Business and Standards of Seismic Brokerage and Data

Date, 2015

Business and Standards of Seismic Brokerage and Data Management

Trent Olson, Vice President, Sigma

Standards of Seismic Brokerage and Data Management 2

Agenda

• Evolution of seismic data brokerage

• How do we get our seismic locations/information?

• What is the process of a Quality Inspection?

• What is the Role of a Seismic Broker and Brokerage Firm

• Speculative Companies and Data Owners

• Questions


Sigma• Founded in 1966

• Seismic Data Brokerage

• Data Management

• Seismic Surveys

• Seismic Data Listing Service (SDLS)

• Database evaluations

• Database clean-ups

• Canadian Stratigraphic Services (2000) Ltd.

– 35,000 Lithologs North America


Key Definitions

• Brokers sell Licensed (Trade) copies of seismic data. From seismic owner to an active company.

• Proprietary data: geophysical data that is considered to be confidential information of the owner who holds all rights to the data. The owner can grant licensed copies of the data to third parties. Copyright Owner

• License or trade data: means the non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-proprietary rights with respect to the data purchased from the data owner. Also known as purchased data

• Geophysical Data derived product: Any product derived, generated or created from the data, including, but not limited to, any and all processed and preprocessed data, interpretations, maps or analyses, regardless of the form of medium in which it is displayed or stored.


When did seismic brokerage become a

business?

• In the 1960’s, Energy companies realized that the most efficient way to acquire seismic was to trade for comparable amounts of data from another oil company which had data that they wanted.


Started with

Data Trades


What Changed?

• Not comparable data.

• Confidentiality was an issue. One oil company might not want to reveal its interest in an exploration area to a competitor.

• Parameters changed, 1 mile 1 mile

• Seismic licensing (Brokerage) started. Seismic was sold $/mile.


Data Sources for Seismic

• There are two seismic databases – Seismic Data Listing Service (SDLS) is owned by Sigma and Divestco

– The other is MapIt which is owned by IHS Accumap.

• SDLS benefits from having all the meta data (ownership, fold, vintage source) added by the 25 or so brokers working for these two firms.

• Oil companies can subscribe to SDLS to know where data is located but only brokers have access to ownership information.

• Over 950 unique Data Owners in SDLS


How do we get our seismic data

locations?

• Directly from Oil Companies and Data Owners

– Hold back sensitive areas

• Directly from Provinces

• Corporate publications


SDLS Seismic 2D

• Total # 2D 567,249

– SEI 179,290

– Seitel 48,000

– Oil Company 39,000

– Oil Company 2 37,000

– Pulse 28,000


SDLS Seismic 3D

• Total # 2D 567,249

– SEI 179,290

– Seitel 48,000

– Oil Company 39,000

– Oil Company 2 37,000

– Pulse 28,000


Pre 1980’s Seismic


1980’s Seismic


1990’s Seismic


2000’s+Newer


3D Seismic


Sigma Proprietary Seismic


North American Seismic Data


Why purchase instead of shooting?• Cost 20-35% of acquisition

• Time

– 3 days turnaround vs 6 months or never

• Environmental impact

• Ability to obtain governmental approval

• Access from land owners

• To extend mineral right leases from government

• Anonymity


Role of a Seismic Broker

• Seismic Data Broker: A party that will act as a facilitator for both the licensor and licensee in the quality inspection process and in the granting of a license.

• Facilitate the licensing

• Provide anonymity

• Provide confidentiality

• Experts in agreements – understands/advises different agreements

– Term License (20-99 years)

– Perpetual License

– Oil Company specific/Spec/Other

– Transfer Fees

• Access to data owners/contacts

• Have Database to track past sales/AOI and future warranty work


How does the Quality Inspection (QI) Start?

• Energy company identifies an area where they require seismic data.

• Order a map showing all seismic listed in specific area.

• This can be done by paper plats or maps or it can done by electronic mapping services (SigMAP, Ebroker, other systems).

• Once specific data is selected, the broker confirms that the owners of the data are willing to sell licensed copies.

• Gathering the data takes the most time.– Data owners decide if they want to release data or not

– Some data have several partners that require approval prior to release


Image provided all 2D over area


Image Provided all 3D in Area



Summary – All data to QI


The QI Process

• The broker gathers a collection QI prints to show client• Data can also be shown on a laptop.• Max 3 min/line to QI• Client will make notes only about the quality of the data and its

suitability for their purposes.• No reproduction of the data is permitted in any from.• No interpretation of the data is permitted.• Sometimes, the data is “striped” to prevent incidental or intentional

interpretation. • The broker must not leave the room or not be attentive to the QI

process at any time.


What cannot be done during QI

• Intentional interpretation

• Making measurements

• Comparison to synthetics

• Making any copies of any part of the data

• Request for any data to be removed from the broker’s direct control

• Asking for information regarding not available data (Data Owners Identity)







When the client decides to license

• The broker arranges to get licensed copies from data owner or management company

• The broker delivers the data to the client.– Field, Stack, Basic, Survey

• The brokerage firm creates and issues – license agreements (pre-determined by data owner)– credit memos to the data owner – invoice

• The brokerage firm collects funds and sends the proceeds to the data owner, keeping 10% commission


Commonly asked questions• Can an owner split their ownership on partnered data? Was

25%, sell off 10%? NO

• Can the Broker tell the client who owns the data prior to the data being released? –NO (exception SK/BC)

• What do I need to provide when selling licensed copies of data? Field/survey, Ob’s

• What is the industry suggested minimum purchase for 2D and 3D– 2D – 8 km

– 3D – 13 km²


Commonly asked questions

• Can I transfer trade data during asset sale? NO, Corporate sale? YES

• Can I give my partner a copy of my licensed data? – NO, partners can be declared at the time of purchase for a fee, typically a 50% surcharge


Brokers can also arrange data swaps

• Swap data– Client initiated – back to beginnings

– Broker initiated – NA/sensitive areas

• In these cases, confidentiality is not as much of a concern.

• The broker’s value is in identifying the swap potential and in bringing the clients together and then administering the value negotiations and administration of the deal.


Seismic Data Management

• Coordinate QI requests and sales

• Act as a confidential representative between the seller and broker

• Important role of marketing of available data

– Use past requests/well and land information to locate potential buyers

• Maintains records of ownership, partners, purchases, license agreements, pricing

• Create reports/maps of QI/Sale activity

• Handles warranty requests for misplaced seismic data


Speculative (Spec) Companies

• Pulse, Seitel, Divestco, Western Geco, CGG, TGS plus others

• Acquire data on their own or with subscribing oil companies

• Subscribers get a licensed copy of the data.

• Subscribers may get exclusive amount of time (months) to review data prior to being released to the general public.

• The spec company owns the proprietary right to the data and sells licensed copies

• In addition to spec companies shooting new seismic data, some companies buy the ownership (proprietary) rights to large databases owned by others


Licensed Data in a Dataroom

• Covered by APEGA Guidelines

• Some cases Licensed data allowed in dataroom. May need approval from owner

• Confidentiality agreement must be signed

• Virtual Datarooms – Licensed Data should not included


Governing Documents, References and

Acknowledgements

• APEGA, The Ethical Use of Geophysical Data

• APEGA, Seismic Data Quality Inspection Standard

• CSEG, Master License Agreement

• Perspectives on APEGA’s Guideline for Ethical Use of Geophysical Data-‘CSEG members’ Opinion- Lee Hunt et al

• How to set up a Dataroom- ‘CSEG Lunchbox Presentation’ Doug Uffen

• Cecil Keeping- Past President of Sigma Explorations

• A QI is meant to answer questions about the suitability (quality, location, parameters) of the data for an exploration objective


Questions?