In the UK, the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) is the body responsible for regulating the upstream oil and gas industry, including the National Data Repository (NDR). The submission of data to the NDR in the UK is mandatory for companies holding certain types of licenses, including:
- Production licenses: Companies holding production licenses are required to submit data related to their exploration and production activities, including well data, seismic data, and production data.
- Exploration licenses: Companies holding exploration licenses are required to submit certain types of data related to their exploration activities, including well data and seismic data.
- Promote licenses: Companies holding promote licenses are not required to submit data to the NDR, but are encouraged to do so in order to help build a comprehensive database of oil and gas resources in the UK.
The data submitted to the NDR in the UK supports the exploration, development of oil and gas resources, and informs government policies. It is accessed by industry stakeholders, researchers, and the public for information on UK’s oil and gas activities. Companies must follow technical standards and guidelines for data format, quality, and metadata. The OGA assists in preparation and submission, ensuring compliance with requirements.
Top 6 NDR challenges facing companies
There are several challenges that companies may face when preparing National Data Repository (NDR) submissions.
- Data quality: One of the main challenges in NDR submission is ensuring that the data being submitted is accurate and of high quality. This requires careful attention to data collection, processing, and analysis, as well as adherence to technical standards and data formatting requirements.
- Data integration: Companies may have data stored in multiple systems or in different formats, which can make it difficult to integrate and prepare for submission to an NDR. This can require significant effort to extract, transform, and load the data into a format that is compatible with the NDR submission requirements.
- Metadata creation: Metadata is essential for NDR submission, as it provides context and meaning to the data being submitted. Creating comprehensive metadata can be time-consuming and require significant domain knowledge, as well as attention to detail to ensure accuracy and consistency.
- Compliance with regulations: Companies must comply with various regulatory requirements when preparing NDR submissions, including technical standards, formatting requirements, and submission timelines. Failure to comply with these requirements can result in fines, penalties, or other legal consequences.
- Data security: Companies must take care to ensure that the data being submitted to the NDR is secure and protected from unauthorized access or disclosure. This may require the use of encryption, secure file transfer protocols, and other security measures.
- Capacity and resource constraints: Companies may face resource constraints, such as limited staff or budget, which can make it difficult to prepare and submit data to the NDR. This can require careful prioritization and allocation of resources to ensure that critical data is submitted in a timely manner.
Our success can be yours!
Interica DataCentre has a successful track record of completing NDR submission projects for a number of oil and gas companies, helping our customers overcome challenges like these with our extensive experience across the industry. Our end-to-end support for NDR submissions means our clients can focus time on more productive activities.
We can convert your data into acceptable formats and ensure the highest quality data is submitted. For example;
- Nav merged SEGY is the only acceptable option for submission to the NDR. When we receive data without navigation, we have to combine it with other datasets, such as Gather data, to provide the NDR with high-quality data
- SEGD data is often recorded using two sets of streamers, and the data can be in a proprietary SEGD format. Our experts can convert this to the NDR-accepted SEGD rev 2.1 which includes the need to make modifications to the reformatting software
Let us handle all your NDR submission work for you, allowing your valuable time to be better used elsewhere
Read more in our case study – Facilitating an NDR Submission
