Using FME to Compile, Validate, and Maintain a Four Million Oil and Gas Well Database

Robert C. White, Jr. President, WhiteStar Corporation

2010:An FME

Odyssey

The Problem

  4 Million Wells, 32 States, 7 Provinces   Building a Consistent the Data Structure   Pre-processing and Loading Data   Data Validation Challenges   Update Challenges   Export Challenges

The Tools

  Documentation from States and Provinces.   FME, particularly FME Workbench.   POSIX Tools   Various Datasets, Custom Programs   PostgreSQL – Open Source Database.   Last but not Least…

Varieties of Source Data

File Type Occurrences

CSV Files 7

Excel 5

Access Tables 4

Web Site Scrapes 2

Manual Data Entry 4

dBase Files 5

Card Records, EBCDIC 3

Card Records, ASCII 5

Shape Files 3

Arc Export 1

Open Records Appeal 1

Inventing a Data Model

  Gathered Available Documentation   Scanned all Data Fields

  Grouped by Survey Type, Name, Size

  Looked at PPDM.

Building the Data Structure

  Used PostgreSQL to Input the Structure   FME Readers to Determine Field Lengths   PostgreSQL Field Types Helped Determine

Validity.   Discovered Use of StringSearcher.

  E.g., 660FNL 660FWL should be 4 fields.

Pre-Processing Data

  POSIX Type Tools, i.e. Linux Tools   Convert EBCDIC to ASCII (dd)   Edit Large Files to Delete “Junk” (vi)   Unzip Files (unzip, uncompress)   Untar Files (tar)   Pattern Processing (awk)

Data Validation Problems

  Dates are Problems…   19000000   02/31/2010   Jan 29-30, 1995   14 Days

  Need for some Robust Date Validation Transformers.

Data Validation Challenges

  Missing Coordinates   Consistently calculate them to a Land Grid using an

External Program.

  County Name Lookup (ValueMapper)   Non Unique API Numbers   Missing API Numbers   Check for “Reasonable” Values.   Check if You’re in the Geography you Expect.

Am I Within My Boundary?

Calculate a Well Elevation

Updating the Data

  Update with Minimal Intervention   Save the previous database.   Compare New to Old   Set the Update Date.

Export Challenges

  Software Clients Require Specific Formats   GeoGraphix, Petra, etc.

  Used Text writer to meet these challenges.   Sorted on Formation Top Depth   Non-Unique Identifiers.

Summary

  4 Million Wells, 32 States, 7 Provinces   Building a Consistent Data Structure   Pre-processing and Loading Data   Data Validation Challenges   Update Challenges   Export Challenges

Thank You!

  Questions?

  For more information:   Robert White – rwhite@whitestar.com   WhiteStar Corporation http://www.whitestar.com

  dd.exe – http://www.chryscosome.net/dd   Other POSIX tools

http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~jeffery/win32