NEOS GeoSolutions, Inc. Tuesday announced that it has opened an office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to handle the country's rapidly increasing demand for advanced geoscience technologies and services.

Covering an area about half the size of Europe, Brazil's onshore basins are relatively underexplored, having been overshadowed by the huge oil & gas discoveries that have been made offshore in the Campos and Santos basins.

"NEOS’ multi-measurement methodology allows the company to acquire and interpret geoscience data at the basin scale. Since its approach to new data acquisition relies primarily on airborne methods, the company is able to survey very large areas quickly and efficiently,” said Carlos Fernandez, General Manager for NEOS's Latin American operations.
 
Fernandez further said, “NEOS integrates these new geophysical and geochemical datasets with additional sources of geological information, such as well logs, seismic libraries, and the gravity and magnetic datasets that state-affiliated entities have acquired over almost all of Brazil's onshore basins.”

Brazil's first oil & gas field was discovered in 1939 in the northeastern part of the country. Until 1968, Brazil's oil & gas activity was focused exclusively onshore until the state-owned energy company, Petrobras, drilled the country's first offshore well.

Over the last decade, Petrobras and other large global E&P firms have been investing the vast majority of their exploration capital offshore, drawn by the mega-discoveries that have been made in the Campos, Santos, and Espirito Santos basins. Nonetheless, ANP, Brazil's oil & gas leasing and regulatory agency, has been encouraging exploration activity in the country's four primary onshore basins.
 
The Amazonas, Parana, Parnaiba, and Solimoes basins span more than 5 million square kilometers, have sediment columns that can exceed 5 kilometers, and possess active hydrocarbon systems. Devonian black shales have served as the primary source rock for most of Brazil's onshore hydrocarbon basins.

Given the successful developments in other unconventional shale plays in North America and elsewhere, these shales are now attracting interest from oil & gas companies that are interested in drilling and producing them directly.

NEOS helps exploration teams in the onshore oil & gas and mining 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, geophysical, and geochemical datasets to identify hydrocarbons and minerals in the subsurface.

The company is backed by a group of internationally recognized investors, including Bill Gates, Energy Capital Group, Goldman Sachs, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Passport Capital.

27th Sept. 2011