Scenario
Operators routinely divest entire regional seismic libraries, such as selling all North Sea assets to another operator. Effective seismic contract management is critical during these, often billion-dollar transactions, where proprietary rights, entitlements, merged surveys, and physical media boundaries all determine what data can legally be transferred.
Challenge
Data management teams must confidently identify exactly what data is included in the divestment. Questions arise quickly:
- Which surveys are proprietary vs. non-proprietary?
- Do any merged or reprocessed surveys contain mixed entitlements?
- Does physical media contain data both inside and outside the region?
- Are legal constraints tied to specific vintages, partners, or acquisition types?
Without accurate contract and entitlement tracking, operators risk transferring the wrong data, or worse, sending non-entitled data and facing legal exposure.
Solution
Exploration Archives centralises the management of seismic contracts, entitlements, and ownership. It automatically highlights surveys with mixed rights, flags datasets requiring legal review, and identifies media that must be split before transfer. EA’s data request workflows guide data managers through physically retrieving, validating, and preparing media for third-party delivery, ensuring nothing is overlooked.
Impact
What once took years now takes weeks.
Data management teams can deliver complete, validated seismic packages with full entitlement control, significantly reducing operational and legal risk. EA ensures operators only transfer the correct, owned data, protecting both revenue and compliance.