Some eighty percent of all geosciences data are spatially referenced. This presentation addresses a key issue that directly affects the E&P workflow, including, the geophysical acquisition, processing, and interpretation. In particular, three workflow activities are sensitive to geospatial integrity: data handling, data integration, and data mapping. All three are vital to achieving successful exploration and all three are affected by the geospatial integrity of the applications used. Twelve E&P operators have funded a Joint Industry Project (JIP) through the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP) to improve software applications used by petroleum geoscientists. Various software manufacturers are collaborating in this study. This JIP is a strategic industry initiative. It is anticipated that its’ impact will be felt over several years. The rationale, progress, and early results of the project are discussed.
As professionals, we rely on hundreds of geoscience and engineering software applications that have coordinate conversion or transformation functionality. Correct geospatial data is vital to successful technical and commercial decision-making at all levels of E&P companies and throughout their workflows. However, errors in coordinate data and coordinate references are widespread and have often been a direct result of software problems.
Such incorrectly manipulated data are widely distributed in an E&P company. They are stored in company databases and used by many teams, each with unique and specialty applications, to create new information and extract value. This value can be severely reduced by the errors systemically imparted to the data and can cause very expensive and often invisible mistakes in well location selection. A JIP is underway to study these industry-wide problems and recommend solutions.
• To transform the management of geospatial data in geoscience software applications to benefit JIP members and improve vendor products and competencies
• To develop and disseminate best practice tools for current software applications and future software developments
• To create a sustainable improvement process in geoscience software applications based on sound geospatial data management
Figure 1 represents a model of the overall geospatially impacted workflow. Note that data are not just imported once, but literally flow through the company from database-to-database and project to project over many years, generally without any quality indications or audit trail. Traditionally the software used to manipulate these data are assumed to manage coordinate information correctly.
When it comes to geospatial data integrity, not all software packages are the same. Recent focus on this technical issue has illuminated a significant and worrying list of inadequate performance including; improperly coded geodetic algorithms, wrong values for embedded geodetic parameters, poor presentation of user input requirements, incorrect default settings used without reference to user, confusing or incorrect terminology, lack of error trapping for user blunders, lack of audit trail for forensic analysis, inadequate metadata functionality, and misguided users. Some examples of user interfaces are shown in figure 2.
Identified in a commonly used G&G package were incorrect transformations of coordinate reference systems (CRS) that created 25 to 35 meter errors in well locations.
