Sensor reported to find oil deposits from airplane 5/15/99
By CHRIS FLANAGAN
Business Editor
It could be one of the greatest inventions the oil industry has ever seen, a quantum leap in exploration technology, and the end of oil exploration as we know it.
And it is apparently being tested at the PanCanadian well at remote Shoal Point on the west coast of Newfoundland.
This new Holy Grail is basically a sensor that purports to find oil or gas deposits from an airplane flying over them at 240 kilometres per hour with an accuracy rate of 85 per cent. It is akin to sensor capabilities of television's Star Trek Enterprise, which could determine a planet's mineral wealth from the edge of its atmosphere.
Only Pinnacle Oil International Ltd. is not kidding.
The Calgary-based high-tech company has signed deals with three oil companies, including Encal Energy — a mid-sized oil company with a 25 per cent interest in the Shoal Bay well. Encal then bought its interest in the PanCanadian project by agreeing to pay 37.5 per cent of exploration costs.
Does it work?
What is not yet known in this story of many unknowns, is if the new technology is right about Shoal Point, a well that approached its target depth this week. PanCanadian has since withheld all information from the drilling operation, a standard industry precaution.
Also unknown is how this new technology works.
It is called the Stress Field Detector (SFD) survey system and was invented by Hungarian-born Canadian George Liszicasz, Pinnacle's CEO. In a 200-page company profile filed as part of Pinnacle's NASDAQ application last year — an application that was ultimately rejected — SFD is described as system for measuring a hitherto unknown energy field emitted by subsurface hydrocarbons.
“The SFD survey system operates on the theory that subsurface mechanical stresses in rocks and pressure differentials in fluids produce above ground, non-electromagnetic energy patterns,” the document states.
California-based money manger Jonathan Humphreys of Teal Capital Management describes it as a subatomic forcefield emanating from rocks under stress. Liszicasz is the first one to recognize and measure this field, Humphreys said. It not only determines if the right structure exists — as conventional seismic does — but also if there are hydrocarbons, and whether they are oil or gas, he believes.
“The sensor figures it out,” Humphreys said in an interview. “They've theorized it exists, but no one's been able to figure out if it really exists. This is Nobel-prize type of stuff.”
He said the technology predicted a commercial oilfield at the Port au Port Peninsula site and dry holes on Anticosti Island, a prospect in the St. Lawrence, in which Encal also has an interest.
If it works, that is.
Like all too-good-to-be-true developments, there are plausible explanations for why no one has read about the technology in Scientific American. Pinnacles' NASDAQ application document includes this explanation for secrecy: the company has applied for no patent protection, nor does it believe patent protection would actually keep its technology out of competitor's hands.
But Pinnacle recently landed a couple of oil and gas heavyweights to give itself credibility. On May 1, the company lured Dan Topolinsky — the former senior vice-president of exploration from Renaissance Energy, the largest domestic oil company in Canada — to become president of Pinnacle. It also hired Jim Ehrets, former senior vice-president of exploration at CamWest, a major Dallas-based oil and gas company. Both have worked closely with Pinnacle for more than a year.
Topolinsky has heard the skepticism but he's not deterred.
“I'm still hearing it and it doesn't scare me any longer,” Topolinsky said. “We've flown it over hundreds of oil and gas accumulations all over North America.”
Topolinsky sees it as a tool, not an alchemy for the oil industry, but nevertheless claims it is “greater than 85 per cent correct when it flies over (oil or gas) accumulations.
“As an explorationist, I wouldn't drill an exploration well without good quality seismic. Now I wouldn't drill without an SDF survey,” he said.
Enthusiastic
Executives at Encal Energy said they are enthusiastic about the project. Encal offered Pinnacle an eight per cent royalty on new properties where SDF technology is used, an unusual profit-sharing arrangement in the oil services industry. Yet in an interview, Encal vice-president James Reimer remained cautious.
“We're saying that SFD is a wide- area reconnaissance tool,” Reimer said. “We've supplemented Pinnacle's technology with conventional geophysics and geological activities.”
For now Encal is using the technology to access new areas it would not otherwise be able to explore.
Time will tell whether SFD is the golden goose, or a big goose egg.
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