Speaking at last month’s ECIM data conference in Haugesund, Norway, Richard Wylde (ExxonMobil and chair of the Oil and Gas Producers’ Geomatics Committee) announced the publication of three reports containing the results of the Geospatial Integrity of Geoscience Software (GIGS) initiative (Oil IT Journal October 2010).
The GIGS joint industry project set out to address concerns stemming from documented evidence of geospatial integrity failures. The intent is to establish good industry practice with respect to geoscience data management and use. The study has revealed that current practices are sub optimal. Geographic standards are insufficiently deployed. There is ‘conflicting and inappropriate’ use of terminology—Wylde recommends sticking with ISO definitions. There remains frequent use of incomplete or wrong coordinate reference system data and when it is available, it is often poorly documented. A lack of geodetic metadata leads to positional ambiguity. Companies are not auditing their own and their contractor’s systems sufficiently
The GIGS reports are now available from www.oilit.com/links/1110_5. The three reports cover GIGS guidelines, the software review process and a user guide to the test data set. Also available are a software review spreadsheet for companies wishing to see whether their tools merit bronze, silver or gold level certification.
Wylde warns that end users should not expect all software to pass all the tests—but it should be possible to ascertain how software handles geodetic information. This may all sound rather esoteric, but as Wylde explained, in one joint venture, a post change in operatorship evaluation revealed that partners had been using different coordinate reference systems while drilling. Even for this relatively green field with ‘a few wells and a little bit of seismic,’ it took 18 months to sort out and bring everything to a common framework. More on the OGP Geomatics Committee from www.oilit.com/links/1110_6.
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