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TGS Sends Expert Delegation to AEW 2026 as Africa's Exploration Pipeline Grows
TGS, one of the world's largest providers of multi-client seismic data and geoscience intelligence, will send five representatives from its Africa, Mediterranean and Middle East team to African Energy Week (AEW) 2026 in Cape Town from October 12-16. The delegation reflects the scale of TGS's involvement in a continent where exploration activity has accelerated sharply and where the subsurface data behind drilling decisions is becoming a competitive advantage in its own right.
TGS holds what is arguably the most comprehensive multi-client seismic data library in African exploration. Across the MSGBC basin, its Jaan 3D project provides over 28,300 square kilometers of merged, continuous 3D coverage spanning the full extent of the basin from Mauritania to Guinea. In Angola, TGS has worked alongside the ANPG for more than 20 years, building a library of over 69,200 square kilometers of 3D data and 50,000 line-km of 2D data covering every exploration block offshore. In Mauritania, the company added more than 101,500KM2 of 3D seismic data to its library in April 2025, released in collaboration with the government.
New campaigns are extending that coverage into areas that have seen little or no modern seismic work. In February 2026, TGS launched the Ultra Profundo 2D survey across Angola's ultra-deepwater, the first wide-area campaign in those waters since 2015, targeting pre-salt and sub-salt structures ahead of upcoming licensing rounds. In Equatorial Guinea, TGS signed an agreement to build the country's first offshore MegaSurvey, reprocessing roughly 27,000 km of 2D and 35,000 square kilometers of 3D legacy data into a unified, modern dataset. A new 3D acquisition contract in the Africa and Middle East region is scheduled to begin in September 2026.
The AEW delegation spans the breadth of TGS's regional engagement. Chris Drage, Vice President of Sales for the Eastern Hemisphere, leads the commercial side, while Alex Kurobasa heads strategy and rejuvenation for the Africa, Middle East and Mediterranean multi-client business. Emmanuel Nformi, Jevon Hilder and Johnny Chigbo round out the team as business development managers covering the region. Together they represent the commercial, strategic and technical layers of a business that serves as a bridge between useful data and active drilling.
For operators evaluating frontier acreage or preparing bids for upcoming licensing rounds, TGS's data and geoscience interpretation products are often the starting point. The company's basin-wide studies help exploration teams assess risk before committing capital, a function that grows more important as post-2020 exploration discipline demands higher pre-drill confidence.
“Data companies like TGS play a role in African exploration that is easy to underestimate. The decisions about where to drill and where to invest start with the subsurface picture, and TGS provides that picture across more of Africa than anyone else,” says NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber.
At AEW 2026, the TGS delegation is expected to engage operators, NOCs and investors on seismic data availability, frontier basin prospectivity and the geoscience insights shaping Africa's next exploration cycle.