Strategic Relations
Blackwatch
Victoria has entered into a strategic consultancy agreement with Blackwatch Petroleum Services Limited, an international petroleum engineering and geo-science consultancy founded in 1994 with offices in Aberdeen, London, Abu Dhabi and Houston and with global experience.
Their industrial clients range from international majors to small independents in the areas of exploration and appraisal, field development, reservoir management, well operations and asset evaluation and their services are also utilised by banks, other financial institutions and governments. In the FSU, Blackwatch has been involved on a number of projects for major industrial and financial clients including provision of geological, reservoir and petroleum engineering services for major oil projects in Timan-Pechora and project evaluation in Samara.
Further information on Blackwatch and its capabilities can be found at the company's website: www.blackwatch.co.uk
Blackwatch provides advice on the development and exploitation of the Company's assets in Africa and the FSU.
GeoDynamics
GeoDynamics Research Srl was founded in 2003 and is based in Trento in Northern Italy. The main objective of the company was to become the leader in the development and application of passive low frequency acoustic and electromagnetic technologies for the surface detection of hydrocarbons and oil reservoir monitoring.
Infrasonic Passive Differential Spectroscopy – registered for GeoDynamics under "Geospectra IPDS" – is a new technology for hydrocarbon reservoir detection and monitoring has been developed since 1995 by a group of scientists originally headed by Ernst D. Rode, Dr. Jürgen. Moritz and Dr. Gennadij Chutov.
The company was founded by Ernst D. Rode and established operating units in the USA, UAE and Saudi Arabia. GeoDynamics has a strong advanced development program and is currently applying for several new patents, which are related to hydrocarbon exploration and development activities.
A preliminary IPDS passive seismic survey undertaken at West Medvezhye by GeoDynamics Research in late 2008 has been successful. Good data was acquired over the target location in the locality of Well 103 and the results are being processed.
When the results are finalised, the data will be correlated with existing information from 2D seismic and geochemical surveys to provide a complete interpretation of the Well 103 location.
Further information on GeoDynamics and its operations can be found at the company's website: www.geodynamics.it
Technology
Geospectra IPDS
Geospectra IPDS ("Geospectra") technology, currently one of the most effective tools for hydrocarbon monitoring and identification of water fronts and fingering.
Unlike conventional seismic technology, which requires the creation of acoustic waves typically through the use of explosives or a vibrator unit at the surface, passive seismic utilises ultra-sensitive surface geophones to measure normal seismic waves naturally produced in the Earth tectonics. This technology can be used to enhance existing seismic data or on a stand-alone basis for hydrocarbon exploration as it can detect the presence of moveable hydrocarbons and water contacts. The advantages of Geospectra over traditional seismic methods include:
- Environmentally friendly: as no artificial means of generating acoustic waves are used, no damage or pollution is caused at surface
- Detecting hydrocarbons: traditional seismic is used to determine geological formations for interpretation as to possible hydrocarbons saturation, whereas Geospectra directly measures the presence of hydrocarbons in porous rocks by recording anomalies in natural earth spectra as acoustic waves pass through them
- Speed and cost: Geosprectra is a highly mobile and very low cost form of seismic monitoring, which can yield interpreted results in a very short period
- Both GeoDynamics and Victoria believe that the application of Geospectra could greatly enhance the Company’s existing subsurface data interpretation and significantly reduce exploration risk.
The exploration and development operations undertaken by Victoria are based on geological models formulated through interpretation of conventional 2D and 3D seismic data. This form of subsurface modelling can still leave an element of uncertainty as to the presence of commercial hydrocarbons in a specifically defined location.