21 Nov 2012 07:00
ViaLogy PLC ("ViaLogy" or "the Company")
ViaLogy move into Shale Oil Development
London, UK November 21, 2012. ViaLogy PLC (LSE/AIM: VIY) Under one of its Master Services Agreements with a Supermajor client, ViaLogy has been directed to expand its QuantumRD® analysis work to locating unconventional oil deposits in tight shale formations. Shale plays for both oil and gas have recently emerged center stage in the US and global search for hydrocarbons, and in the US will account for an increasing share of oil and gas production. The client's area of interest comprises several thousand square miles that are believed to hold commercially viable quantities of oil within shale beds if it can be accurately located.
In this case, the shale is known to be "tight", meaning that total porosity is very low, and to accurately identify areas where porosity and permeability levels reach minimal producible levels is critical. Formation areas that are too tight fail to yield sufficient oil to justify drilling costs. ViaLogy's second task is to map optimal horizontal drilling well trajectories through the sufficiently porous shale it has located, specifically through zones that are amenable to fracking. What makes ViaLogy uniquely capable is QuantumRD's ability to resolve subtle changes in shale stratigraphy below the level of 3D seismic resolution. In this project, the 3D seismic data is older and was not originally acquired to image shales. Even with newly acquired seismic data conventional processing and interpretation could not fully characterize these shales without costly exploratory drilling. If QuantumRD can utilize the legacy data successfully to show both required porosity and "frac friendly" drilling routes it will avoid both the costs of re-acquiring seismic data across the entire field and of drilling marginal wells.
CEO Robert Dean said, "This is an important milestone on our roadmap for commercially scaling our business. It has been a principal strategic objective to demonstrate the value and versatility of QuantumRD across conventional and unconventional formations, both onshore and offshore, regardless of depth. This client request to focus on shale on one of their prime assets advances our strategy, and is particularly important in light of the enormous future importance of shale oil and gas reserves to the industry."
For further information contact:
ViaLogy PLC
Terry Bond, Chairman - UK & Europe +44 (0) 1235-834734
Nominated Advisor and Broker to ViaLogy PLC (Seymour Pierce)
Mark Percy/Catherine Leftley, Corporate Finance +44 (0) 20-7107-8000
Katie Ratner/David Banks, Corporate Broking +44 (0) 20-7107-8000
About ViaLogy:
ViaLogy provides reservoir characterization, geophysical imaging and hydrocarbon sizing services to global oil and gas customers based on proprietary, patented active signal processing technology. ViaLogy's QuantumRD platform assists clients in de-risking prospects over a broad range of subsurface lithologies and complex stratigraphies to generate drilling targets, position offsets and enhance recovery. ViaLogy's core technology rapidly and accurately detects weak signals buried in high noise background and clutter, and is applicable to active/passive seismic, electromagnetic and magneto telluric data. By exploiting normally disregarded noise variations induced by changes in porosity, fluid presence and permeability across the formation, and adding computer-designed noise to the data, ViaLogy is able to amplify subtle noise variations to enhance areal and depth resolution in complex lithologies that are not achievable through conventional means. For more information on ViaLogy, visit www.vialogy.com.