A new joint project in the north-east of Scotland is looking to unlock a “treasure trove” of big data in the North Sea oil and gas sector.
The project, involving researchers from Aberdeen University, is using artificial intelligence (AI) to unlock the raw data collected by the oil and gas industry in order to help maximise the economic recovery.
The Intelligent Data Quality Improver (IDQI) project is an initiative involving the University and co-funders the Oil and Gas Innovation Centre (OGIC).
Software R&D firm HyperDAP and The Data Lab are also involved.
The project is looking to develop algorithms that will bridge the gap between the amounts of big data available to the oil and gas industry – predominantly in exploration and production.
Professor Wamberto Vasconcelos, from the University’s Department of Computing Science, said: “Data is potentially among the most valuable assets created and owned by a business, but without proper interpretation it has very little value.
“The oil and gas industry alone produces 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, but only 1% of this data is analysed, which is a missed opportunity in terms of asset value maximisation and new field discovery.
“The IDQI aims to address this issue, using Distributed Optical Sensing data to develop algorithms capable of performing automated analyses on digital exploration and production datasets.
“This means we can extract and interpret most of the hidden information in a matter of minutes using, among others, a range of AI techniques such as machine learning, fuzzy logic and rule-based reasoning.
“This has the potential to unlock a vast treasure trove of data that is not currently exploited.”