Dr David Cameron will be presenting the paper “Optique: Simple, Oil & Gas-oriented Access to Big Data in Exploration” at the Big Data Analytics and Applications session at SPE Intelligent Energy on Wednesday, 7 September 2016 (photo: Optique)

Delegates at SPE Intelligent Energy 2016 will hear about a collaborative venture between academic institutions and industry partners which aims to help oil and gas operators collect and interpret surges of real-time big data generated by oilfields and plants more efficiently.

As companies seek smarter ways to handle the influx of complex data, joint industry projects (JIPs) are exploring ways of saving time, money and energy through shared goals. Optique, a four-year JIP initiated by The University of Oslo, exploits recent advances in semantic technologies, in which the meaning of data is explicitly represented as part of the data model.

The aim is to develop a software platform to provide end-users with flexible, comprehensive and timely access to large and complex industrial data sets – in processing petabytes of well data, for example – by making computers adopt the language users understand and are familiar with.

The project has received backing from Statoil, DNV GL, German engineering group Siemens, and Fluid Operations, a German provider of innovative cloud and data management solutions. The EUR 13.8 million programme launched in December 2012 with EUR 9.7 million of European Union funding.

Dr David Cameron, Coordinator of the SIRIUS Centre for Research-Based Innovation at The University of Oslo, says, “The biggest challenge of big data in oil and gas is accessing and integrating the wide variety of data spread over silo applications. This can be solved by allowing geoscientists to retrieve data from existing, legacy data sources using queries that are written in their language and not the computer’s language. Getting quick and cheap access to data is the bottleneck in applying analytics in oil and gas. Our engineers and geoscientists deserve better, faster and more intuitive ways of finding and exploring data.”

The Optique team expects its approach to reduce turnaround time for information requests from days to minutes, while also advancing to data sets whose size and complexity is beyond the reach of existing technologies.

The vision is that by 2020, Optique methods and technology will be incorporated into mainstream information management products delivered by trusted vendors.

The theme of SPE Intelligent Energy 2016, which will be held at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre (AECC) from 6-8 September, is “New Horizons: Intelligent Energy in a Changing World”. Visitors from around the world are expected to gather in Europe’s energy capital as the latest smart technologies and IE solutions are showcased at the seventh edition of the biennial event.

As at previous events, the 2016 conference will be produced by SPE and will comprise of a three-day technical programme with an expected 75 papers covering topics including technology, integrated operations, workflow examples and solutions, leadership, cyber-security and big data. The exhibition, organised by Reed Exhibitions, will showcase new and developing technologies and expertise by leading operators, service companies and technology providers.

Tags: Optique, SPE Intelligent Energy