提出者：

编者注：本文最初发表于 E&P Plus三月号。请在此处 订阅数字出版物 。 

石油和天然气公司继续寻找和开发碳氢化合物资源，地震数据仍然是识别和描绘这些资源的有效工具。因此，公司拥有的地震数据库存持续增长。

在大多数情况下，地震数据库已经获得了几十年，这使得跟踪数据合同、所有权和权利对于石油和天然气公司来说是一项复杂且具有挑战性的任务。不了解所有权状况和权利的后果可能会很严重。

本文介绍了石油和天然气公司对其地震资产的所有权状况和权利有深入了解的过程。作为起点，了解所有权和权利之间的区别是必要的，并且可以作为其余流程的基础。

所有权

地震数据所有权告知组织他们是否对其数据拥有专有权利。在许多情况下，如果他们拥有数据，就可以让公司自由地处理数据。但值得注意的是，大多数公司仅拥有 10% 至 25% 的地震数据的专有权利。这意味着他们的大部分地下数据库或资产都是许可数据或非专有数据，并且需要记住许多有关使用的潜在限制。

权利

权利告知谁有权访问数据以及如何使用这些数据。这些规则在许可协议中概述。鉴于公司的大部分地震资产都是获得许可或非专有的，因此了解应如何使用这些数据以确保不违反合同变得非常重要。

如前所述，违反权利条件的后果可能很严重。在大多数情况下，这样做并不是出于恶意或意图，而是因为使用条件没有得到很好的记录或理解。当这些违规行为发生时，根据违规的性质，可能会给公司造成数十万甚至数百万美元的损失。

由于风险如此之高，许多勘探与生产公司开始开展项目，以彻底了解其地震数据的所有权和权利，以实现以下目标：

• 完成尽职调查以剥离或处置特定资产或整个公司；
• 降低企业风险或减少责任风险；和
• 回应当前的诉讼或诉讼。

事实证明，“因果”方法在执行此类项目时非常有用。

因果法

在原因方面，有五个行动步骤可确保组织正确使用数据：分类、评估、利用、保护和建立。

分类： 分类是定义哪些地震数据是专有的、哪些是许可的或非专有的第一步。当尝试了解数据资产的整体状态时，这是一个很好的起点。

访问： 访问是指权利，它概述了地震数据允许或禁止的用途。这是需要关注的重要一步，并涉及提出一系列问题：

• 公司是否了解与其地下数据库中的数据相关的权利？
• 公司是否知道谁可以访问数据？是否允许外部顾问解释数据？
• 公司是否有无法显示的禁运数据？
• 许可证可以转让吗？在处置的情况下，交易的结构可能决定许可证是否可以转让。
• 数据可以离开场所吗？大多数合同都规定数据可以发送给处理器或存储供应商，但通常还有其他限制。
• 数据室的规格是什么？可能需要提供文件来确定哪些公司和个人参加数据室。如果数据对时间敏感，则可能需要在一段时间后删除。一项常见的披露条款禁止复制、转录、摘要或复制任何类型的数据。
• 许可证终止怎么办？组织必须了解如何正确处理数据。他们可能被允许删除数据，但重要的是要知道数据的处理是否包括重新处理的数据或衍生数据/知识产权。如何处置数据通常在协议或合同中详细说明。然而，如果合同没有明确规定，公司就不能在没有明确要满足的条件的情况下简单地删除数据。

利用： 在评估所有权时，进行风险评估很有价值。该矩阵的目的是确定企业当前的风险水平并确定法务部门愿意接受的企业风险。绿色意味着确认的所有权和权利。黄色意味着对所有权和权利充满信心。橙色代表未知。

公司愿意接受使用未知数据的风险将决定地震数据的可访问性水平。不可避免地会有一些公司无法确认的调查，内部业务部门需要确定是否愿意删除这些数据。如果数据对他们很重要或在核心领域，他们可能想重新购买许可证。

安全： 第四步是保护文档。收集用于证明组织的数据使用权的所有文档应包括在公司的数据管理平台内保护这些文档的安全。

建立： 最后一步是建立数据访问系统。一个例子是将用户置于 CRUDE 访问模型中：创建、只读、更新、删除和提取。它规定了谁可以在资产中创建、谁可以只读、谁可以更新或修改、谁可以删除或销毁以及谁可以提取和下载。

如果一家公司完成了所有五个原因步骤，他们本质上就会对其地下数据和工作环境产生积极的影响：

• 效率：工作流程变得更加有效；
• 更快：公司对业务需求的响应时间更快；
• 查找：公司可以更轻松地查找文档，企业可以访问这些文档，以便他们轻松掌握关键信息；
• 评估：如果公司收购了一项新资产，这些步骤将有助于评估吸收该资产所带来的潜在风险；
• 控制权：公司对该资产拥有直接控制权；和
• 信任：最终，数据将被视为来自业务的可信数据源。

权利和所有权最佳实践

地震数据库对于公司来说是非常宝贵的资产，但如果所有权和权利没有得到很好的理解，它也会带来风险。尽管协议通常经过精心设计，以指导公司可以和不能使用这些数据做什么，但协议的组织性和可供参考至关重要。有关协议的尽职调查对公司具有长期和有益的影响，可以改善内部流程并显着降低风险。 

Presented by:

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the March issue of E&P Plus.
Subscribe to the digital publication here.

Oil and gas companies continue to search for and develop hydrocarbon resources, and seismic data remain an effective tool for identifying and delineating these resources. As a result, the inventory of seismic data that a company has continues to grow.

A seismic data library in most cases has been acquired over many decades, which makes keeping track of data contracts, ownership and entitlements a complex and challenging task for oil and gas companies. The consequences of not knowing ownership status and entitlements can be severe.

This article describes the processes by which an oil and gas company can establish a strong understanding of the ownership status and entitlements of their seismic assets. As a starting point, understanding the difference between ownership and entitlements is necessary and acts as a foundation for the rest of the process.

Ownership

Seismic data ownership informs an organization as to whether they have proprietary rights to their data. If they own the data, in many cases, it can allow the corporation freedom in how they handle it. It should be noted, though, that most companies only have proprietary rights to 10% to 25% of their seismic data. That means most of their subsurface database or asset is licensed or nonproprietary data, and there are many potential restrictions regarding usage to keep in mind.

Entitlements

Entitlements inform on who has the right to access data and how those data can be used. These rules are outlined in licensing agreements. Given the majority of a company’s seismic asset is licensed or nonproprietary, it becomes important to understand how one should use the data to ensure not to breach a contract.

As mentioned previously, the consequences for breaching entitlements conditions can be severe. In most cases this is done through no ill will or intent but rather because the conditions of use are not well documented or understood. When these breaches happen, it can cost the company hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars depending on the nature of the violation.

Because the stakes are so high, many E&P companies embark upon projects to thoroughly understand the ownership and entitlements of their seismic data to accomplish the following:

• Complete due diligence to divest or dispose of specific assets or the company as a whole;
• Mitigate corporate risk or reduce liability exposure; and
• In response to a current lawsuit or litigation.

The “cause and effect” approach has proven helpful when performing these types of projects.

Cause & effect method

On the Cause side, there are five action steps to ensure that an organization is using data appropriately: classify, assess, utilize, secure and establish.

Classify: Classifying is a first step that defines which seismic data are proprietary and which are licensed or nonproprietary. It is a great place to start when trying to understand the overall status of a data asset.

Access: Access refers to entitlements, and it outlines what use is allowed or disallowed for the seismic data. It is an important step to focus on and involves asking a series of questions:

• Does the company have an understanding of the entitlements that are associated with the data in their subsurface database?
• Does the company know who can have access to the data? Is an external consultant allowed to interpret the data?
• Does the company have embargoed data that cannot be displayed?
• Can the license be transferred? In the case of a disposition, how the deal is structured may determine whether the license can be transferred.
• Can the data leave the premises? Most contracts say that the data can go to a processor or storage vendor, but other restrictions are often in place.
• What are the specifications regarding data rooms? Documentation may be required to identify what companies and individuals attend the data room. If data are time sensitive, it may need to be removed after a certain period. One common disclosure clause prohibits copies, transcriptions, summaries or reproductions of the data of any type.
• What about termination of the license? Organizations must understand how to dispose of the data properly. They may be allowed to delete the data, but it’s important to know if disposing of the data includes reprocessed data or derivative data/intellectual property. How to dispose of data is normally spelled out in an agreement or contract. However, if that contract is silent, companies cannot simply delete the data without clarifying the conditions to be met.

Utilize: When evaluating ownership, it is valuable to perform a risk assessment. The purpose of the matrix is to identify the current level of corporate exposure and determine what corporate risk legal is willing to accept. Green means confirmed ownership and entitlements. Yellow means confident in the ownership and entitlements. Orange means unknown.

The risk that a company is willing to accept for the use of unknown data will dictate the level of accessibility to the seismic data. There will inevitably be some surveys that the corporation cannot confirm, and the internal business unit will need to determine whether they are willing to have those data deleted. If the data are important to them or in a core area, they may want to repurchase a license.

Secure: The fourth step refers to securing documents. Gathering all documentation used to prove an organization’s data usage rights should include securing those documents within the company’s data management platform.

Establish: The last step is to establish a data access system. One example is to place users within the CRUDE access model: create, read-only, update, delete and extract. It dictates who can create within the asset, who can read-only, who can update or modify, who can delete or destroy, and who can extract and download.

If a company completes all five Cause steps, they inherently create a positive Effect on their subsurface data and work environment:

• Efficiency: workflows become more effective;
• Faster: the company has faster response times to business needs;
• Find: the company can find documents easier, which can be made accessible to the business so that they have that critical information at their fingertips;
• Evaluate: if the company acquires a new asset, these steps will help evaluate potential risks that come with ingesting that asset;
• Control: the company has direct control over the asset; and
• Trust: ultimately, the data will be looked at as a trusted data source from the business.

Entitlement and ownership best practices

A seismic database is a very valuable asset for a company, but it can also present risk if ownership and entitlements are not well understood. Although agreements are typically well designed to direct what companies can and cannot do with those data, it is critical that the agreement is organized and available for reference. Due diligence regarding agreements has long lasting and beneficial impacts on a company, improves internal processes and materially decreases risk.