Getech gathers orders for its Iraq oil exploration data

The group, spun out of the University of Leeds, sells complex geological and geophysical data to help oil companies including Shell, BP and Exxon Mobil decide where to sink new wells.

Getech signed a deal with the Geological Survey of Iraq (Geosurv) in December giving it exclusive rights to market the oil-rich country’s gravity and magnetic survey data held by Geosurv.

Getech said since it started marketing the data to the oil industry in June it has won a major order worth more than $500,000 (£311,000), bringing total Iraq sales to more than $750,000.

Professor Derek Fairhead, president and founder of Getech, who led the Iraq negotiations, said: “The agreements that were signed in December 2010 took Getech more than five years to complete.

“We believe the immediate interest in these data and subsequent confirmed sales reflect the strong international interest both in oil exploration in Iraq and in the data we are able to provide.

“We have grounds to believe that there will be substantial revenue generated from these data in the coming months.”

Oil majors are increasingly targeting exploration in Iraq, which has the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves behind Saudi Arabia, Canada and Iran.

Getech said the ground-based gravity data from 116,565 stations, plus aeromagnetic data covering flight lines of 184,000km, will give oil companies access to very detailed Iraq data for the first time.

The data provides substantial coverage across much of Iraq – except Kurdistan where such surveys have not taken place.

Getech traces its roots to the University of Leeds’s Department of Earth Sciences, now part of the School of Earth and Environment, when Prof Fairhead collected gravity data for Africa in 1986.

Getech’s data spans the globe, from the oil-rich west coast of Africa to the largely untapped Arctic circle. It is increasingly benefiting from looser budgets at oil firms, which are resuming spending on exploration data after a recession-induced hiatus.