In March 1996 CDA held an open workshop to identify the benefits of and the challenges to creating a common digital database for UKCS seismic and related data. In addition the workshop resulted in the articulation of a clear vision for the future and a staged approach to the delivery of the vision. The workshop, held in Arundel, attracted significant industry interest with over 90 delegates from oil companies, speculative data owners, systems providers, services providers, the DTI, and the Norwegian NPD. Held over two intense days, the workshop was organized around a number of highly participative group sessions, where the groups consisted of a deliberate mix of delegates representing different industry interests. The NPD presented their experiences of the DISKOS project, the Norwegian oil industry data sharing initiative. In addition a number of systems were demonstrated and a number of private presentations were made by delegates to the Common Data Access seismic working group.
Vision
The vision is "A common, easily accessible, digital database for the UKCS of seismic positional, ownership, and entitlement data providing a single definitive reference to a complete, high quality seismic trace data set". The first stage proposed in delivering this vision is to develop a Seismic Data Access System incorporating navigation data, ownership and entitlements, cultural data, and licence data. This would be followed by second and third stages which would index and provide access to post-stack and pre-stack seismic trace data respectively. The Seismic Data Access System including navigation data for both proprietary and speculative seismic data would be of benefit to oil companies and speculative data companies alike by offering data users a single seismic coverage reference for the UKCS indicating ownership and who to contact for access to the data. Seismic data indexing and storage format standards would be developed concurrently with the first stage in preparation for the second and third stages.
The Common Data Access seismic working group is now in the process of consolidating the outcomes from the Arundel workshop into a business case to be delivered to the Common Data Access Board in May. Assuming that the Board, representing the 36 member companies, approves the business case, then the next step will be to produce a detailed requirements specification. The provision of a system and services to meet this specification will subsequently be put out to tender.
Click here to comment on this article
If your browser does not work with the MailTo button, send mail to pdm@the-data-room.com with PDM_V_2.0_199702_5 as the subject.
© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.