OGP Surveying & Positioning Committee

Background

The OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee was formed in 2005 by the absorbtion into OGP of the now-defunct European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) which itself had been formed in 1986. The Surveying and Positioning Committee comprises specialists from OGP member companies working in the areas of surveying, geodesy, cartography and coordinate data management. Meetings are held twice yearly.

Objectives

The OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee has the following objectives:

• to develop and disseminate best practice;
• to provide a forum for the exchange of experiences and knowledge;
• to influence Regulators and Standards organisations;
• to liaise with industry associations;
• to be the voice of Surveying and Positioning in the Oil and Gas industry.

The main areas by which the Surveying and Positioning Committee work to achieve these objectives are: the EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset; the OGP Surveying and Positioning Guidance Notes, maintenance of positioning data exchange formats and through association with other organisations.

EPSG Geodetic Parameters

The OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee, through its geodesy sub-committee, maintains and publishes a dataset of parameters for coordinate reference system and coordinate transformation description. The EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset has been included as reference data in UKOOA and SEG positioning data exchange formats, the GeoTIFF interchange format for georeferenced raster imagery, the IHS Energy Iris21, PPDM and POSC Epicentre data models. The dataset is distributed through a web-based delivery platform, or in an MS Access relational database and SQL script files which may be accessed here.

OGP Surveying and Positioning Guidance Notes

The OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee produces an occasional series of Guidance Notes for public use.

Data Exchange Formats

The OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee maintains several digital data exchange formats for industry use.

Links to other organisations

The OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee has

• category A liaison membership of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) Technical Committee 211, Geographic Information / Geomatics (ISO TC/211).
• a strong, but informal, relationship with the Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation (POSC) to which the OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee provides geodetic advice and support through its geodesy subcommittee.
• links with the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), which is represented on the EPSG geodesy working group.

Geodesy subcommittee members maintain a liason with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for spatial referencing and coordinate transformations.

The OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee also maintains links with the Americas Petroleum Survey Group, APSG

Further Information

Requests for further information about the OGP Surveying and Positioning Committee should be addressed to the Chairman (Jack Verouden) or Secretary (Carl Woolf):