Quantum dots that tell an oil well how it's really producing - no tool ever goes downhole.
The GeoSplit wordmark. Founded 2013 in Moscow, now headquartered in Dubai - a 25-person team turning fluorescent nanoparticles into a production-monitoring service for the world's horizontal wells.
For most of the oil industry's history, finding out how a well produces has meant stopping it. Operators shut in the well, send expensive mechanical tools down thousands of metres of pipe on a wireline, and read the flow section by section. It works - but it costs rig time, production, and money, and it only captures a single moment. GeoSplit was built around a different question: what if the well could simply report on itself?
The company's answer is nanotechnology. GeoSplit installs microscopic markers - microspheres containing quantum dots - during a well's completion. Each marker fluoresces in a unique coded colour tied to a specific zone of the well. As oil, water and gas flow to the surface, they carry these markers with them. By analysing fluid samples collected at surface and running the results through machine-learning models, GeoSplit reconstructs a full production profile: which zone is producing, which fluid, and how that picture changes over months and years - all without a single downhole intervention.
It is a deliberately unglamorous pitch to a conservative industry. GeoSplit does not sell quantum dots; it sells the interventions operators no longer need to run. Founded in 2013 as a resident of Russia's Skolkovo innovation hub and now headquartered in Dubai, the roughly 25-person company has raised $6.5 million, earned certification from Russia's State Commission on Mineral Reserves, and pushed its technology into the Middle East and Asia.
Quantum-dot marker-reporters are placed in each target zone during well completion.
As the well flows, oil, water and gas carry their zone's markers to the surface.
Wellbore fluid samples are collected at surface - no shut-in, no wireline, no rig.
Machine learning reads the fluorescent signatures into a phase-by-phase production profile.
Upstream oil and gas operators running horizontal and multistage-fractured wells. Early deployments were in Russia - more than 20 horizontal wells by the time of first funding - with expansion across the Gulf (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar), North Africa and Asia.
Conventional production logging is expensive, interrupts production, and captures only a snapshot. GeoSplit gives continuous, phase-resolved inflow data - flagging water breakthrough, gas breakthrough and packer or well-integrity issues early - for years without intervention.
The team blends nanotechnology chemistry, petroleum engineering and data science. GeoSplit runs its own R&D, production facilities and chemical laboratories to manufacture the quantum-dot markers - and publishes peer-reviewed SPE technical papers on the method.
B2B services. GeoSplit sells marker-based well surveys and monitoring engagements, then layers on GeoExpert, a machine-learning platform for interpretation and long-term surveillance - shifting revenue from one-off tool rentals toward ongoing data analytics.
"The large-scale use of marker monitoring takes well operation control to a new level, as well as reduces extraction expenses."
A rough, illustrative comparison of the marker approach against conventional mechanical production logging on the dimensions operators care about. Bars are directional, not audited figures.
GeoSplit competes with conventional production-logging providers such as SLB (Schlumberger) and Halliburton, and specialised well-services firms including NCS Multistage, Stimline, Innovex, DeepWell and RSEG. Its wedge is not a better tool - it is removing the tool from the well entirely.
Microsphere markers containing quantum dots that fluoresce in unique coded colours, tagging each zone and identifying oil, water and gas inflow from fluid samples.
A wireline-free production logging and inflow-profiling service for horizontal and multistage-fractured wells, delivering years of data without intervention.
Early detection of water cut, gas breakthrough and packer / well-integrity issues in extended-reach and horizontal wells.
A decision-support platform applying machine learning to marker data for dynamic production-profile surveillance and field-development optimisation.
Established to develop marker-based well-testing technology, as a resident of Russia's Skolkovo innovation hub.
First institutional round, with 20+ horizontal wells surveyed to date.
Further technology and product development, bringing total funding to $6.5M.
GeoSplit enters the Asian market and establishes a dedicated research laboratory.
Nadir Husein joins as General Manager MENA to drive Middle East and North Africa growth.
Exhibits at MEOS GEO 2023 and ADIPEC, operating from Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone.
Each marker's fluorescent colour is effectively a barcode identifying which zone the fluid came from.
Engineers can read a well's production profile from a bottle of surface fluid samples - no downhole trip required.
GeoSplit manufactures the quantum-dot markers in its own chemical laboratories.
A single marker installation can keep reporting production data for years without further intervention.
It monitors oil, gas and water flows inside horizontal wells using quantum-dot marker-reporters and machine learning, so operators can profile production without running mechanical logging tools downhole.
Microsphere markers containing quantum dots are installed during well completion. They fluoresce in coded colours tied to specific zones, and analysing wellbore fluid samples reveals which zones are producing which fluids.
GeoSplit was founded in 2013 and is led by CEO Alexander Katashov, who has a background in commercialising technology start-ups.
About $6.5M across two rounds - a $1.5M seed in 2017 and a $5M Series B in 2019 - from investors including Rusnano, Sistema and UCP Investment Group.
The company was founded in Moscow as a Skolkovo resident and is now headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with operations extending across the Middle East and Asia.