Topic: How To Invest

Q: Hi Pat: I’d like your advice on Pulse Seismic. Thanks.

Article Excerpt

A: Pulse Seismic, $2.65, symbol PSD on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 56.1 million; Market cap: $146.7 million; www.pulseseismic.com) buys, sells and licenses seismic data to clients in Western Canada. Pulse’s main business is seismic-data licensing. It has built a library of seismic research that it then licenses to clients, mostly oil and gas firms. They use it to determine ideal drilling areas and the depth of reservoirs. The company’s research is based on seismic-survey data that it usually buys from oil and gas firms. Those firms use large-scale industrial sledgehammers to strike the earth’s surface. That generates sound waves below ground, and sensors on the surface convert those to digital form. Finally, the data is mapped and an image of the reservoir is created. Pulse also performs that work itself in what the company calls “participation seismic surveys.” That’s where oil and gas producers pay Pulse to conduct the field work and the company then provides them with an ongoing license to use…