Search and Rescue: The Data Lost and Found Initiative 7 August 2014
BACKGROUND A brief history of the petroleum industry in Australia: One of the first known wells in Western Australia was in 1902 (in WA) Formal exploration started in earnest in 1946 1946 also marked the creation of the Bureau of Minerals Resources (BMR) This was the first real government oversight and assistance organisation created in the country. It also went about its own exploration activities for the Commonwealth The BMR became the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) in 1992 In 2001 AGSO merged with AUSLIG and created GeoScience Australia In 2012 NOPTA was formed and took over the administration of the petroleum acreage in commonwealth waters (3 nautical miles from territorial sea baseline)
BACKGROUND The states had their own managerial and legislative bodies: New South Wales: Department of Primary Industries - Minerals and Petroleum Northern Territory: Department of Mines and Energy Queensland: Department of Natural Resources and Mines South Australia: Primary Industries and Resources South Australia Tasmania: Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources Victoria: Department of Energy and Earth Resources Western Australia: Department of Mines and Petroleum
THE DATA Depending on which state, on or off shore, and whether you were looking for minerals or oil and gas, you had a different government body that was interested in you. Over time the government bodies changed - initially from a general federal body, to both a federal and state based set of agencies. To further complicate this, these agencies then also continued to morph by changing name, administrators and guidelines. How data should be captured, managed and deposited with the governing bodies was different depending on state as well but also overlapped in terms of who was responsible for the data.
FOSTERING LOST DATA Data Submission Guidelines were many and varied, not enforced and in many cases the agencies were understaffed or under-skilled. Oil and gas companies did not know or understand the guidelines and therefore did not follow through on them. Data acquired by minerals companies had completely different guidelines to that of petroleum but todays interest in CSG has seen many oil and gas companies request older shallow minerals geophysical study data which was never submitted (either because it did not need to be, or because no one knew how to handle it).
NON BUREAUCRATIC REASONS FOR DATA LOSS Aside from complex changes in government bodies, their jurisdictions and submission requirements, the industry itself is also to blame for losing important data: Simply not meeting their submission requirements (by accident on purpose) Companies that fold before submissions are complete Companies merge or change operator and data sets shift (or don t) and are lost Companies return to overseas home bases and take data with them Simple loss, accidents, etc. In the main - bad metadata is a major contributor
THE IDEA In 2013 after 15 years of seeing data come and go, performing submissions for clients, and more importantly getting calls from clients asking Hey do you know where I can get that XYZ Survey from 1988 I thought it was time to do something. Enter Zane Prickett. Zane is a wire-line engineer and software developer. We decided to create a web based search service for hard to find/lost data. NOTE: Open data Innovation Event This then expanded to the lost and found initiative that started in November 2013.
WHAT IS THE INITIATIVE? Our main goals of the initiative are: Pair those looking for data, with those who have it Publish as much data as we can that is freely available and make it easier to find for the general public Develop a data source network of those interested in donating data and taking queries as they come up for those looking for data Develop a detective service to track down and compile hard to find data sets Push to Google level
THE COLLECTION SO FAR Additional DataReSource information 23,000+ wells listed 5,000+ seismic surveys listed (more than 200,000 lines) 170,000+ data files and documents online Onsite archive with over 6 million records (slowly being parsed to the cloud) Focused on Australia, New Zealand and PNG data but we have data from most of SE Asia and West Africa
SAMPLE OF LOST DATA Recent examples of data we are looking for as results of requests: SURVEY NAME DATA REQUESTED COUNTRY STATE BASIN Thunder Ridge Chrysaor 3D MSS Observer Logs Survey Note for Line S84-01 Raw Navigation P1/90 for all Lines Prefix CH95 seq 1 to 161 - WITH 304 RECEIVER Australia WA Canning Australia WA Carnarvon Harvey S.S. Field Data for Line H69-Y Australia WA Perth Karnup Reconnaissance S.S. Field Data for Line KR66-AB and KR66-Y Australia WA Perth Rockingham S.S. Field Data for Line P72-51L Australia WA Perth
SAMPLE SUCCESS STORIES Beach Energy - old seismic survey data, NT 1980s vintage critical data for a permit evaluation study Real Energy - seismic data, QLD 1980s vintage minor metadata issue caused confusion with lines from another survey VIC Government - old well data 1970s vintage located some very old well data done by BMR that was never provided to VIC. NOTE: In many cases these data sets are single lines or even parts of lines (we have line 107, but 107A missing) and often related to bad metadata. It usually comes down to real detective work and a holistic view of the surrounding data
HOW DOES IT WORK IF I NEED DATA? If you cannot find data you need after the normal sources contact us with as much detail as you can: Seismic (obs logs, reports, field and processed seismic, navigation, elevations) Survey name, year, survey designation, line names, prefix, country basin, state, etc. Wells (logs, drilling reports, etc.): Well name, year, state, basin, operator, just about anything that you know Essentially whatever you know about the data and we will hit our network and collections
HOW DO I GET INVOLVED IF I HAVE DATA? Step 1 - register as a Data Source with DataReSource as is a willing participant who will be asked if you have certain data. You can do this by expressing your area of expertise (well log data) and/or region of expertise (cooper basin) so we only send you targeted queries. Step 2 - we will forward targeted lists of data that are currently being looked for by industry for review. The data will be used to assist in exploration programmes, research, academic studies etc. The list will also be on the DataReSource website and published in the industry journal pnronline. Step 3 you take 2 minutes to review the list and reminisce about your days as an observer on that survey or on that rig etc., and then have that light bulb go on when you remember where that data is.
HOW DO I GET INVOLVED IF I HAVE DATA? Step 4 contact us with your results. Step 5 (alternative) we are always on the lookout for additional data to add to our archive. If you have data from previous exploration activities that is no longer of use, taking up valuable space or costing you money to store, then donate it to us to share with the world. Step 6 feel good about being a hero!
DATA DONATIONS Thanks to data donations so far from: Origin Energy seismic data Nigel Fisher - seismic data WADMP - navigation data SA Government - navigation data Woodside - navigation data Chevron - navigation data
We look forward to updating you on progress at the next PPDM