(Houston, Texas) – October 1, 2012
Z-Terra, a rapidly growing provider of software and services solutions to the upstream oil and gas industry, announced today that it has been named one of the winning companies in the 2012 FastTech 50. Founded in 2010, Z-Terra’s software helps oil and gas companies visualize 3-D earth structures and reduces the drilling risk associated with oil and gas exploration from ever more challenging plays.
“Z-Terra was founded with one over-arching goal, said Alexander Mihai Popovici, Z-Terra’s CEO and Chairman. “That was to develop the fastest depth processing system in the industry and reduce turnaround time on large seismic projects from 6-8 months to one month. Our success at achieving that goal is largely responsible for the growth that enabled us to become a FastTech 50 winner. We now have the fastest and most accurate depth imaging solutions available on the market.”
Z-Terra’s processing system is based on a combination of Smart MigrationsTM, (ultra-fast imaging algorithms that allow for very fast imaging iterations – in orders of minutes for imaging thousands of square kilometers), combined with very fast migration velocity analysis tools, including wide-azimuth tomography, in a workflow designed to optimally produce the best quality image in the shortest possible amount of time. One member of the Smart Migrations family is the Fast Beam Migration, a super-efficient algorithm that is on average 100 times faster than the industry standard Kirchhoff depth migration.
In addition to its unique technology services portfolio, Z-Terra also sells exceptional software such as its Kirchhoff migration package, which provides the fastest and strongest imaging foundation available on the market today.
Z-Terra Z-Terra is Dr. Popovici’s second start-up. His first start-up, 3DGeo Inc., was founded in 1995 with two academic colleagues from Stanford, and he served as CEO then CTO until 2008 when 3DGeo was sold to Fusion in a merger that formed FusionGeo. 3DGeo grew from two employees in Palo Alto, California, to an international corporation with offices in Houston, Texas, Santa Clara, California, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Beijing, China, and The Hague, Netherlands. In 2001, InfoWorld recognized 3DGeo as one of the Top 100 Innovative Companies. In 2007, 3DGeo won the Hart E&P Meritorious Award for Engineering Innovation. In 2008, 3DGeo, won the IEEE Spectrum Technology award. Dr. Popovici holds a Ph.D. (1995) and a M.Sc. (1991) in geophysics from Stanford University, and a B.S. equivalent (1985) in geophysical and geological engineering from University of Bucharest, Romania. Dr. Popovici’s industry experience includes work in the seismic processing research department for Halliburton Geophysical Services in Dallas and Houston, and EM acquisition and processing contracts with the University of Bucharest, Romania. He has several patents in the field, over 70 publications in conference proceedings, books, trade journals, and research reports and has given numerous invited talks at conferences, geophysical associations, and geophysical workshops. He has been a member of the SEG Research Committee since 1995, served as Associate Editor (Seismic Migration) for Geophysics, and is Chairman and founding board member of Geoscientists Without Borders, an SEG Foundation program that funds humanitarian applications of geophysics around the world. He is the Romanian Honorary Vice-Consul in Houston.