New Seismic Data System to Help UK Producers, CCS

A new way of reporting seismic data to the UK National Data Repository (NDR), a statutory obligation for licence-holders, will also help companies looking for carbon sequestration sites, the UK upstream regulator Oil & Gas Authority (OGA) said August 18. It is also quicker and cheaper to use than the method it replaces, it said.

The OGA expects that companies will increasingly use the Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) service to fulfil their seismic reporting obligations online, following the first upload from Premier, which has used it to upload its 3D 2019 Tolmount data.

“The NDR has already proved to be a vital tool in helping to maximise economic recovery from the UK Continental Shelf as the availability of data is enabling companies to make better decisions in areas such as exploration and investment,” OGA said.

The NDR launched in March 2019 with over 130 terabytes of information including over 5,000 seismic surveys and new data is continually being added. It attracts around 350 visitors a day; users obtained some 320 terabytes of disclosed content in the first year of operation – marking the transformation in access to petroleum-related information.

The information – some of it dating back to the mid-Sixties – can now be reassessed to help determine whether subsurface resources could be used for carbon storage, said OGA.