Given the controversy about the future price of oil and the possible effect of new tight oil fields on the global supply, the following chart may be of interest:

This visual representation of the challenge of replacing the production losses from maturing fields comes courtesy of Petroleum Geo Services (Oslo: PGS OTC: PGSVY), and the Norwegian company is far from a disinterested observer. Its 14 distinctive Ramform vessels, essentially giant offshore platforms towing seismic data acquisition cables, are profitably aiding oil companies’ increasingly aggressive search for deepwater deposits to replace diminishing production elsewhere.

Over the last six years, demand for seismic data helping to locate offshore energy deposits has more than doubled, growing at a compounding 12 percent a year on average, according to PGS. Last year, sales grew 21 percent, driving a 57 percent jump in cash flow from operations.

This year is looking better still, with the first-quarter utilization rate at a robust 92 percent, PGS revealed last week, aiding its recently weak shares.Better still, “trends indicate pricing and margin uplifts from 2012 season,” the company revealed last week in an Oslo investor presentation.

Bloomberg News quoted an analyst from the Swedish brokerage Carnegie AB raising his earnings estimate as a result of the utilization data. “We continue to find the stock attractively valued trading at a 10 percent to 25 percent discount to historical price earnings multiples on both 2013 and 2014 estimates even in the absence of further improvement in contract day rates,” Ole Martin Westgaard wrote.

The Aggressive Portfolio holding had depreciated as much as 15  percent between Feb. 1 and late March after Goldman Sachs said seismic data leasing rates could slide next year. But as PGS has just made clear, there’s no evidence that any such decline is in the cards. Global exploration and production spending is expected to rise 10 percent this year. And in the meantime the market now values PGS at just five times trailing EBITDA.

As huge new offshore discoveries in recent years make clear, the seabed resources remain relatively underexplored. They will be needed more than ever as the more easily accessible onshore oilfields are exhausted. That search begins with PGS’s massive ramforms probing the depths for telltale signs of hydrocarbons, and may increasingly end with its systems monitoring seismic activity in operating offshore fields. We remain bullish. Buy PGSVY below $17.50.