Egypt’s ‘largest of its kind’ OBN program to identify exploration opportunities

January 22, 2026, by Nadja Skopljak

France-based geophysical services company Viridien and U.S.-headquartered technology player SLB are set to begin a large seismic acquisition and imaging program offshore Egypt that will help explorers and investors identify new opportunities for exploration and enhanced production.

Viridien and SLB entered into an agreement with the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) to launch the multi-client ocean bottom node (OBN) program in Egypt’s Eastern Mediterranean offshore, a project said to be the largest of its kind in the region.

According to Mahmoud Abdel Hamid, Chairman of EGAS, the Egyptian Eastern Mediterranean has great potential for development but features some of the most challenging environments for seismic imaging owing to the complex faulting and the Messinian evaporite layer that masks deep reservoirs formed from complex channel sand bodies.

Data acquisition is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of the year.

The project is expected to give explorers and investors a clearer understanding of the region’s subsurface and help them identify new opportunities for exploration and enhanced production.

Dechun Lin, Head of Earth Data, Viridien, said: “This agreement with SLB and EGAS marks a significant milestone for Viridien, giving new momentum to our commitment to Egypt as a key partner with over 30 years of in-country operating experience. Expanding our multi-client data library into the Egyptian Eastern Mediterranean with our advanced OBN imaging technologies will help showcase Egypt’s subsurface opportunities to the world.”