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Myriad facets of the nonexclusive data business

Schlumberger Reservoir Evaluation-Seismic, Houston, Texas, U.S.

Corresponding author: D. Elrod, elrod@houston.geco-prakla.slb.com

Editor's note: This article is based on material presented at a conference sponsored by the International Association of Geophysical Contractors in November 1999. Doug Elrod was recently elected vice-chairman/chairman-elect of IAGC.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The advent of the modern nonexclusive data business has had a profound effect on the petroleum and geophysical industries. It has dramatically reduced the price of seismic data, simultaneously improving their quality. The scope of detailed, high-resolution seismic surveying has changed from prospect specific to basin regional. This has enabled an unprecedented understanding of basinwide petroleum systems and diversity of hydrocarbon potential within a basin. Nonexclusive seismic data are an exploration tool, but the field development geologist and reservoir engineer have benefited as well. As an exploration tool, nonexclusive data have placed billion-dollar cutting-edge technology into the hands of large and small companies alike.

This paper overviews the modern nonexclusive data business and how it has evolved. (See some useful definitions in the sidebar on p. 644.)

	The nonexclusive data license contract

 
The license contract establishes that the data are the property of the owner, are protected by copyright, and constitute a valuable trade secret. The licensee is granted the right to use the data to conduct internal business but is prohibited from disclosing, transferring, or copying the data to any other parties, including by means of asset sales or mergers. The license contract ensures that the owner has the sole right to sell data licenses, and it is only by this means that data may be used. Some license contracts are time-limited and must be renewed periodically. Most owners of nonexclusive data use an agreement comparable to the model contract created and updated periodically by IAGC. There is no requirement that this model be followed, however.

Similarities exist between seismic and software licenses, but there are many key differences.

On average, a 3-D seismic survey will be fully licensed 5–10 times. The recipient of a 3-D seismic license is a company. It does not matter how many divisions are in the company, how many . . . [Full Text of this Article]