Resource World Magazine

54 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 5 heaDQUartereD in Denmark, SkyTEM provides airborne geophysical surveys to both the oil & gas and mineral exploration industries. In an interview, Regional Sales man- ager, Bill Brown, told Resource World, "We have done mineral exploration around the world – Australia, Canada, Yukon and, for the oil & gas industry, we have worked in the Horn River Basin for natural gas in northeast British Columbia; more specifi- cally, surveying for water. "Water probably accounts for about 50% of our market," said Brown. He noted that the water surveys were for both the oil & gas sector as well as for communities. "We have mapped the entire country of Denmark to find aquifers to supply water for the people. We have also done this for Germany and other parts of Europe." Brown said that in North America, SkyTEM surveys have been used primarily for oil & gas exploration. "We have also done work for the US Geological Survey and the natural resource departments of various states such as the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska, the Indian River Basin in Oklahoma and a military installation in Montana," said Brown. "These were for source water protection." The Danish government has helped fund SkyTEM R&D efforts."They wanted to identify all of the country's aquifers. The University of Aarhus in Denmark got together hydro-geologists and scientists to develop an airborne system capable of mapping aquifers," said Brown. "One of the key differences between SkyTEM and our competition is that we are able to map at both shallow and deep depths at the same time," said Brown. "In 2004, the university realized that this tech- nology had other applications for oil & gas as well as mineral exploration. So, in 2004, SkyTEM went commercial and started offering the system worldwide." Brown said that although SkyTEM has only been around for 10 years, the company has made tremendous inroads. "People are beginning to recognize the value in our near-surface resolution and our resolution at depth for both mineral and oil & gas exploration," said Brown. "We proved that the SkyTEM system can identify traps for oil & gas in the Horn River Basin." Since the SkyTEM system can be easily taken apart and assembled the company doesn't need to own the helicopters they lease to survey the project areas. The com- pany also developed SkyTEM312Fast, a helicopter-borne system that can fly at 150 KPH which gives the advantage of fixed-wing and still close to the ground for better data. SkyTEM has about 50 employees in Denmark, Johannesburg, Toronto area, Vancouver and Perth, Australia. The company also has partners that market and support the SkyTEM system such as Excalibur in Angola and ERI in Denver. Recently, SkyTEM teamed up with Sander Geophysics, a company in Ottawa that provides gravity surveys from both fixed-wing and helicopters. "We mar- ried our EM system with Sander's gravity system," said Brown. "We just completed tests in Gatineau, Québec and we have been surveying the Caber VMS deposit near Matagami, Québec. We are the only company in the world that can provide this combination of gravity and EM sur- veys which we believe both the mineral exploration and oil & gas industry will want to utilize." n skytem offers unique geophysical surveys 14-DAY TRIAL FREE GET YOUR COMPARE PRECIOUS METAL STOCKS HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH FIND OUT MORE ON: TICKERSCORES.COM MININGWORLD

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