Our mission at the Oil, Gas & Salt Resources Library is bringing the highest quality data to our clients, industry partners, landowners and other members of the public. At the core of our operations are the various well files, sample cuttings, and rock cores held at our facility on London, Ontario. Providing safe, clean and friendly access to this data has been top priority since the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Trust began operating the OGSR Library in 1998. A lot has changed in the time since then, technologically speaking, and in terms of industry trends. The Library has steadily increased our services and datasets over time in an effort to make data easier to access and more reliable. The brief timeline below highlights some major milestones throughout the years in data quality and Library services; read below and you may find some services and data that you've forgotten about over the years!

The Ontario Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Library begins operations. Access to Ontario's subsurface data is now being managed by a trust funded by the petroleum industry.

www.ogsrlibrary.com goes live. Only a year into operations and in the heat of the dot com boom era the Library gets an online presence and begins offering basic downloads and reports.

Ontario Petroleum Data System (OPDS) major data entry initiative. The source of nearly all geology, engineering and well data that we post today comes from Petroleum Operation's OPDS database. This database is used on a daily basis to track most aspects of Ontario's petroleum wells and contains information on every known well. However, in the early days thousand of records were missing and tens of thousands incomplete. In partnership with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) the Library began a seven year long process of data entry to enter and verify 27,000 well files. Hundreds of thousands of rows of data (over 500,000 rows of geology alone) and millions of individual fields were populated to create a dataset that acts as the backbone to digital operations.

Updates to OPDS allow more accurate and complete maps to be created. The Library can begin offering large format plotting services of client maps and creation of custom maps that combine any of the data fields in OPDS.

Library begins working with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Ontario Geological Survey (OGS), and Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) on the Targeted Geoscience Initiative (TGI). The Library acts as data provider and provider of basic data services adding great value at low cost. Partnerships between the Library and various levels of government have been crucial to the success of the Library and we would like to sincerely thank all of our government and industry partners throughout the years.

Along with data research the Library also picked up some very important assets through the TGI project. Geophysical log scanning, printing, digitizing, and cross-section generating software was acquired through TGI and we still offer all of these services today, at very reasonable prices! This equipment is absolutely essential to the Library's operations as Ontario's petroleum data hub.

Work is finally winding down on our major data entry project, only a couple thousand files to go now, and attention can finally be brought to other projects. Digitization of geophysical logs is a priority and about 5,000 logs are traced from images to LAS using software acquired via TGI. Any log at the Library can be ordered as LAS for one low flat fee.

Our online well card search goes live! With so much data finally in OPDS the Library website gets a major revamp and well cards are added for the first time. Members can now view all the geology and engineering data without needing to drive to London. Well card access grows and currently serves over 100,000 well cards views annually, just to registered members, far more than were ever viewed in person at the Library facility.

Petroleum exploration tools (PxTools) mapping overlays for Google Earth are created. All wells, pools, pipelines and a myriad of other data can be viewed by anyone with a copy of the free software. Data is automatically refreshed on a weekly basis.

OPDS initial data entry is finished but data integrity checking is just beginning. In the pursuit of the highest quality dataset the Library and MNRF partner on a two year project to correct major errors in the OPDS database and improve data accuracy and reliability.

The Library sets out to create a production database. Production search is still done on paper and tracking the history of individual wells, especially ones that move between operators, is a difficult and tedious task. Work begins with the philosophy that all digital data must be linked back to an original document to assure the users of the data's quality. After many years of OPDS data entry lessons in data integrity were learned and applied here. Over 70,000 images are made by scanning all historic production documents. The Library establishes a policy of scanning both sides of every page, even if that page is blank, so users can perform a "digital page flip" and assure themselves that data was not missed. Records from 1897 to the current year are available as PDF. Each image is then assigned to an operator and year so a simple query will return an operational history for each company. Each well from 1967 (the first year production was reported on a per-well basis) to the current year is tagged. Now a simple query can be used to find all data for a single well. Each month of production data from 1992 (the first year data was recorded monthly) is entered. Production is now fully digital and can be searched, aggregated, and charted; nearly 700,000 rows of monthly production data are entered.

Library scans all geophysical logs. Using the TGI scanner, once again, the Library completes the catalogue of geophysical log scans and makes all scans available online to members. Work is done file-by-file to ensure nothing is missed, all 27,000 files are searched manually for logs that may be missing from the database. The Library searches another 27,000 files held at MNRF to remove all geophysical logs. Both sets of logs are compared to create the ultimate master set of logs, totalling 21,000, all scanned and available online to members. A new microfiche scanner also allowed us to recover several logs lost to both paper sets. Duplicate logs from MNRF are boxed and 160 boxes are sent to the Ontario's archives to act as an offsite backup.

Scanning of all well files held at the Library is underway. Over the next two years all 27,000 well files will be scanned and added to the website. Providing access to these documents finally allows clients to search missing data not captured by OPDS and very importantly to verify the digital data they are seeing in the various geology and well tables. Scans are always made double-sided and at high quality. Every single item in each folder is scanned or imaged in some way, including the unbinding and scanning of all reports, nothing is left undone. Over 500,000 scanned images are posted on the website. All new forms and all changes, no matter how small, added to each file are scanned before being placed in the folder. The Library runs an automated process to post scans from a local folder to the website, making updates fast, efficient, and easy.

Geological structure maps are added to PxTools. The first annual edition of the Pools & Pipelines Map is released with a focus on year-over-last pool production data.

Thanks to a special donation by Charlie Fairbank high resolution core imaging is added to the list of Library services. Ontario Geological Survey orders the photography of several cores, adding to Ontario's geoscience databanks. Each photo is done at over 35 megapixels as dry core under white light, wet core under white light, and dry core under ultraviolet light to capture fluorescence. For the first time clients have a way of viewing rocks remotely. Although it may not serve as a full replacement for viewing core in person it is a handy way of previewing core before visiting the Library to help your day be more productive in the facility, or as a way to keep a record for a report or presentation. 25 cores have been photographed.

A facilities map layer is created. Historic maps and facility data are added to PxTools. Disposal reports are turned into an Excel database. MNRF releases three major volumes on Ontario's subsurface waters as Open File Data Releases published through the Library website.

Another partnership is formed with MNRF and NRCAN to review and improve the quality of Ontario's geological data. Geologists hired by the Library review over 3,000 wells and verify or change 80,000 formation top picks. These picks are recorded in the OPDS database under "MNR" source geology and a special code identifies the data as being verified by a geologist. The partnership with NRCAN to review and improve geology is scheduled to continue to 2017. The final result will be a three dimensional geological and hydrogeological model covering most of southern Ontario.

We have a special data release and as newsletter subscribers you're among the first people to receive a link to the data! A series of figures and tables from the Final Report on Oil & Gas Potential of Ontario by Bailey Geological Services Ltd. and Robert O. Cochrane that were prepared but never released, until now:

Stay tuned because we've got several more data releases planned for this year and lots of ongoing quality assurance efforts!

* Only comparing Operators that submitted in both 2015 and 2014

Table 3: A comparison of the top three producers of natural gas in 2015 and 2014.

Three-dimensional maps are typically most useful to pinpoint errors and anomalies in interpolated layers.  We have the capability to represent any interpolated layer in three-dimensions and overlay the wells that contain the picks used to make the layer.  From here, we apply a vertical exaggeration so that subtle changes are much more defined.  Then, we view the vertically exaggerated layer and look for any unusual spikes or peaks.  A spike or peak that is far away from any other wells usually means that the pick is erroneous. An example of an isopach layer with wells (tiny pink dots) can be seen in the image below; this is the same layer used to create the sample map above. Lastly, we note the licence numbers of the wells with potential erroneous picks and investigate the corresponding formation picks for each well. If appropriate, we will adjust the picks in our central database so that other users are accessing corrected data. Most importantly, we will re-create the interpolated layers from the corrected data.

With three-dimensional data, we can also render a video fly through of the information that is represented in the layer.

Basemaps and well location maps are fairly straightforward. Basemaps will show features such as roads, municipal/regional boundaries and bodies of water. A well location map usually contains basemap data along with Petroleum wells located in the area.  Petroleum wells are symbolized according to their type and mode and can be labeled with license numbers, names, operator, and many other attributes.  Either map can contain any other layer that we have available, such as conservation areas and wetlands.

Using water well data, we can create an isopach layer of dominant material (clay, silt, etc.) in a given area. These data are also represented by an interpolated layer using the Natural Neighbour method.  Any other data that we have available can be placed on top of these isopach layers, such as structural contours of a specific formation.

We have a wide variety of satellite imagery and orthophotos available to use in any maps.  Maps can be comprised of strictly satellite imagery and orthophotos, or can contain other layers on top.  For example, one might want to view transparent petroleum pools on top of satellite imagery. The most recent and highest quality data available at this time are orthophotos from the 2010 Southwestern Ontario Orthophotograghy Project (SWOOP).  2010 SWOOP orthophotos cover southwestern Ontario just shy of Lake Simcoe at a resolution of 20 centimetres.

The image to the right is 2010 Orthoimagery (SWOOP) from Flowerpot Island.

Historic paper maps are often a useful compliment to certain analyses and can sometimes be the only remaining evidence of a well or other geological phenomena. We can scan documents up to 8.5 inches in-house, while we can arrange for larger documents to be scanned by local companies. Scanned maps can then be georeferenced for analyses with other spatial data.  The image below illustrates Georeferencing an older diagram.  The diagram is transparent so that the base layers below are visible.

Features found in orthophotos, georeferenced maps, diagrams, or any other source can be digitized and turned into a spatial data format. The image below illustrates digitizing the feature of interest from the georeferenced image above. 

Sometimes a single map is impractical for real world applications. For mapping large areas, or even small areas at a high level of detail, map books are extremely useful because they are mobile.  Map books can feature an index, custom index grid and tabular data corresponding to each map.

All of the maps and data products mentioned in this article can be delivered to you across a variety of mediums.  We can plot physical copies of maps in-house, deliver them to you digitally or provide the files on a USB drive. Our plotter is capable of printing documents sized 42 inches by upwards of a couple hundred inches.

What you want to visualize is completely up to you. We can combine any number of the mapping and data techniques described above in order to achieve your desired result. We can work with you to develop a customized solution if you know what you want but are unsure how to get there. Contact us to take advantage of the many mapping services we have to offer and unlock the true potential of spatial data visualization!