OOO “IGT-Service”

Independent supervising is a rather effective tool for reduction of exploration costs, and what is most important, for reduction of probable remedial action costs at each mining project phase. Maximum efficiency, accuracy of geological prospecting and exploration performance results, especially for drilling, mining operations and geological support by a contractor or in-house resources of a customer could be achieved via use of geological supervising, which is the best standard geological prospecting practice.

Supervising is an advanced method of managing and controlling various complex or technology-intensive operations to provide required performance quality and compliance both on the contractor part and on the part of supervisory agencies. By oil and gas exploration experience, independent supervising is one of the most efficient tools to achieve high quality results.

IGT is the first company on the Russian market of geological services to offer and to successfully deliver this service to its customers.

Geological supervising is in no way intended as a replacement for a “brandname” audit, required for the market and external financing, but the key difference in this case is that unlike the auditors, our supervisors operate alongside contractors from the start of fieldwork to its finish – drilling and geological support.
“Geological supervising” solution for a worksite requires continuous presence of at least 2 specialists, independent both from a geological contractor company and the customer, which apriori rules out any fraud.
Operating procedure benefits:
- streamlined field work program during a preliminary phase;
- reduction of customer field work costs and a corresponding reduction of total costs of reserve/resource increment;
- improved operating procedure efficiency and prevention of non-compliance with the work program by drilling and geological contractors;
- training and/or testing of geological contractor personnel at a work area;
- reduction or prevention of remedial action costs during mining and geological audit in line with domestic and foreign standards;
- reduction of geological risk;
- prospecting and exploration efficiency improvement;
- continuous Customer awareness of site activities, enabling the Customer to engage in prompt decision making.
Highly skilled IGT-Service specialist supervisors are permanently present at a worksite during the whole field season and perform the following functions for controlling all geological exploration activities and coordinating contractor operations:

• drilling quality assurance, including accuracy of well depth measurements, core integrity maintenance (sample tray quality, transportation, laydown, sample clean-up etc.);
• evaluation of decisions to shut in or continue wells. This is a vital point, since resident geologists often stop drilling early or in supra-ore halo at project drilling depth due to fear of being held responsible, lack of motivation or lack of understanding of importance of current developments. This may result in insufficient geological information, “loss” of ore bodies and project cost increase due to the need to drill a deeper well nearby. Operational decision making for a specific well is supported by an experienced geologist and supervisor of IGT-Service (or by contractor’s or customer’s resident geologist under supervisor’s control), performing sample Quick Log maintenance by geologic intervals and maintenance of an electronic database, which is mailed to customer and supervisor offices daily. Input geological data for a well are promptly analyzed and discussed by project geologists, and then a supervisor (with customer approval) makes a decision to shut a well in (sometimes wells are shut in above the total well depth to save meters and funds) or to drill a well below total depth to exit from ore mineralization;
• control of geological documentation quality, including adequacy of geological formation identification by different logging geologists, verification of documents, assay accuracy check, veining intensity etc., sample marking;
• performance quality control for database input of geological information, including selective sample verification (follow-up core sample documentation).
• sample preparation – every shift a supervisor has to repeatedly perform sampling quality control and sample preparation, including comparison of projected and actual sample recovery, accurate cut line marking, cutting, sampling, optimum sample preparation layout, equipment purging, sample splitting, input of forms and reference standards, arrangement of sample IDs to avoid any confusion, sub-sample representativity, sample packing and marking quality; quality assurance for storage of core samples and duplicate samples;
• operational interpretation and adjustment of a geological model;
• operational decision making under a work program to reallocate drilling volumes. Drilling volumes will be reallocated, when geological documentation or test results bring up the issue of feasibility of drilling individual wells or vice versa, subject to customer approval;
• quality control for associated works, such as unit-weight testing, selection of samples for internal and external control etc.
• on-line engagement of specialists from the head office of the supervisor to provide 24/7 consulting support
• Interpretation and operational development of a geological model;
• as required operationally, remote engagement of IGT main office specialists
• proposals for operational adjustment of a work program to reallocate drilling volumes. Drilling volumes will be reallocated, when geological documentation or test results bring up the issue of feasibility of drilling individual wells or vice versa, subject to customer approval.

Based on our in-house experience, we expanded the definition of this term to knowledge-based (science-driven) geological supervising as a required element in geological support to field prospecting and exploration activities. Our supervising focuses on performance quality improvement and obtaining maximum amounts of information based on exploration investment expenses. The term is expanded due to the expansion of the service, when a team of qualified professionals not only operates as customer “eyes and ears”, monitors and ensures contractor performance quality on-site in line with an approved program, but also takes part in all project implementation phases under customer orders, either as a joint contractor, or as a standalone team, reporting to the customer only.