The traditional model of hydrocarbon exploration has transitioned in much of North America, replaced by exploitation of known shale and tight resources. For shale players, exploration is seen as more risky, expensive, and slow than pursuing resource play.

Classic geochemical methods, reliant on sample collection and lab analysis, can’t keep up with the need for real-time decision-making. Helium—a light, inert, and upwardly mobile gas—offers potential as an indicator of subsurface resources, but its volatile nature makes it difficult to measure accurately and reliably using conventional approaches.

Helium, when measured digitally and interpreted with AI, can provide a new high quality and reliable signal for the presence of valuable subsurface resources, reducing costs, time, and risk.

In this episode, Denis Krysanov, founder of Heologic, explains how helium-based digital exploration can help identify oil, gas, lithium, geothermal energy, and even natural hydrogen deposits. By capturing helium anomalies in real-time, and layering them with AI and geoscience data, Heologic creates a digital twin of subsurface conditions. With field-proven success from Argentina to Malaysia, this technique has already delivered remarkable predictive power, improving hit rates and opening new plays.

Denis Krysanov is the founder and CEO of Heologic, a geoscience innovation company pioneering helium-based exploration. With over two decades of experience at the intersection of automation, robotics, and energy systems, Denis combines technical depth with entrepreneurial leadership. His career began in offshore oil and gas technology in Finland, and has since expanded globally with breakthrough applications in digital geochemistry, particularly in helium sensing and AI integration. Heologic now operates across multiple continents and energy sectors, working with companies such as Petronas and YPF.

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The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not constitute professional advice.