Bringing new life
to the North Sea with GIS
Ben Rodgers
Petroleum Services
Deloitte & Touche LLP
Contents
Introduction - Recent trends in the North Sea
Overview of GIS in oil and gas
GIS data in oil and gas
GIS applications in oil and gas
Conclusions
Introduction
Recent trends in the North Sea
• Now a diverse mix of players in the North Sea
• Rise of new entrants and independents
• Small independents like Tullow, Caledonia, Centrica and Venture
gaining footholds in Southern North Sea
• Larger independents like Perenco & Apache benefited from divestitures
by BP, Shell and BG
• Partly driven by spate of divestitures following
consolidations amongst majors & super-majors
Activities in the North Sea broadly classified as
• Majors & super majors developing existing portfolios and
drilling the odd wildcat
• Independents focusing on smaller marginal prospects and
drilling exploration wells. Near-field prospects can be rapidly
developed using existing infrastructure
BUT!
Number of wells being drilled and number of
significant discoveries is in decline
Policy changes in the North Sea
• ‘PILOT’ launched 2001 in UK – ‘use it or lose it’
• ‘Promote’ licences launched in 21st UK licensing round
• ‘Frontier’ licences launched in 22nd UK licensing round
‘Promote’
licences in pink
• ‘Promote’ resulted in 36 new players being awarded
licences in the North sea – mostly small and medium sized
independents
• 22nd UKCS Offshore and the 12th Onshore Licensing
Rounds were announced on 4th March 2004. This is the
largest offshore licensing round since the 2nd Round in
1965!
“I'm announcing today the opening of the 22nd
Offshore and the 12th Onshore Licensing Rounds
and with another new type of licence - the
"Frontier" licence - for blocks in the Atlantic
Margin, West of Shetland.
The "Frontier" licence will allow companies to
apply for relatively large amounts of acreage in
these challenging areas at reduced costs, so they
can make an effective assessment of the most
promising 25% on which to focus their exploration
and development. The changes reflect the
additional technical difficulties in these areas.“
Stephen Timms MP, Scottish Offshore
Achievement Awards, March 4th 2004
• But still questionable whether exploration and
development will increase given size of these
companies, without ‘farm-in’ from existing North
Sea players
New entrants – seeking new opportunities
• Information and data about the North Sea have never been
better
• Wealth of technical, seismic and contractual information
available
• Companies questioning ways of managing these resources in a
useful & efficient manner
• GIS is being widely adopted for this purpose…
New entrants – seeking GIS data and apps
• New entrants seeking timely GIS updates, historical data and
detailed geological, contractual, field reserve and
infrastructure data
• Seeking ability to quickly understand the marketplace and
reliably make key decisions
• Requirement for an all encompassing system for deployment
in new ventures, E & P, business planning, trading and asset
management departments
GIS in oil and gas – an overview
• Geographic patterns hidden in standard column-row data
structure
• Location is critical in the oil and gas industry
• GIS captures the synergy of analysing data simultaneously
at a location and attribute level
• In the past complex spatial modelling has been restricted to
geophysical applications
GIS in oil and gas – an overview
• Shift from traditional operational and drafting role of GIS to a
broader strategic role
• New entrants and independents looking for the successful
marriage of complex databases with new functionality to
support their day-to-day responsibilities
• GIS tools such as ‘company interest’ searches, ‘production
profiling’ and ‘fallow acreage’ reports are now commonly
used in the industry
Where can GIS help?
• Gas market analysis – solving network and connectivity
issues such as security of supply and pricing
• New ventures – looking for new opportunities
• Exploration – integrating data sources
• Business planning – considering spatial dimension of
potential acquisitions/disposals and tie-in options
• Asset management – supporting management of corporate
spatial databases – [Shell & independents]
GIS data in oil and gas – sources
• Wide range of sources – government, field operators and
other equity partners
• UK DTI & Norwegian NPD
• UKOOA via Deal (www.ukdeal.co.uk)
• In GOM and Australia – MMS & Australian government
• Seismic data from service companies
• GIS providers have a wide network of data scouts and
contacts collecting this data on a continual basis
GIS data in oil and gas – core datasets
GIS data in oil and gas – core datasets
• Normally 5 main datasets provided:
– Blocks
– Wells
– Fields
– Platforms
– Pipelines
– Plus other cultural and technical datasets
GIS applications in oil and gas
• GIS data provides a detailed overview, but the GIS
functionality adds the real benefit to the independents
• Independents need to act quickly and with confidence in
new acquisitions or exploration opportunities
• They need a database and tools to extract important
commercial and geotechnical information with ease
• They need to access this data quickly in order to be
responsive and competitive
GIS tools used by the independents
• Company Interests
• Production Profiling
• Fallow Acreage
• Prospects and Well Trading
• Deals and Historic Licencing
• Seismic Tools
Company Interest Searches
• Users can generate a list of assets
in which a company currently holds
an interest
• Company A wants to see what fields
Company B has interests in, in
Norway
• Users can select parent or
subsidiary companies, and restrict the
search to blocks, fields, wells, pipes
etc as well as specify the % interest
range that Company B might have
•For M & A transactions, the
Overlapping Company interest search
compares the assets of two
companies
• Results are presented thematically and in tabular format for further analysis
Production Profiles
• If the GIS database contains historic
and future production figures for fields
then users can visualise these figures
by running a production profile
• By selecting fields in the map
window or from a list, graphs are
generated illustrating the production
figures
• Production profiles can additionally be constructed from pipelines and
terminals, thus showing any bottlenecks or spare capacity
• Particularly useful tool for independents who might be looking for nearfield prospects close to existing infrastructure with some spare capacity
Fallow acreage
• Fallow blocks are those Traditional Licences where the initial
term (originally 6 years, now 4 years) has expired and there
has been no drilling for 4 years and no dedicated seismic or
other significant activity for 2 years
• The fallow GIS tool identifies such blocks and can be
restricted to search the blocks of a specific company or country
• This is a useful tool for new entrants and independents in
determining which blocks might be worth considering if and
when they become available
Seismic tools
• Seismic tools have been developed that enable users to
load (UKOOA data for instance), visualise and analyse
seismic navigation data.
• Useful tools within the GIS environment include 2D line and
shot-point survey labellers and the parallel lines tool.
• Service companies and independents find them helpful for
preliminary planning and 3D cost survey analysis
Prospects & Well Trading
• Data is often held in disparate
locations preventing users from
making meaningful analysis in the
context of existing acreage, drilling
activity, infrastructure, future
licensing rounds, fallow acreage etc.
• Prospects tools manage prospect
inventories within GIS. Prospects
can be added into a centralised
database via the GIS interface.
• Well trading tools manage welltrade related data. Current & historic
well data and trade scenarios are
held within a centralised database
and can be accessed through a GIS
interface.
• Traded wells are classified either as ‘offered’ or ‘requested’. Offered
wells are owned by the database owner at the time of the transaction
whilst ‘requested’ wells represent wells gained from a trade.
Deals and historic licensing
• Tracking deals and historic
asset ownership in the North
Sea is a critical process for
any effective business
development strategy
• New entrants are unlikely to
have built up this kind of
detailed information and often
rely on commercial sources
• The GIS database combines
details of all deals and historic
block changes in the North
Sea since exploration began
• Users can query the deals or
historic blocks database
through the GIS interface
Conclusion
• After almost 40 years of exploration, the North Sea is witnessing a
steady influx of new entrants and small to medium sized independents
• Lured by government initiatives and corporate divestitures resulting from
consolidation of majors and supers
• New players are embracing GIS as a method of managing disparate data
sources
• Detailed GIS databases, updated on a regular basis and oil and gas
specific tools, are allowing the new players to stay competitive
• The demand for such datasets and GIS tools has seen a shift in
emphasis away from operational or drafting systems to strategic and
business support systems
Thank you
Any questions?