How Peter Duncan created an ‘impossible’ technology at Microseismic Inc.

Peter Duncan, founder, president and CEO, MicroSeismic Inc.
Peter Duncan, founder, president and CEO, MicroSeismic Inc.

Technology
AWARD RECIPIENT
Peter M. Duncan
Founder, president and CEO
MicroSeismic Inc.
Peter Duncan has led multiple start-ups over his long career in geophysics. In his most recent venture, Microseismic Inc., he has created a company that utilizes cutting edge technology to help customers monitor their reservoirs.
He had the vision and work ethic to commercialize an idea for passively monitoring seismic activity from the surface, which many industry experts thought at the time was impossible. Further, he was able to adapt his technology to meet the demands of the market as the U.S. shale plays came online and the recent domestic natural gas and oil boom began.
At the time of Microseismic’s inception, the demand for frac monitoring was virtually non-existent, but seeing the opportunity for his company’s technology to enhance customer value by monitoring their growing number of non-traditional, enhanced recovery wells, he has pioneered a new industry that has much larger companies scrambling to replicate.
Microseismic competes with organizations that are far larger in size, and recently competitors have taken notice of Duncan’s success and competition is heating up. Duncan, who is founder, president and CEO, believes that competition is what will make his company even better, which is evidenced by the continued growth of Microseismic.
However, one of the biggest challenges that he believes his company faces is the need to convince users of his services and that his technology can provide additional critical data to make their drilling programs better.
According to Duncan, just a few years ago, only 0.5 percent of all fracked wells were monitored and recently that number has grown to just 4 percent. Obviously, there is room to grow, and Duncan views this challenge as a great opportunity. He is actively working to analyze and present the data that his company collects to convince engineers how valuable this relatively new technology can be to their drilling programs.
Today, Duncan’s willingness to take risks and go against conventional wisdom has given Microseismic a 95 percent share in the market.
How to reach: MicroSeismic Inc., www.microseismic.com