Oil, Gas & Minerals

Remote sensing data has been exploitated for oil, gas and mineral exploration since the first Landsat imagery in 1975.

Since that time the evolution of satellite data sensors has seen the use of multispectral and radar data to support the activities of some of the largest global exploration companies. 

ERDAS IMAGINE and ERDAS ER Mapper have evolved to enable data interpreters and data users alike to manage this exponentially growing information stack. The simple ability to ingest the latest data format and utilise a new sensor model has long been at the heart of image processing software as the market place demands ‘faster’, ‘more accurate’ and ‘increased granularity’ in the information being produced.

We have long been at the forefront of this activity, being able to bridge the gap between data providers and data users in the Oil, Gas and Mineral market. Remote sensing geology and exploration have been skill-sets built up by the business and as a consequence, the utilisation of ERDAS IMAGINE and ERDAS ER Mapper have grown with the business itself.

Applications of remote sensing imagery include:

• Habitat Analysis - to monitor vegetation activity and thus mineral potential has been a long term capability from imagery analysis. The vast areas designated for exploration in Africa, Middle and Far East are opening up regions never previously considered but needing to be assessed in an intelligent and focused way to allow the field based exploration geologist to put their time and attention.
   
• Change Detection - as more sophisticated algorithms evolve, the ever changing state of land cover and ocean activity means that oil, gas and mineral organisations can assess change such as iceberg monitoring, clean sea assessment, infrastructure activities and environmental impact assessments.
   
• Site Planning - requires the assessment of new locations globally, taking into account the terrain variation from digital terrain models, vegetation clearing for new communication links and mapping for all related logistical and planning required for a new refinery or exploration sites.

In each of these areas the software that provides the leading tool for geo-data ingestion, satellite and aerial imagery analysis is ERDAS

Enterprise Level Data management

ERDAS APOLLO provides the backbone to organisations working with and wanting to make informed business decisions through the use of geographic data.

The challenge – growing volumes of geographic information and intelligence is seeing the need for larger storage and development of systems to deliver not only the raw data but also the interpretation and resulting decisions between data users, data analysts and project decision makers.

The ability to deliver mapping data is a fundamental requirement within this and for exploration companies in particular this is crucial to ensure accurate and informed decisions are made.

ERDAS APOLLO enables the delivery of gigabytes, even terabytes of geographical information via connected, or if required, an intermittently connected network.

The raster Web Mapping Service (WMS) and ECWP, or Web Feature Service for vectors are enabling clients to access mapping and geographic information.

Varying bandwidths with limited connectivity can be managed for remote users, whilst within an organisations production workflow there is the ability to run production processes (WPS) which open up the world to processing across the web.