Currently, the Library is staffed by three employees: one Manager, one Data/Operations Administrator, and one Geographic Information Systems Technician (myself). During the summer, we usually employ 1-2 students: one with a Geology background and/or one with a GIS background. At any given time, we tend to be working on a few special projects that sometimes require additional staff hired on contract as needed. The office of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry’s (MNRF) Geologist is also located in our building. The main MNRF building is conveniently located a few steps away from the Library, which is quite useful considering the inter-connectivity of our operations.
In Ontario, there are over 26,000 known petroleum wells. In 2007, Wells Cards containing general information about every single one of these wells became available to the public online through our website. To date, there are 26, 705 Well Cards available for public viewing online…click this link for a sample well card. In early 2012, a project began to scan all 26,000 + of our physical well files. Each well file is a folder containing Well Licences, location maps, licence applications, and various other paperwork that is relevant to a well’s history. As well files were scanned, they became available online to paying members, and in April of 2015, the project was completed. To date, well files consist of over 500,000 images and in 2014, our members viewed over 14,000 of these images! This barely scratches the surface in terms of what is available online, however, as you can see that there is a lot more additional information that can be accessed from the well cards page (most of this information being reserved for paying members). Ultimately, the accessibility of this data has reduced the need for the public and members to phone/e-mail us to request information, and there is even less of a need for people to physically be in the library to access our data. In 2014, 150,000 well cards were accessed online by members alone. This, of course, gives us more time to work on other projects and allows members to retrieve data more efficiently, but we always enjoy visitors to the library as some days it can get pretty quiet!
Geophysical logs (above) comprise some of the data that is reserved for paying members and are an on-going project to keep up to date. Geophysical logs vary in what they represent, but basically they contain some sort of measurement (such as gamma ray or neutron density) that provides useful information to operators and prospectors. Various instruments are lowered into a well borehole that gather data which is then represented visually on a log. These logs are then sent to us at the library and we scan them and add them to our database. In 2014, our members viewed over 10,000 logs online! Currently, we are in the process of catching up with our backlog (no pun intended) of logs by scanning a certain number of logs each week. We are on track to be caught up in a few months, and from there we will scan logs as they accumulate. Roughly 100 new logs are generated each year, and all of these can be scanned in 2-3 days of continuous scanning.
Aside from updating and maintaining well data, the OGSR Library also stores and maintains drill core and sample chips from wells drilled all over Ontario. Drill core is a circular core that has been cut in half lengthwise and placed in boxes; this is what comes out of the ground when a hole is drilled for a well…a picture of drill core can be seen below in the section discussing our Core Photography project. Sample chips are ground up core that comes out of the ground also during the drilling of a hole for a well; operators must gather these samples at least every 3 or 6 meters depending on the type of well. The operator will place these samples in bags labeled with the depth at which they were sampled, deliver them to us, at which point they are washed and placed vials (image to the right). In our 3,600 square foot warehouse, there are over 1,100 drill cores from 1,000 different wells contained in over 100,000 boxes, and there are sample chips from over 10,800 different wells that are stored on over 12,000 trays (image above) inside over 1,000,000 vials! In the image below, you can see all of the boxes that contain the drill core. The grey cabinets under the boxes store the sample trays and vials.
Much of the spatial data that we manage can be found in our PxTools, a file compatible with Google Earth. The file can be downloaded by clicking here. Simply download the file, make sure you have Google Earth (or GE Pro) installed on your computer, double click the downloaded .kmz file, and you will be able to see 35 different layers such as petroleum wells, petroleum pools, and historic scanned and georeferenced maps! We regularly update some of the layers found in PxTools and add new data as it becomes available.
One major project occurring at the OGSR Library on a yearly basis pertains to Production Records for active wells in Ontario; our Data/Operations Administrator carries out most of the tasks involved in this project. Operators are required to submit information about their production, for example how many cubic meters were produced in a given year, to the library annually. We receive roughly 2,000 forms at the beginning of each year, and we plan to have all of them scanned and digitized by the end of June. These scans then get uploaded to our website for members to view, and this is another data set that is frequently utilized; in 2014, 12,000 production records were reviewed by our members.
Yet another project that will always be ongoing is our core photography project. Many clients, members, prospectors, etc. find it useful to view the drill cores that we store in our warehouse. Before our core photography project began, the only way to accomplish this was to physically be at the OGSR Library. Now, upon request, we can photograph drill core and provide it to clients for a fee per box that is photographed. To date, over 2,000 core boxes have been photographed; currently, we can photograph a maximum of roughly 40 core boxes per day. The equipment for this project was generously donated by Charlie Fairbank, who owns and maintains historic oil lands in Oil Springs, Ontario, where much of Canada’s and the world’s first commercial oil production began in 1858. Each core box is photographed three times: once under UV light, once under normal lighting, and once under normal lighting after wetting the core. In the image below, you can see an example of the three different types of photos that are taken for each core box. The bottom (purplish) portion of each core section is the UV photo; this type of light causes certain features of the core to fluoresce, features that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye. The middle portion of each core section is the wet photo, and the top portion is the dry photo.
As the GIS Technician, I am responsible for updating our annual “Oil & Gas Pools & Pipelines of Southern Ontario” map. Each year, I make edits to the petroleum pools layer (which can be viewed in PxTools) based on newly drilled wells and new information that has been made available. Some of the boundaries that still exist in the layer today were derived from geological studies that occurred many years ago. The Pools and Pipelines map is accompanied by tabular data showing Cumulative and Annual Oil/Gas production by pool. The data come from the Production Records project mentioned previously.
From time to time, clients will request maps for projects they are working on, so usually when this happens the client request becomes my priority. We deliver high quality maps to clients digitally for the most part, but sometimes hard copies are needed so we will print them using our in-house plotter. We also create map books for some of our clients that require regular updates to spatial and attribute data.
As I’m sure you can tell, a lot of our work involves keeping our data up to date. This is very important to the petroleum industry in Ontario because our data helps drillers, prospectors, consultants, etc. make informed decisions…this is a perfect example of the infamous ‘GIGO’ acronym (good [data] in, good [data] out).
Every now and then we also like to go on fields trips and learn about the geography that is happening in the real world. During our most recent field trip, we visited Sulphur Springs Conservation Area in Hanover, Ontario. We took a few interesting underwater video’s that can be viewed by clicking here…check out the video’s description to learn more!
Hopefully this post has provided some insights into what we do here at the OGSR Library. It’s such an interesting place, yet many people do not even know it exists. If anyone is ever in the London area, we would be more than happy to give you or your group a tour! Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have and be sure to check out our website at www.ogsrlibrary.com. You can even receive a free seven day membership to explore the data that we have available – just visit www.ogsrlibrary.com/free to create your account!
