Keeping track of the massive growth in Norway’s E&P databank has reached a critical point. Andrew McBarnet reports on the latest initiative to meet the challenge of growing data volumes.
Some vital cogs keeping the wheels of oil and gas operations in motion go largely unnoticed（. Hence CGG’s recent announcement that Norway’s Diskos national data repository (NDR) was up and running with a new data management solution has not attracted much comment.
In fact this is the latest development in a pioneering project celebrating 20 years’ operation, under the aegis of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), to store, manage and make available E&P data generated by oil companies over the history of Norway’s offshore oil and gas operations. It has been an undertaking not to be underestimated.
oday the Diskos organization is a joint venture consisting of 57 oil companies involved on the Norwegian continental shelf, plus the NPD, which co-ordinates and manages activities within Diskos. Since 2011, 19 non-oil companies have been accepted as associate members as well as six Norwegian universities and research institutions. The Diskos database consists of petrotechnical data from the Norwegian continental shelf including seismic, well log, petroleum production and cultural data, available 24/7 through high-speed broadband access.
The statistics provide a clue to the scale of this IT project. By the end of this year the amount of data to be managed will have grown from 1.3 petabytes (PB) in January 2015 to an estimated 2.5 PB and counting. On a recent tally, there were over 57 million seismic information items with some 79,489 2D and 3,468,619 3D seismic lines archived. This included 296,000 pre-stack files, 34 million post-stack files and 45,000 other files, mainly navigation and velocity data. In addition, there were 86,359 well data information items and 671 production items.
More than 20 countries worldwide now have some form of NDR for oil and gas E&P data, but Diskos can claim to have led the way. The initial conversations began in 1992 between the NPD and the three Norwegian operators Statoil, Norsk Hydro and Saga, joined shortly after by Mobil.
The idea behind Diskos was to develop and operate a shared database containing relevant data and information needed by the oil companies during exploration, drilling and production of oil and gas on the Norwegian continental shelf, and for the reporting of necessary data to the Norwegian authorities required by legislation.
This was a bold proposition at the time, because it challenged the traditional oil company secretiveness over their prized E&P data assets. But Diskos was actually a cost-effective solution to an increasing burden on Norwegian continental shelf operators and licensees and a cure for a growing NPD headache. When the Norwegian authorities first stipulated the requirement for oil companies to report all exploration data to the NPD, they could be forgiven for not realising how much data would be involved, and for not anticipating the number of inefficiencies that would emerge. Their intention was simply to ensure the geoscientific evidence of Norway’s hydrocarbons could always be curated and accessed.
By the mid-1990s, the much larger volume of seismic data surfacing from 3D surveys, compared with 2D data, was beginning to put pressure on the data handling systems in place. This was compounded by a lack of common standards for the data types, formats, models and reporting procedures. Data quality was also at risk, particularly with the use of magnetic tapes as the recording option of choice for seismic data.
But probably the most serious problem for oil operators was the cost and amount of duplication involved in supplying their co-venture licensees, as well as the NPD, with copies of all exploration data. In addition, keeping track of data ownership and access entitlement was increasingly complicated by farm-ins, farm-outs, Farm-out/Farm-inAgreement，merger and acquisition activity, unitisation of licence interests and company name changes.
The single Diskos master database, with controlled access to be managed by a service provider working on behalf of the NPD, was the solution proposed and accepted by the industry. By submitting the data to Diskos, oil companies could meet their obligation to report proprietary seismic and well data, which is then subject to data release after two years, five years and, for multi-client data, 10 years (to accommodate commercial data library sales), and any interpreted data after 20 years. Raw data from any relinquished areas is also subject to data release.
Good timing
Eric Toogood, manager of Diskos in the NPD, who has been with the project since 1998, believes the timing of the system’s introduction was fortuitous in two key ways. First, the industry could now store large volumes of digital seismic data online, thereby reducing the dependence on legacy media, such as tapes, which had to be stored and then physically retrieved when requested.
Secondly, deregulation of the Norwegian telecoms sector enabled cost-effective broadband access for the transfer of data from the outset. Another factor in Diskos’ favour was the ongoing use and development of the SEG Y and SEG D standard formats for seismic data storage. These standards have proven to be a major success in allowing access to data through open formats. “The result,” Toogood says, “was that more or less from the get-go all the data was digitally available for users.”
The stakeholders had previously agreed to load data vintages from 1980 onwards to populate the database initially. Soon after, it became mandatory to report directly to Diskos. A second initiative was to focus on digital well data and the large-scale digitisation of legacy reports, which were loaded into the system along with digital data from media. Companies that were not in the start-up phase were soon persuaded that access to their own, partner and publically released data through the shared solution was worth the benefit in terms of cheaper costs, on demand access to better quality, QC-ed data and hassle-free storage, Toogood says.
“The main idea behind Diskos was to collaborate on the management of the raw data, whilst competing on its interpretation. This is where real value of this data is, and of course in its availability through Diskos as an ever-expanding source of information about the Norwegian continental shelf subsurface.”
The principle of the NDR was perhaps an easier sell in Norway than in the UK. Norwegian companies were already used to having a state partner in licences and an active authority in NPD. However, in the UK, oil companies and the government were wrestling with the same challenges. In 1995, a shared data solution, Common Data Access(CDA), was born, based first on well data to be followed by seismic.
Stewart Robinson represented the UK Department of Trade & Industry (DTI, now DECC) when CDA was set up with government blessing. Now retired but still active with Energistics, the Houston-based energy standards body, Robinson recalls that for UK companies “it was all about saving money. That was what sold the idea”. Reflecting its origins, CDA is not quite as closely tied to government as Diskos, although the DECC is a participating member. CDA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oil & Gas UK, the entity that represents the offshore oil and gas industry. Twenty years on, the NDR approach is providing the value for money envisaged by both CDA and Diskos. A recent survey of senior executives in the UK and Norway for CDA, undertaken by Schlumberger, concluded that “a review of current practices concerning data quality, access and indexing systems, data preservation, security and data governance would reveal substantial opportunities to increase the total value that E&P companies generate.”
Management change
CGG is the fourth company to operate the Diskos databases, the previous contractors being Landmark (2009-14), Schlumberger (2004-08) and the original company, Petrodata (1995-2003), in which IBM and Petroleum Geophysical Services (PGS) were both involved at some point. The company took an early interest in corporate E&P data management in the 1990s by investing in Petroleum Exploration Computer Consultants (PECC). The Petrovision corporate database developed by PECC was adopted by the Algerian national oil company Sonatrach. Subsequently it was used by CDA for building its seismic navigation database.
CGG’s previous experience has never extended to the management of a NDR system as elaborate as , arguably the most advanced in the world. The successive changes of the Diskos “operator” was made possible through the periodic tendering of the Diskos contract according Norwegian and EU public procurement legislation relating to government service contracts. It does not faze Toogood that such a complex task can change hands every so often. “With competition, we benefit from improvements in the software, data management and the price of the service,” he says.
There were some challenges this time in the changeover from Landmark to CGG, which meant Diskos was offline for a short period earlier in the year. This was perhaps not a surprise, given the magnitude of the task. It was the first wholesale change of software from the original IBM-inspired Petrobank to the Akon solution consisting of CGG’s Trango software (based on a PPDM open database model) and Kadme’s WhereOil data search technology. Migrating the data to a new model after so many years turned up all sorts of unexpected challenges.
As a consequence, not all the bugs had been ironed out in the transition year from the contract award in late 2013 and the scheduled start on 1 January 2015. Problems mainly associated with the seismic module have been the root of the problem and delayed access for all “critical” users until February, and others into July.
Toogood describes the transition as a learning process and says there’s no cause for apportioning blame. A comprehensive “lessons learnt” review is planned. Final implementation approval for the seismic, well, and trading modules, which are to some extent interdependent, has yet to be granted by the NPD on behalf of the Diskos user community. But the new system is working, offering some new functionality and scope for expansion.
When the Diskos management contract renewal came up, tenders were put out for the seismic, well and production modules. CGG won all three with its Akon solution, said to be a more integrated and cost-effective answer to securely storing and distributing a larger volume of data than was possible with the previous Petrobank system.
CGG says as a bidder it needed to consider the opportunity to change the software, submit data online and automate manual tasks. It was also aware that data volumes were due to explode. For example, NPD updated the data submission regulations in 2012 to require operators to submit field and pre-stack data. In addition new acquisition and processing technologies would inevitably increase data volumes. Devising a web solution for submitting and retrieving data, which could be monitored and guaranteed to be secure, was one challenge. Another was the need for extendable storage. One further priority was the members’ desire for a limited environmental footprint, despite the data volume growth.
Software solution
The Akon solution, managed and operated by CGG and its partners in the project, consists of three elements. CGG has overall project management responsibility and is operating its Trango software system for tasks such as data loading and data output, QC, invoicing, and record of access entitlements. In practice, a user first identifies the required data in the data repository. Selection is typically done in a geographical user environment. Once the system has confirmed access rights to selected data, the requested data is retrieved from high-density storage devices. The user can generally get data access within 30 seconds. Data is then transferred online to the user’s computer for further interpretation.
To enable this kind of access CGG has teamed with Norwegian information management software company Kadme. The company has adapted its WhereOil platform to provide the user and public interface of the Diskos database for searching, retrieving and ordering data. Kadme is also behind the design and operation of the new trade module version to allow operators and licensees to identify and trade specific E&P data.
Evry, one of Scandinavia’s largest IT operators known for its support to services such as online banking, is CGG’s other major partner in the Diskos project. It is providing the data centre services, the third element of the Akon solution. Data receipt and loading is carried out at an Evry facility in Forus, Stavanger. The company has subcontracted the secure storage of the Diskos data to a new facility built by Norwegian company on the island of Rennesoy, near Stavanger. A complete mirrored copy of the data is retained by Evry for “Disaster recovery” purposes.
The Rennesøy facility is claimed to be the “greenest” data centre of it kind. The 21,500-square metre facility is in a rebuilt bunker located in a cavern once used by NATO to store ammunition. The unusual setting cuts power consumption and reduces the carbon emissions associated with data centres. Green Mountain says data centres around the world are believed to contribute two percent of the carbon that goes into the atmosphere.
To the question as to whether cloud computing could facilitate some of the access and storage functionality more cheaply and efficiently, Toogood so far is hesitant. “Obviously, it’s not something that should be dismissed, and it is something we have talked about. But I would have concerns over security of the data and indeed where all the information is actually being hosted.”
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