What is today's data panacea? In my many decades of work in the data disciplines, dozens of technologies have emerged claiming they will "fix" bad data. Creating a data solution that works for everyone is incredibly difficult. The trouble comes, of course, when you think about “data” both tactically and strategically. It’s hard to create corporate or master data strategies when every user group you talk to has a different idea of what “good” should look like... Read more >
Artificial Intelligence and the Intelligent Executive Scroll through any news feed and the headlines about Artificial Intelligence, or AI, abound. While Elon Musk predicts it could be our downfall and technophiles predict a brave new world, the reality is that most companies will struggle to strategically deploy Artificial Intelligence... Read more >
Introduction Sustainability data management is no longer about regulatory reporting. It’s now an integral part of the data fabric that drives corporate decisions and actions, changing the entire landscape of how business is executed. Companies are now navigating the next frontier in the global economy in a world that has sustainability emphasized on almost every product or service delivered. Regulatory reporting has traditionally been viewed as a cost of doing business, introducing constraints that companies... Read more >
The promise of DataOps is compelling even though the term has progressed through the hype cycle for years now and, for many, little impact has yet been achieved. DataOps is defined as the application of Agile DevOps methods and tools to our data engineering disciplines. This concept has succeeded in becoming the preferred approach for creation of quality data products. However, the early hype promised 10x productivity gains for data engineering teams adopting this method. That created urgency in the early stages and may now be generating disappointment for those not experiencing a step level change. The potential remains strong... Read more >
Master data refers to the essential data elements that provide a consistent and unified view of key entities within an organization, such as customers, products, suppliers, and employees. Within Energy, master data would refer to the ‘Well’, the ‘Facility’, the ‘Store’ or an ‘Asset’ and the associated critical data that goes with it to identify ‘what it is’. While master data management (MDM) is crucial for maintaining data integrity and supporting business processes, it goes ignored within the mid-large oil and gas... Read more >
Whether inconsistent, inaccurate, ambiguous or just plain wrong, bad data is a big barrier to digital transformation. Digital transformation initiatives are challenging to complete in many organizations. When data issues block the path forward, progress stops... Read more >
The Unique Well Identifier (formerly referred to as the API number) is a unique identifier assigned to each well drilled for oil and gas operations in the United States. At the urging of industry, states and regulatory bodies started the assignment of these identifiers in the 1960’s based on the publication of the D12 standard issued by the American Petroleum Institute (API). This standard was modified over the years but last updated by the API in 1979 and republished in 1982 and 1985. During the period from 1979 through 2013, the complexity of drilled... Read more >
Like oil, data is a commodity with tangible value. Yet the digital oilfield is like the wild west where energy professionals spend an inordinate portion of their day on data wrangling because of a chaotic mix of structured and unstructured data, multiple versions of the truth, and lack of data governance. Every department in the energy enterprise is contending with increasing volumes, variety, and velocity of data, leading to analysis paralysis, delayed decision-making, and unnecessary rework (e.g., prior period adjustments). This “big data” dilemma often leaves important questions difficult... Read more >
Seismic surveying is a method of creating pictures of the earth’s subsurface with recorded sound waves. Seismic can be used to help characterize any subsurface resource, including oil & gas, geothermal reservoirs, CO2 storage (CCS), ore bodies for mining of critical minerals, valuable brines (lithium), and more. Acquiring new seismic data on location (i.e., a ‘seismic program’) is a major capital investment for companies that develop these resources. Besides the program operator, there are other stakeholders like government regulators... Read more >
Data-intensive workflows at the field level have always presented challenges in the Energy Industry. As data sets collected in the field have grown exponentially, data management challenges have both evolved and compounded. This article will address these pain points and discuss strategies and solutions that should be implemented to ensure data compliance and entitlement and promote ease of accessibility... Read more >