Patra Nusa Data, Jakarta, Indonesia

"Scanning the Earth in Search of Oil"

Summary - Patra Nusa Data uses Contex scanner to help companies find black gold

Patra Nusa Data (PND) was set up in 1997 as part of the Indonesian Government’s drive to increase investment in the country’s vast natural resources. Located in the heart of an
expanding oil industry in Jakarta, PND serves customers including BP, Union Oil, Conoco Phillips and Pertamina, Indonesia’s national oil company.

The concept is simple. PND compiles the seismic data that companies use to locate the most promising natural oil and gas reserves. Drilling test wells is expensive, so the scans have to
be extremely accurate and rich in detail – and PND uses a fleet of Contex scanners to ensure the necessary quality. The company’s main scanners are two SD4410s, which are
powerful enough to ensure every wide format scan is clear, sharp and to the highest possible standard.

As Mr. Darmanto, CEO of Patra Nusa Data explains, “Our focus is on scanning. We make high quality data quickly and easily available so our customers can focus on their key business of
drilling for oil and gas. We pride ourselves on quality, so we use Contex.”

Challenge: creating highly accurate 10 meter-long drill logs

Providing seismic data to oil companies carries with it a lot of responsibility. The companies use the data to decide which areas – either onshore or offshore – are most promising for
drilling. But if the data is not accurate enough, the company may drill in the wrong place, and even an inexpensive test well can cost more than a million dollars. Worse still, inaccurate data may cause a company to miss a possible natural resource. And as Indonesia pushes to increase investment from oil and gas companies, any mistakes could prove costly. So PND has to ensure that every scan it delivers is as accurate as possible.

But seismic data scanning only accounts for about 15 percent of PND’s business. More than half of the company’s work involves scanning drill logs. After a customer drills a test well,
PND scans the resulting drill log. These are big documents, coming in at 10 meters long or more, and the amount of data involved is staggering. And they have to be accurate, as oil and gas companies use the scans to analyze the drill before deciding whether or not to drill further.

The solution: a fleet of high quality scanners 

According to Mr. Darmanto, PND uses Contex scanners because, it needs “easy-to-use scanners with high speeds and high accuracy”. And Contex has not disappointed. PND’s
fleet includes one Premiere, three Crystal and two FSS series scanners. But pride of place goes to its two SD4410s, chosen for their unique combination of high quality at a low price.

The SD4410 wide format scanner gives exceptional resolution at 400 dpi in monochrome and grayscale scanning. 16-bit B/W capture brings out details and depth, and adaptive threshold technology works simultaneously on the original’s background, foreground and edges to ensure PND gets the accuracy its customers need. Also, because the SD4410s have auto-sizing technology, PND can run any length of well log – even over 10 meters.

The benefits: delivering the quality needed for vector conversion! 

The industry standard format for seismic data and well logs is LAS. And this means converting the raster data to vector data. Vector data has a number of benefits. It is much easier to scale and rotate, and so is easier to analyze than raster. But for this conversion to work, the scan has to be of exceptional quality. If any lines or arcs are broken or have
merged together the document cannot be converted and must be rescanned. The SD4410s deliver every time.