OPAA: Oil Production Advanced Analytics

OPAA -- Oil Production Advanced Analytics will improve the analysis of oil exploration so that the success rate of oil well exploration for production increases whilst simultaneously reducing costs in the process.

Currently, oil discovery and analysis is carried out by teams of engineers and geologists. These specialists analyse separate types of data such as seismic data or the various types of data provided by test drilling well lines including rock type, radiation, magnetic properties, temperature and pressure at different depths. The current human interpretation is subjective and not very accurate, and can be costly due to the limited number of experts in this field.

Ovation Data will use its position as a curator for many of the world's largest oil companies' data along with public domain surveys to provide a new analysis service. This service would allow companies to analyse not only newly surveyed data but historical data that had previously been deemed inconclusive or too costly to analyse, to better ascertain if there is potential value at exploration locations.

Our proposal will address the needs of the industry by applying Machine Learning algorithms to analyse both seismic and well line data, and attain better overall correlation and analysis for oil companies to evaluate before they decide to begin production drilling. The Department of Earth Science & Engineering at Imperial College London will research, analyse and propose the most suitable algorithms to suit the multimodal data types as part of the proposal.

Ovation's service would be more cost effective for oil companies than the traditional method of analysis. Oil companies will become more profitable via better analysis and a higher rate of success. This project would additionally benefit the UK taxpayer via making better use of North Sea oil reserves.

In a world where hydrocarbons are required not only for fuel but our everyday life with materials such as plastics the need to make a better more efficient oil discovery process is paramount.