Computer manipulation of geological exploration data

Report of a meeting held by the Geological Information Group at the British Petroleum Research Centre, Sunbury, 24 January 1985

This meeting, concerned mainly with computer manipulation of petroleum exploration data, attracted c. 95 participants. In addition to eight papers presented, there were two computer demonstrations of log analysis systems and a number of poster displays.

The morning session, concerned with large-scale, integrated hardware and software systems, was chaired by R. Howarth. R. Till of British Petroleum gave the opening paper concerning BP Exploration’s integrated database system. BP Exploration databases fall into three main groups: those containing largely numerical data; databases specifically concerned with text handling; and well-based databases. The ‘numerical’ databases, implemented under the ULTRA database management system (dbms), include a seismic data system, a generalized cartographic database and an earth constants database. Textual databases include a library information system and a Petroconsultants scout data database, both implemented under the BASIS dbms. The well-based systems include a generalized well-data database, a wireline log archive, storage and retrieval system, and a master well index; all three are implemented under the INGRES dbms. Two related BASIS databases contain geochemical and biostratigraphical data.

G. Baxter (co-author M. Hemingway) described the development of Britoil’s well log database which was prompted by the need to have rapid access to digitized wireline log data for c. 1500 wells on the UKCS. Early work involved both locating log information and digitizing those logs held in sepia form only. Each digitized log occupies approximately 1 Mbyte.