WITSML - The Real-Time Geotechnical Data Management Standard

Nicholas Gibson¹ and Ketil Barkved^2
1Kongsberg Intellifield Limited, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
²Kongsberg Intellifield AS, Stavanger, Norway

The Wellsite Information Transfer Standard Markup Language (WITSML) real-time well and drilling data exchange format provides data management professionals, geoscientists, drilling engineers and petrophysicists with a real-time oil industry data management standard. Self describing, XML based drilling data can be supplied to each data customer within seconds of collection at the rig site, regardless of either rig or user location.

The ability to take the data to the expert, rather than the expert to the data, provides both Oil and Service Companies with data management challenges and new workflow opportunities.

This paper presents then reviews data management and mining workflow cases that demonstrate the WITSML data standard helping both oil and service companies to automate or improve the organizational data management and data mining workflows.

Real-time well and drilling data management via an internet protocol based well and drilling data standard along with the associated data management infrastructure provides a strong and demonstrable foundation for sound and repeatable data management and data mining workflows that increase hydrocarbon recoveries.

Presentation GEO India Expo XXI, Noida, New Delhi, India 2008©AAPG Search and Discovery