Veritas has acquired Calgary-based Hampson-Russell (HR) for an undisclosed amount. HR develops software tools and provides consulting services for seismic modeling, interpretation and reservoir management.
Tripodo
Veritas VP Tony Tripodo said, “The latest HR products include interpretation tools for multi-component and 4-D seismic data. These new technologies, along with our existing (RC)2 and SURE software suites, represent leading edge techniques that will enable our customers identify, manage and exploit increasingly complex reservoirs.”
Robson
Speaking to analysts at the Q4 2002 and fiscal year webcast, Veritas president Dave Robson explained the rationale behind the acquisition. HR’s software is a good fit with Veritas’ RC(2) unit’s applications and services—“especially in the increasingly important field of multi-component interpretation.” Robson went on to describe time-lapse seismics as “flavor of the month—4D does work!”
Russell
Brian Russell told Oil IT Journal, “In 1998, we hired Keith Hirsche, an internationally recognized expert in both time-lapse and multi-component seismology. In 1999, Keith started a time-lapse consortium for HR leading to commercialization as Pro4D.”
4C consortium
“As a follow-up to this consortium, HR established a multi-component consortium, ‘ProMC’, based on the same business model. We are half-way through this development, and are getting good feedback from our sponsors.”
Prodigals return
Dan Hampson and Brian Russell actually met while working at Veritas Software, and broke away in 1987 to found HR. The acquisition marks their return to the Veritas fold. HR has close to forty employees located in offices in Calgary, Houston, London, Perth and Jakarta.
Profitable
Russell confided to Oil IT Journal, “HR is a household name with most petroleum geophysicists—even though we never made it onto the radar screen of the financial analysts! As a company, HR has always been very profitable. However, since we were a private company, we never made our financials public. ”
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