Truth or Consequences - Commercial Impact of Geospatial Data Management

Industry wide, the E&P business experiences many challenges in managing geospatial data associated with core datasets. Based on both four years of evaluation and significant anecdotal evidence gained through industry networking, combined with over 100 years of combined experience, the authors estimate that geospatial coordinates may be stored improperly (with significant errors) for: - 20-25% of all acquired seismic data - 35-50% of all surface and subsurface well data - 30% of all land boundary data Comparisons are made between historical surface and sub-surface well locations and results from either GPS survey or reprocessed location data (for subsurface locations). Further examples of well, seismic and boundary positions will be shown. One example shows that mis-positioning of a boundary can lead to an error in the order of 12% of the concession area. The impact of these statistics, on the preparation and presentation of maps can have catastrophic consequences. This paper examines some of the reasons for these errors and makes recommendations to industry and operators to manage the process of reducing this risk. This paper is the seventh of seven papers in a special session addressing various components of geospatial management in the Oil and Gas industry.