Survey outfit TGS-Nopec said that despite lower returns in the first quarter of 2009, oil company company exploration activity is up noticably from the doldrums that made negative first quarter results an industry trend.

“We are clearly seeing increased sales activity in recent weeks and we continue to remain optimistic about the longer term fundamentals for our sector,” said company boss Hank Hamilton.

He called “challenging” a first quarter that brought down net income by 50 percent to $13.2 million. Revenues, too, were down: 33 percent to $70.8 million.

But the company could hearten shareholders with news the oil companies had contributed to 17 percent more revenue from the funding of future surveys. And TGS’s backlog stood at $132 million on at the end of March, eight percent above the level of a year ago.

Yet despite “the pipeline of sizeable sales opportunities steadily increasing”, block awards in Norway’s 20th licensing round and growing revenue from pre-paid oil company surveys, TGS said it foresees less revenue that the highs witnessed in 2008, with some spending cuts now being contemplated.

Tags: TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company