OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2010. The Belarusian company Belorusneft and the US company ION-GXT have signed a protocol on developing cooperation in using seismic exploration technologies during the examination of the geologic structure of the Pripyat downfold.

The meeting of top executives of the two companies took place in Gomel. The sides agreed to cooperate to examine the Pripyat downfold where Belorusneft specialists extract oil and associated gas and perform geological exploration.

The Pripyat downfold occupies around 30,000 square kilometers. Since 1965 over 120 million tonnes of oil has been extracted in the Pripyat downfold. The area contains Belarus’ oil and associated gas reserves as well as around 30% of the world’s potash salt deposits. There are deposits of brown coal and slate coal, iron ore and construction materials.

The US-based company ION-GXT specializes in geologic exploration of land and sea oil and gas reserves as well as data processing. The company designs proprietary technologies, supplies registering equipment, software for seismic surveys, and offers access to seismic data bases to oil and gas industry companies.

Belorusneft is the country’s leading oil extracting company that has been extracting oil for over 40 years. It is part of the Belarusian petrochemical concern Belneftekhim. Belorusneft specializes in oil and gas extraction, processing of crude hydrocarbons, oil industry services, industrial science, in selling processed oil and gas products in the country and abroad. The company’s field seismic operations department works in Belarus, Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. 2D and 3D seismic operations are engineered using the latest Mesa software.