UK’s seismic data available via CDA
Feature Articles, Nov  27  2009 (Digital Energy Journal)

- UK oil and gas data management organisation Common Data Access (CDA) is how storing public seismic data, so people who need it do not have to go to the trouble of asking for it from the person who owns it every time they want some data.

Common Data Access, a UK organisation which is part of the Oil & Gas UK association, is now collecting releaseable 2D and 3D seismic data, so it can make it available to whoever wants it much more easily than getting it from the original source.

Malcolm Fleming, chief executive, Common Data Access.

Under UK regulations, seismic data is released to anyone who wants it after 4 or in some cases 3 years.

CDA aims to create benefits to both the provider and the user of the data - and has estimated that the direct savings from the system could be £1.1m a year.

Currently, if you want publicly available seismic data, you still have the trouble of going to the oil company which did the survey, finding the right person to speak to, and getting a copy of their tapes from their archives. It can take several weeks, take a lot of hassle and you’re not even sure if you’re getting the right data at the end.

“We can do it in 3 days and its quality-checked,” says Malcolm Fleming, chief executive, Common Data Access.

Mr Fleming envisages that if the data is easier to access, companies will be able to do more extensive analysis of seismic data leading up to a license round. “It could have an impact on the whole shelf,” he says.

The organisation has spent March to September 2009 gathering and loading data, and reckons it has 15 per cent of all the data available. It is starting with the data which is most in demand.

By December 2009, it hopes to have a further 5-10 per cent completed, with data from more than 750 different surveys. So far the database size has reached “several terabytes,” says Mr Fleming.

The system currently only covers processed data – the raw data files are still too large to comfortably handle within our current business model, Mr Fleming says.

The system will cover the process of managing licenses for the data – member companies will only need to sign one data license with CDA for any data they want, not a separate one for each seismic file they want to access.

CDA will also quality check the data, so users will know the quality standard of the data before licensing it.

A fee is charged for downloading the data on media – although CDA does not aim to make any profit on it. The database is operated by Schlumberger.

Members of CDA will be able to download seismic data directly – and if the files are too big to download, CDA agrees to put it on tape and have it on their desk within 3 days. Non-CDA members will be able to receive data on tape within the 3 week guideline (as set by agreement between industry and the UK government). Joining the CDA Seismic DataStore costs £12,000 a year.

It will be a similar project to DISKOS in Norway, which also stores seismic data.

Until now, CDA has maintained two information stores: DEAL, which provides information about the wells, seismic surveys, licenses and infrastructure data for the UK continental shelf, telling you what data is available, running on the Schlumberger Seabed data model; and Well DataStore, which provides information about wells.

Mr Fleming says he sees his role as a manager of data management, or a “data manager manager.”

Companies will not be obligated to provide data to CDA – but if they don’t share it through CDA they will have to handle the cost and hassle of providing it directly to other companies that ask for it.

In future, CDA anticipates storing companies seismic data which is not publicly available – because it can probably manage the data more effectively than the companies can themselves, and when the 3-4 years are up and the data needs to be made public, it can be done automatically.

In future the database might also be accessible directly via other software applications, so they can work on it directly (rather than just downloading individual files).

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