Neos Inc. and Lockheed Martin to Develop 'New Generation' Sensor - Huge Advance in Ability to Find Oil, Gas & Minerals from the Air

SAN FRANCISCO, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Neos Inc. will develop a new generation gravity gradiometry sensor which will be 20 times more powerful than current technology to find oil, gas and minerals beneath the earth's surface.

Neos and Lockheed Martin are building a unique sensor, which is so advanced it could find a 10-meter tall hill buried one kilometre below the earth's surface. Put another way, the technology could find an armoured truck full of gold 20 meters below the earth, purely by sensing the effect the bullion imparts on the local gravity field.

The new technology, called Full Tensor Gradiometry (FTG) Plus, has 20 times the sensitivity and 10 times greater bandwidth than current gravity gradiometers.

"FTG Plus transforms what we can do and what we can see from the air," said Chairman of Neos Inc. Jonathan Faiman, "Remote sensing is going to dominate the exploration market and with this sensor Neos will have the most advanced in the world. It will enable us to image resources cleaner, quicker and at a lower cost to our customers."

Lockheed Martin is building the prototype specifically to detect natural resources from aircraft owned and operated by Neos.

Neos acquired the FTG Plus program as part of its acquisition of assets from CGG SA announced April 29, 2016.

"The advances we will make here are extraordinary. One of the reasons is that in the past we and competitors have used military hardware, modified for geophysical survey purposes," said Gregory Paleolog, FTG Plus program lead for Neos, "FTG Plus is the first time Lockheed Martin has specifically built a sensor for our precise use and needs. That is a fundamental change; it is an entirely new design for us and we have exclusive rights to use it."

Neos has exclusive use of the technology for applications related to oil, gas and mining and will use FTG Plus in its fleet -- either Twin-Engined Basler BT-67s, single turbine engine Cessna C-208B Caravan aircraft or Reims-Cessna F406 twin turbine airplanes. The sensors can also be used in helicopters.

The technology has the potential to change the way governments, energy ministries and exploration teams find valuable resources, and ultimately lead to faster, more informed decisions about where to explore, lease and drill.

"At a time when so much marine seismic equipment is being cold-stacked, we will be able to use non-seismic technology with a new sensor 20 times better than anything we have ever seen before," Paleolog said. "This means we will find more resources, quicker and with more accuracy than ever before. It will be transformative."

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. CGG and Neos: On April 29, 2016, Neos announced an agreement with CGG SA to acquire its Multi-Physics business group, its General Geophysics Italy group and its data libraries for an undisclosed sum. The FTG Plus programme was acquired as part of the transaction as were a fleet of aircraft used in non-seismic work including those that will fly the FTG sensor.
   
2. Greg Paleolog and the FTG team are based in Toronto, Canada and in Melbourne and Perth, Australia, and the flights made with existing and future sensors are made all over the world. Media access to flights is available: Please approach David Yelland at KTP:   [email protected]s.com or +44-207-652-4348.
   
3. Neos helps governments, energy ministries and exploration teams in the natural resources industries make faster, more informed decisions about where to explore, lease and drill. In partnership with its clients, Neos acquires and simultaneously interprets multiple geological, seismic, non-seismic and geochemical datasets to identify valuable resources in the subsurface, including hydrocarbons, minerals and groundwater.
   
4. Jonathan Faiman invested in Neos in May 2015 and became Chairman with overall control of the company. Before becoming Chairman at Neos, Jonathan co-founded Ocado PLC, a U.K. business started in 2000. Investors in Neos include Jonathan, Goldman Sachs, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Passport Capital.
   
   For more information, visit http://www.neosgeo.com
   
   Jonathan Faiman and Greg Paleolog are contactable via David Yelland at KTP or Neos' Communications Team (Courtney Ford: Office +1-925-738-2168, [email protected] ) Or at Lockheed Martin contact Jim Archibald, Gravity Systems Business Manager, +1-716-298-6952.
   
5. FTG stands for Full Tensor Gradiometry. FTG, like many sensors used in non-seismic work was originally used for military purposes.
   
6. Neos is primarily a non-seismic company but it does also have a seismic processing group. The major difference between the two is that seismic work, the mainstay of the oil and gas industry for many years, often involves the use of ships using older technology to detect resources. Non-seismic work, which can be over land or see, uses advanced technology to map what is under the earth.
   
7. It is then Neos' digital teams which add the company's competitive advantage in the market by analysing the data in order to produce maps showing where resources are. Neos has a world leading record in doing this.
   
8. However, the combination of the new Lockheed Martin sensors and advances in the analysis will produce maps which surpass any currently available.

SOURCE Neos Inc. and Lockheed Martin