HARD TO ACCEPT?
We at Numatex understand the reticence within the oil and gas industry to accept any geophysical “science” claiming the ability to “see” any and every drop of producible oil in the ground, much less to identify its zone or the ground’s porosity and permeability prior to drilling. Our experience through the years tells us approximately 99% of all the geologists within the industry do not believe anyone can determine the existence of oil from the surface. The remaining 1% are merely those who claim “an open mind.” While visiting an eminent geologist at the geological survey of a major southwestern university in December 2010, we described our claims without naming the science. He replied, “You’ve said a mouthful.” Actually his words were music to our ears. Knowing we were within a year of filing our patent application after almost twenty years of research and testing, we at Numatex have known we were years ahead of the industry without any outside support. The last thing we wanted to hear at that point was any general knowledge within industry circles that anyone would have surpassed our progress toward a U.S. patent.
The main reason industry geologists do not believe any such science exists is because NMR’s ability to track petroleum molecules from the surface had not yet been discovered when they were in college. NMR’s oil-finding technology was not part of their curriculum. It was not part of geological science or physics education within any university as applicable to finding oil AND STILL ISN’T. Prior to 1980, NMR technology was still a laboratory science and was barely getting off the ground as a medical practice, still questioned by many medical practitioners and subject to continuous advancements. We are not surprised nor are we deterred by the disbelief of industry professionals toward discovery.
Over the last twenty-five years, we at Numatex have known of NMR lateral logging technology as instituted by Numar, Inc, in 1985, which at the time was limited to approximately six inches at the time and is now being used with patented equipment by major service companies with a lateral view currently limited to approximately 100 meters into the target formation with certain analytical evaluations. We learned of millions of dollars of consortium money being spent at Texas Tech University in the 1990s to extend an NMR view to approximately forty inches into the target zone, which at the time would have been considered major progress. Through our years of research and development, we never heard of any company providing NMR services at the surface, nor have we read any industry news articles of any such science being advanced, beyond the laboratory study of rocks. As everyone within the industry knows, there are no secrets out in the oilfield, and no advancement such as Numatex’s surface NMR has come to our attention . Numatex’s NMR discoveries are now the STATE OF THE ART, and in our opinion there will never be a more advanced technology available to the oil and gas industry than the ability to look directly at formation molecules from the surface – to any depth.