Two exploration technologies made available to the industry

Jan. 17, 2000
Texaco is making available two exploration technologies the company developed during the 1990s.

Texaco is making available two exploration technologies the company developed during the 1990s.

The company is placing rights to its proprietary three-dimensional visualization and remote sensing technologies into newly-formed companies, one a Texaco subsidiary. Texaco managers who directed development of the technologies will head the new entities.

The remote sensing technology marks the emergence of a new type of exploration, Texaco said.

Visualization concern

Texaco will own 25% of newly-formed Magic Earth LLC, Houston, which will further develop and market the patented GeoProbe visualization technology. Employees and other investors will own the rest of Magic Earth. Its president will be Michael J. Zeitlin, who led the team that developed the system.

The agreement will enable GeoProbe's capabilities to be further developed while preserving Texaco's access to the tool, the oil company said.

GeoProbe allows users to interactively interpret enormous data volumes. Since its introduction in 1997, Texaco geoscientists using the software have quickly interpreted data from more than 100 projects that would have taken them up to ten times longer to analyze using conventional techniques. In addition to shortening cycle times, thereby reducing costs, GeoProbe also offers its users much higher levels of accuracy through visualization.

Zeitlin called GeoProbe the most powerful interpretive environment currently available to the industry.

Remote sensing unit

Meanwhile, Texaco formed wholly-owned Alto Technology Resources Inc. as a Houston subsidiary. It will market Texaco Energy and Environmental Multispectral Imaging Spectrometer (Teems), Texaco's proprietary remote sensing technology.

Using data gathered by aircraft and satellites, Teems provides unique information about the earth's crust.

Teems, a breakthrough optical imaging spectrometer, records more than 200 selected wavelengths of reflected and emitted energy and uses the information to detect minute concentrations of hydrocarbon in rock, vegetation, and soil without touching the earth's surface. In addition to the optical system, the sensor's aperture radar conducts high definition mapping of geological features on the ground.

The 3D images produced by this technology provide significant information about the surface structure, greatly reducing expenses and cycle-time in the exploration process and in the development of environmental assessments and protection plans.

Teems offers real-time recording and processing of several hundred square miles of geological and environmental data per day. Using this capability, Texaco scientists have increased their productivity and accuracy in the evaluation of natural resources and protection of the environment.

Alfredo Prelat, under whose direction Teems was developed, was named president and chief executive officer of Alto.

Prelat said the sensor technology identifies geological features that can be correlated to subsurface characteristics that have controlled the movement and entrapment of oil and gas over millions of years. The technology is the only highly advanced, airborne remote sensing system capable of providing real-time monitoring and processing of geological data for exploration and environmental assessments, he added.

Alto's formation will allow the application of Teems to activities other than oil and gas exploration, such as pipeline monitoring, environmental assessments, project planning and investigations, and agriculture.