The Diskos group, comprising the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) and Norwegian operators, has awarded the third phase of Diskos operations to Landmark Graphics AS, a Halliburton unit. Phase three will run from 2009 to 2014. Diskos data is stored in PetroBank—the data management system originally developed by IBM for Diskos, acquired by Landmark in 2000 for $179 million.
Toogood
Incumbent Diskos operator Schlumberger, via its Norwegian SINAS unit, along with startup Lerya were also in the running. Diskos project manager, the NPD’s Eric Toogood told Oil IT Journal, ‘The three bids were comparable from a technology standpoint, but Landmark offered the best financial terms.’ The NPD release referred to ‘the excellent work being carried out by the current operator, SINAS.’
80 Terabytes
Diskos houses some 80 terabytes of seismic, well and production data from the Norwegian continental shelf, made available to members through secure broadband access. The new operatorship will involve data migration from SINAS to Landmark. But, as Toogood remarked, this has been done before and, ‘Technology is always improving, it should be easier next time.’ SINAS stores the 80 Terabyte dataset on NetApp disks. An additional 1.8 Petabyte of nearline tape is available for prestack data.
PetroBank API
The Diskos re-tender placed particular emphasis on ‘openness’ and data access. This has resulted in what might be a significant development for National Data Bank users as Landmark is likely to offer API access to PetroBank data. As Toogood explained, ‘Large corporate users want to be able to integrate data in Diskos better with their own workflows.’
Scope
Diskos plans to expand membership and data scope. The thirty new companies that have started working the Norwegian continental shelf will be offered attractive membership terms. Toogood also plans to expand data coverage, ‘We are looking into the cost-benefits of storing pre-stack seismics in near-line storage and, later on, field data.’
Recall
PetroBank well log master data is stored in an embedded version of Petris’ Recall package—leading to the interesting possibility of the PetroBank API extending into Recall. According to Toogood, ‘Companies are asking for API access to well, seismic and production data, although the API is outside the scope of the main Diskos program and will be negotiated between Landmark and individual Diskos users.’
Déjà vu?
It’s interesting to recall Schlumberger’s prior under-taking to ‘provide open access to the Diskos repository [and] improved workflows by seamlessly integrating Diskos data into company internal solutions.’ That was back in 2004 (Oil ITJ Vol. 9 N° 12).
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