Spring cleaning- yes your database needs it too

When you walk down the street you see many of your neighbors doing spring cleaning inside and out. Some of us do this every year and others get busy doing other things and push it aside. Well, good news is that you might have the time now!    If you have time and you have the tools to get the job done, that is great.   If you don’t have the tools you can hire a contractor that can do a professional job in a timely fashion.  The final product looks awesome; a well-kept yard, and a tidy and organized house. OK, yes you guessed it – I’m trying to draw a parallel between your home and your seismic database.

We all know that A & D (Acquisition & Divestiture) activity is around the corner. If you are buying a company, you want a company with a clean database.    If you are selling your company, you won’t get much value for your database if it isn’t all accounted for.  The seismic database of “Company X” is like the messy basement or backyard that nobody wanted to deal with. Important meta-information for the seismic (including ownership) was in several locations, most of which were separate from the seismic data itself.

 If someone asked you where all the necessary information for trading, licensing, or in some cases, finding the actual physical seismic is- could you confidently say yes?

 Don’t be that person with the unkept house. Like any ‘cleaning’ project, investing the time and effort to do it properly is important– especially when the job is hard (which means it really needs to get done!). If you need help, we are the contractors that are happy to provide it. Sigma’s unique capabilities to get this job done comes from a combination of extensive experience along with the technology we have. Accessing SigMAP and SigNET, our GIS application and database, allows us to research the ownership history of seismic data sets, and partnering with SDLS allows us to confirm original operatorship/ownership of almost every line. In addition, our fifty years of ‘writing things down’ is hard to replicate and gives us unequalled capabilities to get to the bottom of any missing data.

 Now is the time for that spring clean-up.   

When someone asks for the necessary information of geophysical data, we want you to be able to say:

·         “Yes, I have centralized data: AFE’s, license agreements, land agreements and more”… All could be centrally located in a seismic management tool, making it simpler to find and action data.

·         “Yes, I have efficient data access”: documents are now all online and immediately available, allowing disposal/recycling of boxes of paper files. That means reducing paper waste and saving time with more efficient access to documents!

·         “Yes, I have identified overlooked opportunities”: Example: 250 lines which were initially identified as trade or unknown were confirmed to be proprietary data in which the company holds an interest.

·         “Yes, I have found missing data”: Example: three 3D’s and several 2D lines were missing from the database completely

·         “Yes, I have resolved all questions on outstanding acquisitions”: Data from an earlier acquisition was under dispute. Some of which held up a land deal. Sigma was able to confirm ownership, enabling the company to receive all data it was entitled to. This allowed the land deal in question to proceed.

 Lastly: “Yes this was a valuable investment”. The time you take now can help in all departments, not just A&D.  Land and Geophysical can also benefit from know what data you own and will be able to monetize the assets in a timely manner.

Stephen Kotkas

Sigma Explorations

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