Eating The Data Elephant

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Introduction
“It's like deja-vu, all over again…” -Yogi Berra
…But Different
Chances are that this is the latest of a long string of papers on upstream data management that you have read. You have
also probably sat through numerous presentations at various conferences over the years where subject matter experts
have talked about issues around E&P data management and what needs to be done to correct them.


The Cycle of Doom
“We must use the data we have because there is no time to stop and wait for the project to complete!”
Attempts to implement change in data management are often static projects in a dynamic workflow. This is the foundation
of the cycle of doom. The process can never impact the reality of the workflow situation and cannot provide benefits that
keep pace with the data generation. As a result, the changes are perceived as irrelevant at best, or considered a waste of
money because they are a drop of water in the ocean.


Industry Issues
Most major oil and gas companies have invested billions of dollars in data acquisition over a number of years. Today,
however, corporate investment in data is down. In spite of the expertise and resources employed to address upstream
data management challenges, end users of various upstream data types are still struggling to get accurate and clean
information for analysis.

Leading Practices
The symptoms, causes, and barriers to success outlined above are not new; anyone who manages or works with upstream
data will be familiar with most if not all of them, either in practice or from all of those books, articles, and presentations on
the subject. We have listed them here so that we can tie them to the leading practices we recommend to help overcome
DM challenges.