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Filtering data, not finding it, now key challenge for oil and gas producers

The biggest problem oil and gas producers have in the digital age is not a lack of data, but finding the right data and putting it to use.

According to James Wagstaff, the senior vice president for oil and gas at energy intelligence firm PowerAdvocate, producers have increased their spending on digitalization by 118% over the past three years. The flood of information has caused issues of its own, as most data is not "actionable" and useful data is frequently inaccurately classified.

"It's not that they don't have the right data; it's not that they don't have the right systems, or they haven't spent enough on digitalization … they don't have the right data to share with executives to make good strategic decisions," Wagstaff said during a presentation at the Summer NAPE expo in Houston.

Producers have looked to digitalization for more data, and that demand has been met. Indeed, there may be too much data for companies to handle unless a way is found to properly filter it. Wagstaff described the lack of uniformity with an example of one company's pricing of cement plugs, which was input into the system four different ways.

"Four different ways of describing one different line of data, and there are at least 1,000 lines of data [in a price estimate]," he said.

If the right funneling mechanisms are put in place, Wagstaff said, producers can use data with far greater efficiency. One client, which has found the going more difficult recently in Colorado, was able to filter its data to show precisely how much money it was spending in certain counties and the related economic impact.

"They used to use 'broad stroke views' of economic impact. That's worked well in the past, but we're in a new world … and we want to tell a different story. They can tell it in a more precise narrative," Wagstaff said. "They can take the same themes about value and economic impact and find a funneling mechanism that would direct them to the affected audience."

Implementing the right funneling system to sift through the mountains of data can make digitalization the tool that it was meant to be, Wagstaff said.

"Operators who invest in making data work for their businesses are more likely to find success. They make decisions based on the complete picture," he said.