Ingrain: Built on 30 years of rock physics experience

Ingrain was organized in 2007 by Amos Nur, Ph.D. and Henrique Tono, Ph.D.  Officially, Ingrain is less than two years old. But the science, the technology and the business concept are based on intellectual property created during 30 years of groundbreaking work in rock physics by Dr. Amos Nur at Stanford University.

 

Rock physics is the linkage between geophysics and what we want to know about the reservoir -- characterization (physical properties) and monitoring (fluid flow).  Rock physics can be used to improve well placement, to achieve better recovery rates, and to improve wellbore management. Physical measurements of rock properties are slow and cumbersome to conduct, can be difficult to do well. Most importantly, physical measurements are often sparse due to high cost and long turnaround time. As the oil and gas industry moves increasingly to use advanced reservoir simulations, digital rock physics offers a rapid, cost-effective solution for populating the simulation with rock properties information.

Ingrain's advances in 3D imaging technology provide oil and gas companies with comprehensive and accurate measurements of reservoir rock properties including porosity, absolute permeability, electrical conductivity, elastic properties and relative permeability. Ingrain’s financial backers include Energy Ventures, a leading venture capital firm specializing in upstream technology.

 

With offices and labs in Houston, Calgary and Rio de Janeiro Ingrain now has over 40 employees. The company's Houston lab operates 24/7 with micro-scale and nano-scale CT scanning and image processing.

 

In September of 2009 Ingrain secured a third round of funding totaling $15 million to advance the deployment of its digital rock physics labs and to continue its expansion into the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America.