AGW scientists have many years of experience in locating both new sources of ground water and in locating optimum well sites.  Each project represents new and different challenges.  Our approach always includes acquiring standard types of geological, hydrological and both surface and wireline geophysical data.  Our firm is unique because we are the developers of several unique and proprietary geophysical and radiometric methods including Thermonics, FracTrac and Zeta-SP.  These methods give us the edge and lead us to share the risk with the client.  If we are successful, we share the benefit.

Under our program, we will commit to conduct all work pursuant to our Standard Terms and Conditions at cost.  If we are successful, we qualify to obtain our regular consulting fee plus continuing periodic payments based on production.

We do not accept every assignment.  Cost is always an issue and the popular concept is that water as a mineral resource is free.  It is not and more and more governments are realizing this.  In the field of ground-water exploration, there is a range of techniques that have different costs and different benefits.  The choice of ground water exploration methods that satisfies your needs with the resources and skills that you have available will dictate what you are willing to pay.  In some places water is more precious than oil and we at AGW treat it that way.

In the case of rural water supply, appropriate or intermediate technology may have low performance with low benefits but it will also have a low cost.   We have, for example, recommended against top-head drive, air-rotary, drilling equipment in Zaire in favor of labor intensive hand-dug wells and infiltration galleries.  Expensive ground-water development methods were difficult to justify.

When a high capacity water supply is needed for agricultural, industrial or municipal purposes, our turnkey, ground-water-exploration and development program is justifiable.

We will undertake work on lower capacity, rural ground-water supply systems for our standard consulting fees plus a bonus payment for each successful well.

Much of our initial work is carried out before setting foot in the field.  Before accepting your project, we will review all relevant geologic, hydrologic and geophysical information from public and private sources.  We will ask you to provide this information to us.  If we accept your project, we will enter into a contract with you in which the parameters of our performance are specified.  In any event, all preliminary data that you provide to us will be returned to you whether or not we accept your project.

Our contracts are worked out in consultation with you and with our local legal counsel to ensure compliance with all local laws, customs and financial regulations.  We maintain relationships with attorneys and banking institutions worldwide.

Many of our successful ground-water location and optimum well-site location programs are discussed in narrative fashion on this web site.  In one recent and unusual case, we charged our standard consulting rates but we also guaranteed to bring water in from elsewhere if we were unsuccessful.

Our contracts also require that we design, supervise drilling and construction, and test your wells. We want to ensure that your wells are as hydraulically efficient as possible.  Improper drilling and well completion methods and improperly performed tests may lead you to believe that we have not performed.

AGW scientists have designed and supervised the construction of hundreds of wells, both shallow and deep, using both oil-well and water-well technology.   We have specified drilling equipment for ground-water-exploration projects worldwide and have carried out trouble shooting missions throughout Africa, South America and Southeast Asia.  We also use the most modern, high-speed, field-portable, data-acquisition systems for conducting aquifer performance tests.  With years of experience and more than 1,000 tests using all types of wells behind us, we know what we are doing.

We also can build an appropriate digital computer model of your well field for the purpose of evaluating well spacing and aquifer management using software packages asuch as MODFLOW, FLOWPATH II, MODPATH.  Water quality and changes in water quality over time can be evaluated using software packages such as AQUACHEM and PHREEQC.  This work is done in our home office for our standard consulting fees.  The models are run on standard IBM Pentium II or III computers under Windows NT.  We will train your hydrologists and we will turn over the operation of all models for you.  Our Thermonic, FracTrac and Zeta-SP data remains proprietary.

We have fashioned a generic proposal for you to consider in seeking approval of and funds for our services.

If you want to discuss a specific project with us, please contact us by e-mail with details.

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