Telegraph-Journal | As published on page B1 on December 28, 2007

Imaging firm's technology has global possibilities

Jill Green, chief executive of Green Imaging Technologies, holds up a rock core sample that is used to determine how much oil and water is in a certain area. Software designed by Green Imaging uses an MRI machine, shown in the background, to scan samples.

The conventional method of identifying recoverable oil reserves has been called one of the dinosaur sciences of the oil and gas industry

For 40 years, the industry has relied on a method that can take months to glean what are typically spotty results.

Not until a group of researchers at the University of New Brunswick looked to Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI testing, had the industry seen any major breakthroughs.

That method can shave lab testing time to just two or three days and sharpen accuracy with impressive results.



According to American oil and gas giant Chevron, a testing method that enables the firm to extract five per cent more from a reserve would bring tens of millions of dollars in additional revenues.

The company that now holds the patent of the UNB method says its technology is capable of exceeding that benchmark of accuracy.

Green Imaging Technologies, a Fredericton-based startup launched in early 2006, uses MRI technology, known for its application in tissue and bone scanning, to test rock core samples gleaned from potential oil and gas deposits.

The method replaces one that involves measuring the volume of water that drains from rock samples vigorously spun in what looks like a large washing machine. Green Imaging's MRI technology, the size of a small beer fridge, is a direct measurement of fluid.

The results of rock core tests play a critical role in the decision-making of major oil companies as they draft their plans for exploration. And Green Imaging's technology is already garnering worldwide attention.

CoreLab, the world's largest oil and gas rock core laboratory, ran trials of the technology this year and found the accuracy and speed far exceeded those of the traditional method. Oil and gas industry leaders Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Shell have supplied rock core samples for additional trials at UNB.

Green Imaging, headed by Jill and Derrick Green of Douglas near Frederciton secured its first sale last fall with ConocoPhillips, the fifth-largest oil refiner in the world.

"Their method of rock-core testing is extraordinarily unique, probably in the world," says Darcy Spady, president and chief executive of Contact Exploration, an Alberta-based junior oil company focused on Atlantic Canadian deposits.

"But it took the Greens to take the technology and create a business out of it," says Spady, also a Green Imaging board member.

The couple, both educated at UNB, moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 2000, when Derrick was offered a job with Phillips Medical Systems, a global health technology developer. The move was a necessary one for the MRI technology specialist, whose talents then had no place in New Brunswick.

While in Ohio, Jill, educated as a civil engineer, carved out a reputation as prominent marketing and finance consultant, boasting several large cities as clients.

Then came the call from Bruce Balcom, physics professor and director of the UNB MRI research centre, who offered the couple a chance to head what promised to be a new and major player in the lucrative oil and gas industry.

The couple moved home and never looked back.

"This is what excites me about the company: Not only do you have PhD-level researchers with great backgrounds who know the science, but you also have somebody who can market the technology," says Spady.

"And they have done a phenomenal job of getting in front of the world's largest oil and gas companies and the major people in the market for rock core analysis."

Looking ahead, Jill Green says the firm has quoted prices for several projects for potential global customers and secured verbal commitments for work throughout the next two years.

Next fall, the firm plans to launch new developments in its software that will provide labs with the tools to test more characteristics of rock cores, giving them a better picture of what lays beneath the ground.

"Our long-term vision is to build a company that's developing products that have a global market in the oil and gas sector, and we're using the talent we have here," says Green.

"What we're doing isn't accidental - we have a sound plan and we're executing it.

"We want to be the best, and that is our focus."