“Transportation consumes over 50% of the world oil production; the Energy Information Agency forecasts this level of usage to continue over the next 20 years.”

MaxEx Virtual Drilling is an EM (electromagnetic) technology.   EM is now at the forefront of oil and gas exploration tools and is developing to be as valuable as 3D seismic.  EM primarily serves as a complementary tool to seismic as seismic is sensitive to structural boundaries while EM is sensitive to the contents of the structure.

Notable EM applications include ExxonMobil’s R3M, EMGS’ Seabed Logging, PGS’ MTEM, CGG affiliate Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping and Schlumberger’s AOA Geomarine Operations.  These are all focused primarily offshore while MaxEx is focused onshore.

 In addition, MaxEx Virtual Drilling provides much higher resolution than other EM technologies.  With two to three meter resolution, Virtual Drilling generates a downhole log without drilling a well.  Plus our log provides information on the fluids - oil, gas, water or shales - and the inferred porosity and permeability of an interval. 

Pilot ZX DigiLog
100 meter section


Z-Scan Log
33 meter section

The technology has primarily been used in the United States with a 20 year record of near 100% success rate in detecting the absence of hydrocarbons and a 50% commercial success rate.  Demonstration tests support MaxEx’s capabilities with 93% accuracy in the identification of fluids, 82% accuracy in porosity and permeability and 99% interval size.  Importantly, MaxEx identified 47 of 47 water zones from 90 test zones confirming the ability of MaxEx to detect the absence of hydrocarbons.

This accuracy makes MaxEx a very powerful exploration risk management tool that offers

• Superior de-risking - reduce wells drilled/save time by 60% – 70%
• Excellent high-grading - increase average discoveries per commercial well by as much as 25%
• Powerful results - reduce finding costs per BOE by over 50%
• Value - one Virtual (undrilled) dry hole can pay for over 30 Virtual Drilling locations

MaxEx can be employed to reduce cost or to increase discoveries.  Applying MaxEx as a cost reduction tool can lower total program cost by over 50%.  If the focus of MaxEx is to increase discoveries, the same exploration budget employing MaxEx de-risking and high-grading can increase discoveries by over 100%. 

In addition, MaxEx is an ideal tool to screen prospective farmins before committing significant financial and operational resources to a project.  Shell recently employed this strategy using EMGS’ EM technology Sea Bed Logging to evaluate the prospectivity of a block offshore Senegal.  (Shell Pre-farmin EM Study.)  MaxEx can also be used to assess the prospectiveness of blocks offered in licensing rounds.

More information on MaxEx Virtual Drilling is available in the following documents.

We can help you save time and money in your exploration program.   Please contact us at
1 866 415 3387 or by email to sales@ensaga.com.