DTI Licensing and Consents Unit – Licensing Exploration and Development Branch (LCU-LED)

Tissa Jayasekera (tissa.jayasekera@dti.gsi.gov.uk) is manager of the DTI's SHARP programme

The Advisory Committee ACHARR met on 6 December 2002 to discuss the theme areas for the year 2003 call for JIP proposals for co-funding through SHARP. The "flyer" with specifications for this call is attached. Note that the deadline for submission of proposals is 14 March 2003.

Data mining is one of the theme areas therein that needs special mention. As nearly 40 years of exploration and production data from the UKCS has been accumulated by the industry, there should be a wealth of historical information that can be used to exploit the remaining life of this area in an optimised way – remember the adage, "the past holds the key to the future". The term "data mining" appears rather woolly unless it is within the context of a well-defined problem – two obvious questions that spring to mind are, "what are we mining for ?" and "where does the data to be mined reside ?"  As regards the former question we will depend on the respective research providers to come up with the ideas (perhaps some lateral thinking is needed?). Possibly there will be some linkage with the DTI and PILOT's "Brown Fields" initiative here.

Regarding the latter question the article by Jackie Banner and Malcolm Fleming titled "PILOT Data Life Cycle Initiative for UKCS Legacy Data" should give an idea as to what is being done to make the access to historical (mostly geoscience) data easier than it is now. Historical production data from UKCS fields (i.e. the classical PPRS data) is on the website http://www.og.dti.gov.uk/pprs/pprsindex.htm. However due to confidentiality reasons, presently only data that is more than 5 years old can go on it. So it should have well-by- well production data up to and including January 1998. Well-by-well injection data has not been put in yet, but work is ongoing. This is an ongoing exercise and your input as to what other production data that is likely to prove useful (on the website) will be helpful (contact: tissa.jayasekera@dti.gsi.gov.uk or  russell.hornzee@dti.gsi.gov.uk).

I will be happy to discuss any of the theme items mentioned in the "flyer" with anyone who is interested in submitting a JIP proposal (tissa.jayasekera@dti.gsi.gov.uk).

Disclaimer: The material available on this website is designed to provide general information only. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is accurate, it does not constitute legal or other professional advice.
Please note: The Department of Trade and Industry cannot be held responsible for the contents of any pages referenced by an external link.