Tuesday's article on Pinnacle:
Tuesday, May 25, 1999
Stress Field Detector a closely guarded secret
By: Matthew McClearn
Calgary Herald
Locked in a large grey briefcase in a safe of a downtown Calgary office tower sits a device that looks like a transistor radio. It's monitoring something – no one's quite sure what – even as you read this.
The Stress Field Detector is the brainchild of physicist-inventor George Liszicasz, chairman of Calgary's Pinnacle Oil International Inc.
Liszicasz says the device can detect subsurface mechanical stress in rocks and fluids, and the readings it generates can be used to locate oil and natural gas reserves faster and cheaper than traditional exploration methods.
Three strategic partners – Renaissance Energy Ltd. and Encal Energy Ltd. in Calgary, and Camwest Exploration in Texas – believe the SFD has potential.
The physics of how it works, however, are a mystery – leading others to question, or even ridicule, the technology.
“It seems to show something, but exactly what it is, we're not sure yet,” says Garry Bilous, manager of geophysics at Renaissance. “I don't know the theory behind it. That's a secret with George.”
Liszicasz has been working on the SFD since 1992. A hard-boiled and enigmatic physicist who has little interest in speaking with reporters, he declined last week to discuss how he developed SFD technology.
“He is in one of those moods,” offered Dan Topolinsky, who left Renaissance to become Pinnacle's new president and director this month. He describes Liszicasz as a “phenomenal physicist,” but Topolinsky does most of the talking.
“I have known George for two years, and I'm still learning the story. He lets out bits and pieces at a time … he is pretty private in that regard.”
Pinnacle says the detector captures energy patterns through its SFD Sensor, a passive transducer that generates a quantum field which, in turn, responds to the energy patterns.”
The Herald sent Pinnacle's explanation of SFD to Larry Lines, chairman of exploration geophysics at the University of Calgary.
“I'm really quite skeptical about the validity of it,” said Lines, who noted there isn't much information available on it.
“If it works, it's something that is really a mystery. If it's as good as they say, I suppose they wouldn't want anybody else to know.”
Pinnacle keeps the physics closely guarded, but the company is open about how the SFD is used for reconnaissance.
During a survey, a plane equipped with an SFD flies at about 300 metres over the site in question, gathering stress readings that are measured as a waveform.
Back at Pinnacle's office, geologists interpret the waveform, comparing the patterns to those of known formations in Pinnacle's database. If the squiggly lines compare favourably to known oil or gas reserves, Pinnacle tells clients to verify SFD results using traditional exploration techniques.
“It's quicker, cheaper, and ultimately, strategically it has immense implications,” says Topolinsky, adding that it cuts the costs of both exploration and buying land.
It's also a tough sell. “It's too easy to be skeptical,” says Topolinsky, who guesses only one in 10 people give it the time of day.
In February 1998, Barron's, a prominent U.S. business journal, wrote a scathing piece entitled “Simply Amazing: Is Pinnacle's oil exploration device a new force or a new farce?”
Pinnacle's three strategic partners – all of whom have been testing SFD for several years – aren't laughing.
“It's a technology that has merit for potential applications as a wide-area reconnaissance tool,” said Peter Carwardine, vice-president of Encal's eastern business unit.
Cawardine won't talk about Encal's findings, but said, “We're still working with them after two years, if I can leave it at that.”
Bilous says Renaissance looks at SFD much like a lottery ticket. “You take a chance and see what it does.”
“Our results are interesting. We've had no success to date as far as hydrocarbons, but we've found some structures, so we'll keep on working with it. If, down the road, we figure out how to interpret it, and it works, it will be a great tool.”
Geologist Rod Morris of Inceptis Investments in Calgary conducted a three-day evaluation of the SFD Technology in September 1996, and found that it had a 95 per cent success rate on identifying known reserves.
“It is clear that SFD technology has excellent potential,” he wrote. “It would be a tragic mistake to dismiss this technology simply because the industry does not understand it.”
Pinnacle, which now employs 14, remains focused on the needs of its strategic partners.
Topolinsky says SFD needs a larger body of statistical data before its capabilities and shortcomings will become obvious, and he's not eager to over-hype it.
“Any place where you had some culmination or twisting in the earth, that was really the first way that people explored for oil and gas,” he says.
“Then along came seismic (surveys), and boom, the industry took off. We contend that this is another one of those steps in the stairway, bringing you a little closer to a higher probability of success.”
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