Seismic companies’ effort to cut vessel supply during the downturn appear to be aiding recent market improvements, with French giant CGG saying oil companies may sense that vessel supply is getting tight.

Marine seismic accounts for just a tiny sliver of oil companies’ total spending on offshore oil services. But it is still one of the most closely watched bellwethers of the sector because an uptick for seismic reveals oil companies’ sentiments, as well as foreshadowing work for rigs and offshore support vessels.

While the seismic market has “stabilised” and remains “uncertain”, CGG is now pushing harder to edge up contract pricing, according to chief executive Jean-Georges Malcor during a conference call.

“There is a level of, let’s say, client ‘nervousness’,” Malcor said, stressing that the word “nervous” may be an overstatement.

“Even though the market is low, complex and with very low pricing, clients are getting concerned that they may not get the vessel they want at the right time.”

CGG has cut its fleet of ships from 23 vessels in 2013 to five ships now, while it is in partnership with Oslo-listed Eidesvik Offshore on a number of cold-stacked ships.

Malcor made the comments in reference to CGG’s fourth-quarter figures, which are the first since the company completed its restructuring in France in December and emerged from Chapter 11 in the US at the end of February.

CGG, which had been facing its first loan maturity in July, used the restructuring to slash about $2bn out of net debt of $2.65bn. Post-restructuring, net debt is down to $631m, while the leverage ratio has been inverted, to 1.7x now from 7.2x at the end of 2017.

CGG’s operating income of $18m was a positive amount for the first time in eight quarters, Malcor said.

The quarter’s net loss was $514m, but included $186m in one-off charges. Revenue was $401m in the quarter, up 22% from the fourth quarter of 2016. Ebitda was $134m, as a year-on-year increase of 34%.

CGG figures were helped by strong multi-client sales, which is a point to remember on oil company sentiment, as these clients are buying more data.

The two main areas of seismic revenue are “marine contract” work, which is taken on exclusively for a customer, and multi-client work, which is a speculative project over promising areas for filling data libraries.

Multi-client projects are partially paid for by the seismic players, who also seek “pre-funding” from clients in exchange for discounts on data. Pre-funding levels also indicate interest.

“Prefunding sales were stable at $269m but, more significantly, after-sales were up 80% at $200m,” group chief financial officer Stephane-Paul Frydman said. “Once again, we reached a very good cash prefunding rate of 107% this year, way above our target of 70% and 48% of the fleet was dedicated to multi-client programs this year.”

Malcor said the client interest for the increase in purchases was particularly for data on Brazil, Mexico and the North Sea.

Malcor added that 100% of the CGG fleet is covered for work in the first quarter, and 90% is already covered in the second quarter.

“With this high level of coverage and quite interesting developments in market dynamics, the second half could be quite different from today,” he said.

CGG says it has based its business plan on assumptions of a market recovery this year and in 2019, with an oil price between $60 and $65.

While the French company remain positive but cautious, others say the seismic market appears to be approaching an inflection point.

Clarksons Platou Securities’ analysts expect global seismic demand to grow 6% this year from 2017.

Seismic contracts were paying an average of $302,000 per day in 2013, which was the year before the global offshore downturn began. This had fallen by 56% over four years to an estimated $133,000 per day by 2017.

Clarksons is predicting rates on seismic contracts to rise about 48% from last year to around $197,000 per day this year.

Vessel efficiency and streamer count affect these earnings directly, since the ships are meant to acquire data non-stop during a project.

For context, Clarksons Platou Securities put the total seismic fleet at just 34 active vessels at the start of this year.