Member Info for seisprocessor

Phil, if you search for Steve Nicandros in Companies House UK website, his entry comes up as a still active director of FIC and lists the address as 154 Stoney Creek, Houston. He'll be 66 next month and it says his re-registration is required by 1st October 2026.

I used to work in Houston in the '90's mostly and always stayed not far from that address. Actually, if I was living in Houston then that would be the area I'd want to be in too as everything you'd want is at hand - Memorial Drive, Westheimer, Richmond Ave and both the Beltway via I10/Katy and the loop easily reached. The San Felipe address in Post Oaks is way out by the airport. I worked there briefly on secondment to Exxon before they moved offices to their mega campus. It's a long commute round the Beltway from Stoney Creek to Post Oaks - not something you would want to do every day. I wouldn't be surprised if the TXN Energy address is just a postal one.

Hi Lifeishard,

I found it interesting to read the report in the Audited accounts from the client's point of view for a change.

My impression is that GOGC have left the door open to being paid what they're owed, but that would take some miracle even if FRUS were to emerge post liquidation as a debt free entity.

Sen. Markwayne Mullins stated in 2020 that Ivanishvili tried to push FRR out of the country, but now has reversed his position.

The GOGC report shows at least that GOGC actually tried to be very accommodating in extending the dates for FRUS to repay the arbitral award.

Events are moving swiftly tonight in Tbilisi with demonstrations against the government on the eve of elections, so lets see how that pans out!

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce86kgnj7zro

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/10/04/v-tbilisi-nachalis-stolknoveniya-politsii-s-antipravitelstvennimi-demonstrantami-a176305

So I had a read of the Annual Consolidated Audited Accounts for 2024 published by GOGC on GOGC.ge and there was a section on Frontera for 3 pages (34-36) talking about the liquidation and loss of the Mou and PSC.

SAOG awarded the license to FRUS but it was lost after the failure to pay the arbitral award.

SAOG control the activity on Block XII and GOGC carry out continuous operations under their instructions. It doesn't seem like they will award the block to anyone else in the near future.

GOGC have given up hope of seeing any money paid following the liquidation so it no longer features in their accounts. But there are provisions intended to survive the termination so even if the company gets struck off, then there's still a mechanism in place for FRUS to pay them in future.

The price of 5.8m USD would be a red line for them I guess before anything changed in Georgia.

Interesting that they accepted FRUS as the company before the PSC was lost (again)!

Yes, still here and still working offshore in oil exploration!

I noticed on Companies House UK that FIC is still registered with SN's address listed as 154 Stoney Creek Houston, TX77024.

Maybe i'll write to him and suggest setting up a gofundme page:-)

Grayhorse,

I think your information might be out of date as a previous comment had mentioned that SN had recently moved from his Pine Needle address.

Actually you can find the correct address for FIC through Companies House UK, that lists the company as still active using the following link:

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/B9sisxCrpF1G8KOVniXUzCksajg/appointments

Mass protests going on in Georgia about a proposed new law for foreign agents. Hmm.. not such a great development for us if the Georgian Dream force this through - they must know it will seen as anti-Western and pro-Russian that will block any chance of them joining the EU.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/04/17/20k-rally-in-georgia-as-mps-advance-controversial-foreign-influence-law-a84876

Thanks to PubCrawl for posting the link to the Liberum brokers note!

It's an extremely well written document and clearly sets out their calculations and methodology for reserves estimates.

A lot of useful extra comments regarding the Karoo and Basement formations too.

Their comment about the rig being in a state of operational readiness indicated that it wasn't actually hot stacked, implying a crew on standby, but warm stacked instead with a bare minimum maintenance to keep it ticking over. I wish the RNS would have made that more clear. It seems that they are in the process of replenishing their spares inventory ahead of the EWT. Had they leased the rig to Noble, then they would have had to replenish spares levels afterwards and possibly risk delaying their EWT as a result, so I guess it's all eyes on Q3 for that one.

Their does appear to be a clear pattern of RNS operational updates at the start of each month going back to October, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's another one next week. Enough time should have passed now to provide a reserves update I'd have thought. At the very least the company should just make the broker note available on their website or encourage shareholders to read it instead:-)

On the one hand, fantastic news about the minimum flow rate and 4.7% helium content.

Also the greater than expected temperature gradient giving > 80C at depth means that there is a considerably higher helium content from the pvt calculations at TD which assumed a more average gradient and temperature at TD around 55C.

No need to wait for results to come back from an independent lab because the work was performed on-site and samples were never required to be sent off.

Frankly shocking however is the bit about the company being pleased to announce that they don't have a clue what to do with their expensive, newly acquired rig for the next 4 months, other than burn available funds to keep a rig crew on standby!

The main focus on current activity appears to be:

'The Company's focus is now on appraising and evaluating the resource potential at Itumbula West-1. Whilst progressing the subsurface work, to better understand the resource estimates in a fractured Basement and fault play, we are planning the next phase of operations'.

With drilling results from Tai-3 and Itumbula West-1, the company now has a suite of new and accurate information to integrate into their data. I used to work in an interpretive processing group where we took well data (sonic,density,resistivity etc) and generated a synthetic seismogram from them which was then used to tie in to the data using phase matching to get the timing correct.

Other than a brief stint in Moscow in 2009, most of my land data processing experience was carried out in the late '80's, early '90's. Land seismic data is notorious for having poor signal at depth but a lot of random & coherent noise. The frequency range of land seismic is typically 10-55Hz with the higher frequencies rapidly getting absorbed with depth. The lower frequencies penetrate deeper, but given the fact that the thickness of fractured Basement zone underlying the lower Karoo sequence was almost completely unknown before Tai-3, which perhaps tells us something about the low signal to noise ratios deeper down.

The low frequencies, 0-10Hz, missing from the seismic data can be added in from the well log data/synthetic seismogram. This is done by converting the time based data into the frequency domain and combining the data using a process called broadband seismic inversion.

So this needs to be done at Itumbula and Tai on the available data in order to better delineate the basement features and understand the resource estimates, and hopefully they are progressing this work quickly as I'm sure there is a lot of work going on in the background that we don't know about.

That won't help the current SP slide but should lead to significant resource upgrades fairly soon.

Many thanks to Looed for passing on the message from the company and the link for the Deloitte notice.

Like others, until the GG has put out a tender to the B12 license, I remain hopeful that the data and the 1% license held have a lot of value although nothing with liquidity that could be sold easily.

I noticed 2 posters on the SYN board today (who had uncovered details of a joint venture before news gets announced this week) with an uncanny similarity to old names on the FRR board.

One is Muck165 and the other is BobBackwards - I wonder if they were Kickmuck and B-2-O in a previous life. B2O is an anagram of Bob.

Might be worth asking them if they know the score with FRUS:-)

Well said ODR1!

Thank you Looed for your efforts to contact the company and also publishing their response.

Good to hear that positive things are happening!

However, as a shareholder, I have every right to ask questions and try to find out what is going on with the company and my own investment. There is nothing illegal in contacting the Georgian Government or third parties working for SAOG or GOGC to ask about information posted on an English language company webpage open to the public, either directly or via social media. If they wish to issue threats to UK based investors then it must mean that they're very sensitive to the information contained therein.

Hi ODR1,

I also had been reading the GOGC website just the other week and gone through that document about the 2022 accounts. Very interesting!

A week ago on 11 Nov I emailed a letter to Giorgi Talishvili at State Oil and Gas Agency via the GOGC website and asked specific questions about the current status of Block 12 and payments owed by FRUS. He was the one who had made comments in the Georgian media about Block 10. The email was received but no reply so far.

@dai2belts,

Yes, 4750ft x 0.47psi/ft = 2245 psi.

However, I just played around with the laws of thermodynamics and figured the volume increase would only be 1020 times greater, so ending up with just over 3% at TD

E.g. P1xV1/T1 = P2xV2/T2; 1xV1/25C = 2245xV2/55C; V1=1020V2

(30ppm x 1020)/1000000 = 3.06%

I was interested in LB's choice of wording, given that Tai-1 didn't get down very far into the Karoo.

It’s interesting the change of wording in the RNS’s from 3 days ago.

Previously it was only elevated helium shows of 6 x background levels in the Lower Karoo and Basement targets.

Now it’s multiple targets with elevated shows of 6 x background reading.

10 Nov

‘The Tai-3 results during drilling were very encouraging with helium shows up to six times above background at multiple levels’

7 Nov

‘Elevated helium shows, up to six times above background, have been identified in the Lower Karoo Group and Basement targets’

Readings from mud samples made on the surface at atmospheric pressure of 1 bar show 6 times the background levels, say around 5ppm, so about 30ppm then. If samples can be recovered at formation pressure, then as a rough guide – using a drilling mud with a weight of 9 pounds per gallon would give a pressure rise of 0.47 psi/ft and so a bottom hole pressure at TD=1448m of 2245psi.

If the compression rate increases by a factor of 2245 then the amount of compressed helium measured would also increase. If it increased anything like 2245 times, then 30ppm of helium could then become 6.7% at TD.

There seems to be a linear increase in frequency and quality of helium shows with depth.

Also in today’s Proactive Investor interview: ‘Blaisse remains optimistic about the well's condition, emphasising ongoing efforts to maintain its stability and mitigate the risk of further complications. She outlines plans to manage on-site personnel efficiently to minimise costs while the rig is out of action’

– meaning that she fully intends to resume operations and then move to the next drill at Itumbula as planned.

We’ve heard nothing to indicate anything otherwise.

Well said Bluebay - I completely agree with you! I do not see anything that could be deemed as untrustworthy and the company have been as honest and informative as they can be with this drill. In the latest RNS, LB has said as much as its possible to say at this stage without wireline data, and preserving the integrity of the borehole is paramount for achieving their objective of obtaining helium samples at reservoir pressure. Being able to run open hole wireline will give a full set of density, sonic,resistivity and pressure and there is a whole lot of news to come for sure. The results will allow the generation of a synthetic seismogram which can be matched to their 2D seismic dataset and will radically improve their interpretation deeper down and tie in across to their next well - it's what I used to do for a living when I worked in London. The company can't defend themselves against any insinuations of untrustworthiness or dishonesty on a BB, and I haven't personally had any dealings with HE1 or Noble Helium, but I have in the past worked for some AIM oilers such as Borders & Southern, Noble Energy and FOGL in the Falklands and found all of them to be spot on.

part 2

the confirmation of helium shows in the karoo and lake bed formation, strongly suggests that a carrier is present to successfully get the helium out of the basement.

reading today’s rns from noble helium, they evidently believe that they have evidence of gas in their lower targets.

bear in mind that the basement sediments will be the first port of call for migrated nitrogen/helium:

a thin basement layer sequence would suggest slow rates of sedimentary deposition over the circa 70 million years period it took to be deposited, with more fine-grained shales and mudstones of lower porosity and permeability.

if the layer was 400m thicker than expected, then that, conversely, would indicate that there must have been times where the rate of deposition was faster, coming from higher porosity and co****r grained clastic material - sandstones, siltstones - possibly during periods of subsidence.

for those reasons i think that the basement layer might be more prospective and significant than originally thought, and i would question the figures given in the cpr which seem to underplay the potential of this layer.

imo,

seis.

Part 1

@Bluebay, @skittish – thanks for the images you’ve posted…all very thought provoking!

I don’t think the basement layer was reached at all on Tai-1. The thickness of the Karoo sequence will be broadly similar to that defined by the well log data on Ivuna-1, so only from drilling down through the Karoo have they discovered that the underling basement sediments are a lot thicker than expected. MWD should indicate another 100m or so to TD and the metamorphic debris being encountered just before the drilling stopped confirms this as basement sediment with the amount of fractured/weathered basement material likely increase too.

Looking at the seismic section in the CPR (fig 2.5, p19), the interpreted basement layer coded in purple must be the top basement sediments, since it does follow the overlying Karoo sequence in time. The bottom of the basement sediment sequence, should be following an unconformity surface with the ancient metamorphic basement and not following the same trend. It’s not been mapped probably because it’s poorly defined with lower signal to noise ratios below the very strongly reflective top basement. Combine that with the depth conversion using 2D derived data, which led to shallower estimates.

My reading of the Rukwa story from the CPR is:

Firstly, there’s an ancient basement which last underwent deformation 2.3 billion years ago and since that event, it’s considered that helium has been produced from radioactive decay ever since, all of it being trapped within the rock.

Fast forward 2 billion years later to when the basement sediments were laid down, say sometime between 360 – 290 million years ago before the Karoo formation was laid down in Permian times. The (hopefully) extensive weathering and fracturing of the top basement rock will act as a good conduit later on to get the helium out, but all the layers above, reservoirs and seals, right up to the Lake Bed Formations, were deposited while the helium was still trapped in the basement rock.

If TD is now 1550m, the assumed temperature gradient would not have produced temperatures at basement level sufficient to achieve helium closure – say around 55C instead of the 70C needed. It was only 40 million years ago that the tectonic activity and volcanic magmatism raised this temperature over the threshold and then helium began to be released into the pore spaces of the basement rock. Being in the so called ‘goldilocks zone’ meant that the prospect area is close enough to the mantle plume for heating but not too close to risk the helium being diluted by CO2.

So now the presence of an advective carrier in the form of gaseous nitrogen or groundwater was required to migrate the helium out of the pore spaces and upwards into the overlying strata from 40 million years ago until the present. The confirmation of helium shows in the Karoo and Lake Bed formation, strongly suggests that a carrier is present to successfully get the helium out of the base

Apart from the mechanical breakdown delay, I’m delighted with the news that helium shows are present in both the Lake Bed and Karoo formations, as this de-risks the first two primary targets which are a lot different on the other side of the main fault.

Looking at the seismic data, the well intersects the Lake Bed formation at exactly the right place up-dip at the top of a sequence that looks a lot more prospective and better developed than on the other side of the fault (where the helium shows disastrously pinched out on a localized deposit on the previous Tai-2 attempt).

HE1 were never going to drill below TD into a 4 billion-year-old basement consisting of hard crystalline metamorphic gneiss, but discovering that their third target, the overlying fractured basement sediments come in 400m deeper than prognosis is actually a good thing for their third target zone, as it means a thicker zone with bits of disseminated gneiss in it, which will help to liberate more helium from the radioactive decay of the basement rock as well as having a higher pressure regime.

Far better that than coming in 400m shallower than expected!

With some limited well control provided by Tai-1, I was expecting a discrepancy of 100-150m in the depths at TD, but 400m just shows the risk in drilling based on 2D data vs 3D. The 2D data is more prone to error due to limited spatial sampling and consequently a greater number of assumptions made. The dipping strata and steep angle of the faults at the Karoo make imaging and migrating the data into the right place more difficult because while the velocity profile of the geology can be calculated fairly well going vertically, it varies a lot in the horizontal direction. There are ever more sophisticated Kirchoff and PSTM migration algorithms developed for handling these variations, but still a world of a difference between 3D and 2D derived velocities.

The Karoo formation is considerably more developed and thicker on the other side of the fault. With porosities already known to be around 20%, there’s good potential for flowing helium to the surface!

Tsbs1,

Is it possible that the 'free license in the direction of Kakheti' comment by Giorgi Talishvili refers to the 99% of BLK 12 that GOGC took back after arbitration and that the 1% that supposedly belongs to FRUS remains unaffected? They would of course be free to do what they like with it in terms of seeking new investors.

Hi dai2belts,

Greetings from North Wales - it's been a long time......that's nice that you remembered me!

Yeah, I'm still working offshore Far East in the seismic industry.

I've been out for a long time since the 4 well program fizzled out at Tai after using the underpowered rig, although I have been following the HE1 story and reading the BB more recently.

Funnily enough I did get back in today as I remain convinced of the prospects for success here.

I'd been looking for the right moment and when I saw LegalWolf's post at 12.56, that was just the encouragement I needed - someone who isn't invested but was deeply concerned about all the LTH's watching the SP fall with no news this week. In other words, just the right time to get back in again before things take off!!

I hope HE1 stick to their intentions of only informing the market after reaching TD and then 2 weeks later once results can be confirmed. I've no desire to see any cryptic tweets from the CEO during drilling, suggestive interviews, videos of drilling mud or lakes with helium bubbles this time.

I'm in this for the Karoo formation and hopefully a successful drill this time!

Casper786 and Hms687,

Glad you both appreciated the post!

I wouldn’t like to estimate flow rates, as a lot depends on the pressure regime of the reservoir.

However, I’ll be delighted if the company achieve what they stated in order to progress their field development plans.

I can share my thoughts, but again, they’re based on a few assumptions and what little facts are known so far....

The flow rate testing will involve testing various rates and seeing how fast the reservoir pressure recovers in order to establish a sustainable rate.

Other factors are the perforation flow efficiency, the choice of phasing angle of the perforation holes in the casing and the zones that the company chooses to perforate.

Hopefully the good quality reservoir comments in the RNS also refer to a low sulphur, light, sweet oil which would have a low viscosity and higher API with good movability. They will be able to determine that from fluorescence testing of the cuttings I’d imagine.

The reservoir pressure should be sufficient at the target horizon depth of 1700m.

It’s very positive that no water was encountered at SCHB-2. A third well planned with water injection further south and closer to the OWC should work well to deliver the sustained rates that the company hopes to achieve.

Permeability values are not known, but at least the absence of gas and water at SCHB-2 means that they shouldn’t be affected in a negative way.

With 2255m TD and 1717ｍ vertical at SCHB-2, there’s about a 40-degree angle in this well - so there will be 30% more of the oil-bearing section exposed to the well bore with a deviated well as compared to a vertical one.

If the net oil column of 28m is a marked increase in the previous encountered one at SCHB-1, and the porosity has increased significantly, then that all these factors mentioned should positively affect the flow rates.

As always, DYOR and IMHO,

Seis.