by nearly 10 percent since 2012, with several sequential record quarters, and we are delighted to increase our service network capabilities to broaden our services scope and better support complex exploration and production requirements in North America and worldwide.”

“Our new facility in Oklahoma City increases our land processing footprint and makes available extensive unconventional experience, which comprises over 300 projects spanning 30,000 square miles of data across all major North American shale plays, to our mid-continent customers,” he said.

The Oklahoma City team is trained to utilize GXT's industry leading land processing technologies, including 3D anisotropic time and depth processing, well-based processing, and the application of multicomponent seismic techniques, to more accurately characterize fractures and lithology variations in unconventional reservoirs, the firm said. GXT's Oklahoma City, Calgary and Denver centers are jointly managed to ensure the timely delivery of complex land imaging projects throughout North America.

“The opening of our new computing hub in Houston assures we can efficiently apply the most advanced imaging solutions in realistic timeframes and satisfy increasing customer demand," Usher said.

In Houston, the opening of GXT's new internal-Cloud computing hub, which services the company's processing centers worldwide, increases the company's capacity by more than 50 percent, including total peak performance, CPUs, and storage. This new hub has additional space and power for rapid expansion, and features significantly more efficient cooling systems.