36 data processing & interpretation
Managing data for compliance
and a competitive advantage
Peter Copley discusses best practice
interpretation of data, and each project comprises results
in exploration and production data
from both geotechnical and office applications.
To effectively archive a project, the results from all
management. applications must be comprehensively captured, while
maintaining internal references. The archive must also
E
xploration and Production (E&P) data is include descriptive information so that it can be easily
retained for many reasons. Companies may found at a later date.
retain data to meet with increasing regulatory Data managers must consult domain experts to
demands, to protect against events that can understand what data should be archived, because
lead to data loss, or as an aid for future oil exploration they are in the best position to understand the relative
decisions. importance of the component data. Experts can help
Intellectual property locked up in data archives may determine what data is valuable intellectual property and
become valuable again over time due to changes in must be included, and what can be safely ignored.
politics, technology or the economic environment. For Project data that has no value to a long-term archive
example, as oilfield licensing rounds are announced and should be removed with rules that effectively ‘clean
the oil price fluctuates, older reservoir characterisation up’ projects, saving time spent archiving, storing and
projects can become attractive once more. restoring data, and also reducing storage costs.
However, for data managers, keeping huge volumes
of data available ‘online’ for E&P departments increases
When to archive
data storage and management costs and introduces Projects can be scheduled for archiving at completion,
impractically long back-up cycles. Moreover, for end or at important milestones. The facility to ‘roll-back’ a
users, manoeuvring through huge amounts can reduce project to an intermediate milestone can be extremely
the efficiency of their work. useful in the event of data corruption, or perhaps if a
Regulations can both force oil exploration companies poor processing decision is made.
to retain data and auditable records of decision making It is common for oil exploration companies to store
processes, but also compel companies to relinquish data digital archives for years or decades, but compliance
(for example the UK’s Data Protection Act). regulations could specify the retention that is acceptable
For the purpose of this article, we can call an by law.
E&P asset a ‘project’, but in practice a single asset E&P projects typically reside on multiple file systems,
could comprise many constituent projects. Many and may reference numerous application databases.
different disciplines are involved in the processing and There could also be data from multiple operating systems;
Fig. 1. Keeping
large volumes of
data online can
increase storgage
and management
costs. Experts
can help
determine what
data is valuable
and what can be
ignored.
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