In the late 1980s, the oil and gas industry embarked on a journey that now, in retrospect, seems almost too simple: transition from paper processes to data-driven computer

Landmark’s R5000 release will open the door to cutting-edge data-management techniques for seismic projects. This will enhance high-performance geoscience interpretation workflows — leading to high-definition subsurface imaging and accuracy. (Images courtesy of Landmark)
processes. This modest goal has since led to 20 years of increasingly sophisticated data-integration efforts. By the mid 1990s, for example, exploration and production (E&P) companies were sharing datasets across multiple geological and geophysical (G&G) applications. By the end of that decade, they had formed complete project teams working with new datasets and innovative software technology.

As we head into the new century we are seeing the next generation of data-driven products come on the market. One of these is Landmark’s R5000. This is a synchronous release of almost 80 software applications, along with a new release of the OpenWorks database. The products are unique because many of them can access the common DecisionSpace environment, which is capable of running software applications side-by-side — along with a customer’s proprietary applications and other vendors’ applications. This is a true cross-disciplinary workflow built on openness and integration.

The products, which Landmark will release in late 2007 and throughout the first half of 2008, will feature a common look and feel that makes them easy to use in cross-functional workflows. The software rollout will be the most comprehensive and fully integrated software release the company’s 25-year history.

The database is designed to tie together many elements of the asset — a move that eliminates data redundancy and improves data quality. As a result, users can work more productively across generational applications and within enhanced-security measures.

Take offshore operations in an area like the Gulf of Mexico, for example. There companies routinely create multiple small projects for a single region. The result is often rampant data duplication along with large datasets and poor software performance, not to mention serious data-management headaches. Why? Because the old project-team model does not synch with today’s data growth and usage trends. The bottom line is that E&P professionals simply aren’t organized in self-contained teams any longer. They are now part of broader asset teams, and they must work in concert with other project teams, using the exact same data as they do.

With the new version of the database, a new project-data management concept is being introduced called an “interpretation project.” An interpretation project is simply a view into a project database; it looks like a simple project database to each individual geoscience application, but it is really a set of data views customized to the requirements of the asset team.

Multiple interpretation projects can access data from a single project database without data duplication. This means asset teams can share well logs and similar types of data dynamically as opposed to doing so via a copy. If users update data in one interpretation project, they also update the entire database. Moreover, any other interpretation project that uses that data will see the change. This will be of particular interest to data managers and information technology departments since it will reduce data duplication and improve the quality of output from the project team.

Plus, in an interpretation project, asset teams can share well logs and similar types of data dynamically as opposed to doing so via a copy.

The new version of the database will also enable asset teams to incorporate prestack
Many of the R5000 products can access the common DecisionSpace environment.
seismic analysis by making it available on the interpreter’s desktop. Prestack seismic data is a valuable asset, and many companies are looking for ways to more effectively use it in the interpretation process. The new database will make this possible using a variety of software applications. To extend this high level of usability, software-development kits are being offered that customers can use to connect the database to in-house and other vendors’ applications.

The company is going to support an entire range of products — old, new, proprietary and non-proprietary. It’s all about continuity and integration. It’s also offering implementation services, forums and training supporting the entire product roll out.

Software beta customers have already taken advantage of the deployment to re-think and overhaul their data-management strategies, optimizing them for improved exploration and discovery in coming years. Landmark has even set up an online knowledge-management community for these and other customers to collaboratively develop best practices and share their experiences.

The new products will enable companies to work differently while better managing data of known quality. Plus, they can manage their data logically, which may sound trivial to the average person but is very significant to the geoscientist, who can now do things like put a “top” into the database and have someone else see it immediately.

Some customers have already enjoyed an early taste of these benefits because the company included a preview of its software capabilities in several product updates it released earlier this year. With the formal software deployment, these customers will be able to seamlessly enjoy the full benefits of the release — benefits that will take team-oriented work and turn it into asset-oriented work like enabling more effective interpretation or better field development. They will also enjoy improved reservoir-simulation integration and more accurate well-path planning for complex field-development scenarios.

Taking an asset-level perspective of the world is critical as the E&P industry heads into the 21st century. That’s where the new products come in. It’s been a long haul toward true data integration, and now we are closer than ever.

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