21 September-2010

 

Terra Energy & Resource Technologies, Inc. a natural resource exploration technology company, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Transportadora de Gas del Sur S.A. (TGS), a major Argentine gas transportation company controlling one of the longest gas pipelines in South America. Terra proposed an innovative satellite-based methodology to identify conditions which could lead to pipeline corrosion and other types of related costly breaks. The non-binding MOU is planned to lead to negotiation of a definitive contract with Terra, should TGS deem the predictive results provided by Terra objective and accurate. The companies have been in discussions regarding solutions for pipeline monitoring issues that remain an ongoing challenge in any hydrocarbon conveyance system.

 

"TGS controls approximately 6,000 kilometers of pipeline. The prospect of a service contract to monitor the whole pipeline is a significant opportunity for Terra," said Dmitry Vilbaum, CEO of Terra Energy & Resource Technologies. "While pipeline monitoring is not an area we have focused on, it clearly is a significant market and is another aspect of the industry to which Terra can apply its science and expertise. We are proud that our technologies have so many applications to help the oil and gas industry, and we look forward to advancing our technologies capabilities related to pipeline monitoring, which, along with break fix and general maintenance of long pipelines in hard-to-access areas are major hurdles to overcome in oil and gas source regions with challenging weather and terrain. We recently visited a conference on the subject of pipeline maintenance that was sponsored by Gazprom, the Russian oil and gas major, and it appears that while these weather and terrain pipeline problems are widely experienced, there is not a satisfactory generally accepted industry protocol for dealing with them. Such problems are opportunities in disguise and Terra is looking into the matter for TGS to examine whether there are any spectral criteria correlating aggressive environments and the locations of pipeline corrosion."

Dr. Alexandre Agaian, President of Terra Energy & Resource Technologies, stated that, "Satellite-based technologies are applicable to pipeline diagnostics issues potentially translating into major savings for gas transportation companies. Although this type of project is our first, we do not exclude the possibility that the research may be used to build universal spectral models for pipeline monitoring."