The past is key to the present? The integration of legacy O&G data into preliminary ground models

Almost sixty years of oil and gas exploration has produced a plethora of data, with some offshore areas covered with hundreds of thousands of line kilometers of seismic reflection data and thousands of boreholes. These legacy data are being released by regulators and are becoming readily accessible. The offshore wind sector is starting to realize the potential for this resource, with the recent ISO (19901-10) update including review of oil and gas data as part of its guidance on best practice for marine site investigations. Reprocessing these legacy data types is widely seen as the gold standard to yield the most useful and useable information. Reprocessed seismic reflection data can make a valuable contribution to preliminary ground models, particularly for turbine foundations; the availability of cost effective, useable, and accessible field tapes is far from certain. The question remains; what can be done with the remaining data if there are no field tapes? This paper sets out, from a developer's perspective, what legacy oil and gas data can be used, without the need for reprocessing. This paper aims to provide some insight as to where integrated studies of borehole data and post-stack seismic from a range of vintages can make a positive contribution to the development of offshore wind sites around the world.