In our petroleum industry, time is money, especially after the first exploration well. Minimizing the total time from the first discovery to the first oil milestone through collaboration is a crucial task for any successful E&P projects. In fact, collaboration has a higher impact on overall business performance than technology[1]. The current challenges of collaboration among and across subsurface and operation departments include:
- Silos projects: most interpretation software is PC-based and single user
- Mobile devices not supported: software mostly requires a workstation
- Data auditing: difficult to keep track of data changes during data pre-processing and interpretation
This short article proposes an introduction to the available tools/features to facilitate collaboration in petroleum geoscience domain.
A not-so-far-reaching cloud solution
Cloud is not a luxury solution anymore. There are quite a number of G&G software that offers cloud solution or at least “cloud experience”. Geoscientist can now work anywhere at anytime as long as they have one device and access to the internet. In fact, some big operators such as Shell are implementing their internal cloud and produced a policy of “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD)[2] which simply means employees can use any smart devices to finish the given tasks.
Within a cloud-based environment, more than one team members can simultaneously work on the same project which brings huge benefits of collaboration across all departments from subsurface to operation. Firstly, very task done is updated real time which is an absolutely fruitful experience. Geoscientists can now work simultaneously to avoid non-productive time. People might argue that it would make the project messy and not manageable. However, as a project owner or an administrator, you can have very flexible sharing permission like “view only”.
Secondly, it will avoid copying projects, importing and exporting data for others to do the QC or to make a discussion which is always a time-consuming process and will produce data redundancy and duplication. It’s very much like google sheet where you can just share a link for other people to access your work, no need to send them the files back and forth and eventually, you are not sure which one is the final version.
Integrated communication tool
Email or other apps are not the most efficient way for communications between technical team members because they are also used for many other purposes. Platform such as i2G provide an integrated live chat so that interpreters can communicate while working within the same environment. The advantage of this is interpreters do not have to go through thousands of email to find information of , let’s say, why did they choose such parameters. All communications and evidence to support any decision and model/parameters selections are properly captured and attached to the project.
A few words on data security
We all worry about data confidentiality because it can badly damage a company’s business. My view of this issue is simply like you are putting your money to the bank versus put it in a safe place at your home. At the bank, you will get an interest rate similar to what cloud is offering: scalable capacity, streamlined work and so on.
At home, although you feel safer but is it true?
Reference:
[1] https://rogtecmagazine.com/why-collaboration-has-a-higher-impact-on-business-performance-than-technology/
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/591f5082-00cb-11e2-9dfc-00144feabdc0
