Offshore seismic is the business of mapping what lies beneath the ocean floor and selling that picture to the companies that drill. A specialized vessel tows sound sources and sensor cables across the water, gathers echoes from rock layers far below, and turns them into a library of data. Oil and gas operators then license that data to decide where to drill, which is why offshore seismic is often called the picks-and-shovels of offshore energy.
This is the market Jim Rickards points to with the “Wildcat” pick in his “$150 Trillion Birthright” presentation. Rickards is a former general counsel at Long-Term Capital Management and a best-selling author on currency and geopolitics, and he runs model Press’s Strategic Intelligence letter. His pitch claims President Trump “opened 650 million acres of federal land containing an estimated $150 trillion in buried minerals,” and that three small companies could dominate the discovery technology. The Wildcat is the one most directly tied to this seafloor story.
The Wildcat and How It Makes Money
The “Wildcat” is TGS ASA, the Norwegian energy-data firm formed from the 2023 merger of TGS and PGS, the two leading offshore seismic data companies. TGS ASA collects large seismic data sets and licenses them to oil and gas customers, a model that lets many clients share the cost of a single survey. It also runs a “Deep Sea Minerals Pathfinder” project on the side, which is real, though it is a small part of a much larger data business.
The pitch says “The Wildcat controls deep sea detection” and attaches a “1,520% gain potential.” Since the tease, TGS ASA is the one pick in the green, up 8.9%, while Geospace Technologies is down 73.8% and MIND Technology is down 56.8%. That relative outperformance is worth acknowledging, even if a single-digit gain sits a long way from the promised return.
How the Data Library Works
The economics of offshore seismic data are appealing in the abstract. A multi-client survey is shot once and sold many times, so the marginal cost of each additional license is low. When exploration budgets rise, more operators license the library, and revenue scales without a proportional rise in cost. That recurring-license economics sits at the heart of the business, and it is the honest, durable part of the pitch.
The catch is the customer. The people licensing offshore seismic data are oil and gas companies, and their budgets follow the oil price. TGS ASA and its legacy businesses had their moment during the 2010 to 2012 oil bull market and gave much of it back as the cycle turned. We explained the seafloor itself in our deep-sea mining explainer and the discovery technology in our geophysical survey explainer.
The Fine Print
The ad leans on an institutional-ownership claim of “only 8%” for one of the picks, implying early entry. Our teardown found the actual figure near 67%. The June 24, 2025 catalyst the original pitch pointed to came and went without a surge, and the “market could explode from $2 billion to $100 billion” framing has not materialized in the share prices. We covered the policy and market side in our rare earth stocks coverage and our critical minerals strategy explainer.
The Merger and the Market Position
The 2023 merger of TGS and PGS combined the two leading offshore seismic data companies into a single, dominant player. Before the deal, they competed for the same customers; after it, the combined company holds a larger data library and a stronger negotiating position with the oil and gas operators that license its surveys. That consolidation is genuinely favorable for the business, and it is one of the honest reasons TGS ASA has held up better than the other two picks since the tease. Scale matters in a data-library business, because a bigger library is more useful to customers and cheaper to extend at the margin. At the same time, consolidation does not change who the customers are. The people licensing offshore seismic data are still oil and gas companies, and their budgets still follow the oil price. The “Deep Sea Minerals Pathfinder” project is a real but small initiative, and it is a long way from the main driver of revenue. That is the honest mix of strength and stretch in the “Wildcat” thesis, and the question is whether the mining story adds to the business or just adds to the narrative.
What We Genuinely Like
The data-library model is real, and TGS ASA is the clear market leader in offshore seismic after its merger. A genuine rebound in offshore exploration spending would benefit it directly, and the multi-client model is a lower-risk way to play energy activity than a single driller. The offer behind the pitch is The Situation Report at $1,995 per year with no refunds, and the headline forecasts are promotional numbers, not guarantees.
Ready to see the research? Click here to view the American Birthright presentation.
NewsletterVetter is an independent publication. We receive compensation from some of the services we review through affiliate links. Nothing on this site is investment advice. Always do your own research.