This release contains the following updates
April 2025 Form and Manner Document
Information Tags (ITAGs)
Assignment of Classification Tags (CTAGs) and Information Tags (ITAGs)
User Assignment of CTAGs in File Upload
Automatic assignment of ITAGs in File Upload
Missing Data Request form update
Manage Inventory form update
Project Table - updated metadata side panel
Files Table - new SEG-Y and SEG-D metadata side panel
SEG-Y File Header Quality indicator in Description column of Files Table
April 2025 Form and Manner Document
An updated version of the support document Information Reporting Form and Manner of NDR Information was published earlier this month.
The April 2025 version includes changes in three areas.
Seabed Recorded Field Data – a new section sets out the NSTA’s expectations for licensees that are required to report field data for seismic surveys that have been acquired using methods including Ocean Bottom Node and Ocean Bottom Cable techniques.
Acquisition data from such surveys can present various challenges to the licensee and the NSTA alike. Continuous recordings can lead to huge volumes of data that may be of little value to the licensee, and therefore to the NSTA and any potential future user of the data.
Other issues include high file counts of relatively small files that would be onerous to load individually and subsequently similarly onerous to download individually.
In this update we advise that the data that is of interest to the NSTA is that portion of the recorded data that was selected and then used to create the original processed SEG-Y. We also advise on suitable approaches to organising files into spatially related groupings – fewer larger files will be easier to upload and to download and reuse in the future.
Seismic Navigation formats – amendments provide more detail on the specific formats that are considered to be acceptable for reporting seismic navigation data to the NSTA. Preceding versions simply stated P2 formats for raw navigation and P1 formats for final navigation. We have amended several sections to clarify exactly which P1 and P2 formats are considered compliant.
Wellbore Deviation Survey formats – P7/2000 ascii file format has long been the single recognised standard for deviation surveys. We now also accept deviation survey data in the more recently defined P7/17 format – the latest document reflects this change.
Information Tags (ITAGs)
To improve accessibility and successful data discovery a new tagging system is being introduced to the NDR. Until now, each file has been ‘tagged’ with one or more Classification Tags (CTAGs). CTAGs are metadata that describe the types of information that are included within a file. We have used CTAGs since the NDR was first launched in 2019; CTAGs have mainly been based on CS8 Codes from the preceding UKOilandGasData service provided by CDA. CS8 Codes/CTAGs are industry shorthand for Information Types that the NSTA has specified to be Reportable Licence Information.
For some established industry users CTAGs are readily recognisable and meaningful. A Data Manager for a petroleum licensee company who is frequently uploading reportable data to the NDR will be familiar with terms such as DRILL_DPROG, GEOL_GEOW and TEST_LUM. Other users can struggle to identify such files respectively as Drilling Programme, Geological End of Well Report and Luminescence Fingerprinting.
We have introduced Information Tags as an alternative way to describe the same Information Types using plain language, rather than industry codes. This approach makes the representation of NDR content more readily accessible to a wider range of users. A full list of Information Tags and their Descriptions will be included in a new version of the Form and Manner document that will be published soon. The shortened term ITAG will be used interchangeably with Information Tag in this and future communications.
Please note that there is no plan to discontinue the use of CTAGs. Data Managers will continue to assign CTAGs – both will exist side-by-side for the foreseeable future.
For each ITAG, which is usually between two and four words long, there is a corresponding ITAG Description. This is longer and more explanatory, often including terms or commonly used abbreviations that would be unwieldy to include in the ITAG itself. These two metadata items are displayed separately, each with its own column in the File table. As with CTAGs, a file may have one or more ITAGs; the same goes for the corresponding ITAG Descriptions. The ITAG column may be filtered by clicking on one or more ITAGs.
The ITAG Description column includes all the text for the descriptions of each of the assigned ITAGS. This usually means the text is too long to display in a single cell, even when expanded. This full text can be viewed with a ‘mouseover’ (holding the cursor/pointer over the cell) - a pop-up will appear, showing the Descriptions for each of the assigned ITAGs.
The ITAG Description column has a column filter that enables compound text filters such as "log and mud" to filter those files that have both "log" and "mud" in the text of their ITAG Descriptions. The operator terms to use are “and”, “or” and “!” (meaning “not”); brackets can be used and the “or” operator takes precedence. Text filters are not case sensitive.
Examples of compound text filters that can be used in the ITAG Description column:
- seismic or report
- log and mwd and final
- (report and well) or (comp and log)
- report and well and !summary
New “Information Tags” (ITAGs) and “Information Tag Description” columns in the files table.
Example of filtering the “Information Tag Description” column in the files table.
File Table Column ordering
The addition of the new Itag columns will cause any personalised column order in the Files Table to be removed, any preferred column ordering can be set again by dragging columns as detailed in the support project page “Personalise Display In Data Discovery”
Assignment of Classification Tags (CTAGs) and Information Tags (ITAGs)
CTAGs are assigned by an authorised Data Manager user during the file upload process. Each Information Type is required to be reported in specified formats and must meet certain quality criteria. When a Data Manager uploads a report that relates to a seismic survey, the requirement is for the file to be in PDF format, and to include machine readable text. The NDR upload process checks each file to ensure that it meets the required standards, then the Data Manager can assign CTAGs.
The upload process constrains the available CTAGs, in this case to those that are relevant to seismic survey documents and reports, namely Acquisition, Processing and Interpretation Reports, Observer Logs, Source Signature and Supporting Information. This streamlines the procedure for the Data Manager as they are presented with just seven options, rather than all 40+ CTAGs that are applicable to the wider range of seismic survey Information Types.
CTAGs may be edited, either directly by Data Managers from the organisation that is responsible for reporting the information, or via the Suggest/Edit functionality, which enables other users to identify and propose changes to CTAGs, as well as other metadata. The NSTA Data Team reviews and either approves or declines proposed changes.
Assignment of ITAGs, however, is not the responsibility of the reporting organisation. The NSTA is taking steps to review the NDR data collection to determine whether the CTAG metadata provides a complete and accurate description of the contents of the files. The collection has been gathered over many years and the means to tag information have developed over time, so it is to be expected that the accuracy and completeness of tagging may be variable.
Working with our service partners, the NSTA is reviewing the collection, file by file, to determine which ITAGs should be assigned. To begin with, in most cases, the ITAG value that a user sees in the Files Table is “virtual metadata”, a temporary value that is simply a plain language representation of the user assigned CTAGs for a given file. This means that the NSTA has yet to assign actual ITAGs for the file.
That said, working with Osokey we’ve been able to review and assign actual ITAGs to selected file types associated with seismic surveys. Users may encounter ITAG Descriptions beginning with (auto), before the description text as shown on the middle line in the image from the Files Table below.
This “(auto)” before the description text indicates that a value for ITAG has been determined and assigned independently of the user assigned CTAG.
We’ve also been working with Flare Solutions to review the content of well data files. The results from Flare’s analysis will shortly be prepared and uploaded to the NDR as ITAGs.
We’ll update you in more detail on these initiatives in due course – this all takes some doing, bearing in mind that the collection now holds well over one million individual files. You can expect to see temporary ‘virtual metadata’ replaced with actual ITAG metadata very soon, as we proceed to ingest the results of recent and ongoing analysis.
It is important to stress that the NSTA will not change the user assigned CTAGs for any files in the NDR. For the time being users will continue to assign CTAGs during the upload process. CTAG’s will remain the primary reference for reporting compliance purposes until further notice.
User Assignment of CTAGs in File Upload
When manually assigning CTAGs during upload, the pop-up menu now shows the CTAG in bold capitals followed by the text for the equivalent ITAG and part of the ITAG Description. This additional information is intended to support the Data Manager in their selection of the appropriate CTAGs without needing to refer to an external document, for example.
Where the ITAG Description is truncated, due to space restrictions, the full text can be seen in full by hovering over the displayed text - a pop-up will show the full ITAG Description text.
The new “ITAGs” in the CTAG assignment pop-up from the Upload files table.
The updated CTAG assignment pop-up also contains a text box to enable filtering based on the text contained in the CTAG, ITAG and full ITAG Description. The Data Manager can use this to limit which CTAGs are shown in the pop-up. This can be helpful for managing the assignment of multiple CTAGs to a file, or to assist in finding the most appropriate CTAG.
The new filtering in the CTAG assignment pop-up from the Upload files table.
Automatic assignment of ITAGs in File Upload
For selected Information Types, the appropriate CTAG and the new ITAG will be assigned where the upload procedure can automatically detect the Information Type.
This is enabled for information types where correct formatting and inclusion of required metadata means we can confidently determine the content of the file. SEG-D formatted data can only be seismic field acquisition data, for example. Similarly, a correctly formatted P1/90 file can only be Final navigation data. For processed seismic, the upload compliance procedure will read SEG-Y Textural headers to determine what is included in a SEG-Y file – this functionality leverages assisted CTAG assignment that we introduced last year.
The auto-assigned ITAG is shown in the “Information Tags” column – this cannot be edited by the Data Manager during the file upload procedure. In the example below, the upload compliance process read the P1/90, P2/94, P6/98, GeoJSON and SEG-D files and automatically determined that they should be assigned the corresponding Itags; Final Navigation, Raw Navigation, Binning Grid, Supporting Data and Field Acquisition Data.
The new “Information Tags” column in the Upload files table.
This approach is new to all of us, and while we expect and intend that this will both lighten the load of file tagging and lead to greater accuracy and completeness in tagging, we should expect there to be instances where the Data Manager doesn’t agree with the automatically assigned ITAGs. In such cases users can provide feedback to the NSTA via the Suggest/Edit process to recommend changes to auto assigned ITAGs.
Missing Data Request form update
The Missing Data request form, launched from the Project Table, lists every Information Type for a well or survey. Previously, this listed CTAGs which were not readily understood and accessible to most users. Now the form lists plain language ITAGs with the corresponding CTAGs in brackets, for those who still find that useful.
We’ve changed the layout of the table from two columns to one. As before, Information Types are grouped into categories of related information, including PRE DRILL, DRILLING OPERATIONS and so on.
The category sections are now collapsible and expandable, by clicking on the section title in BOLD CAPITALS.
We have broken down some of the longer sections into new categories to group related Information Types together, such as Core and Samples Analysis and Reports and Digital Well Logs, to make navigating the form more straightforward.
Updated Missing Data Request form.
Manage Inventory form update
Authorised company Data Managers have access to a similar Manage Inventory form that is also accessed from the Project Table. We’ve made updates to the content and layout equivalent to those made in the Missing Data Request form.
For completeness, the form now lists out the ITAG with the equivalent CTAG in brackets, for those who still find that useful.
We’ve changed the layout of the table from two columns to one. As before, Information Types are grouped into categories of related information, including PRE DRILL, DRILLING OPERATIONS and so on.
The category sections are now collapsible and expandable, by clicking on the section title in BOLD CAPITALS.
We have broken down some of the longer sections into new categories to group related Information Types together, such as Core and Samples Analysis and Reports and Digital Well Logs, to make navigating the form more straightforward.
Updated Manage Inventory form.
Project Table - updated metadata side panel
The projects table shows metadata in a side panel when you left-click on the Project ID column. The pop-up side panel shows a summary of Project “header” metadata that does not easily fit into a single cell in the table.
We have updated the side panel so that the labels of the various properties (left hand side) are spelled out in plain language, rather than abbreviated. For instance, DESC becomes Description; CNTR becomes Seismic Contractor, and so on. This change also displays in the equivalent pop-up panel in the NDR Map view. The default size of the text in the side panel is now larger, making it easier to read.
Old version of project table side panel showing project metadata.
New version of project table side panel showing project metadata, the side panel appears when you click on the Project ID column in the Projects table.
Files Table - new SEG-Y and SEG-D metadata side panel
A new side panel in the Files table shows additional metadata for SEG-Y and SEG-D files. When a user clicks on a file’s Information Tag Description, File Name or Description a side panel pop-up entitled Additional file metadata will launch.
The side panel includes additional metadata, particular to these file formats, that have been extracted during upload. These metadata are not included in the standard Files table layout and have been inaccessible to external users until now.
These additional metadata can be used by Data Managers to assist in uploading files to other software and can provide insights into data prior to download from the NDR. This information can also be useful to our Support Centre team if support tickets are raised in relation to data quality.
SEG-Y file with metadata shown in side panel, launched by clicking on filename, description or ITAG columns in the files table.
SEG-D file with metadata shown in side panel, launched by clicking on filename, description or ITAG columns in the files table.
SEG-Y File Header Quality indicator in Description column of Files Table
Metrics for various parameters are routinely extracted when SEG-Y files are uploaded to the NDR. These are combined to give a quality score for the information included in a file’s binary header and trace headers. This relates to header information that would typically be referred to when loading files into a software application.
Header quality is shown at the beginning of the file Description column, in italics, in the form of Hdr QC [value]. The values of quality are good, passable and poor and serve to indicate how readily each SEG-Y file might be loaded to another application, if obtained from the NDR.
A value of Hdr QC poor can reflect XY values being absent from the files header and a need to merge the SEG-Y file with separately sourced navigation, such as from an associated P1/90 file.
Poor header quality is likely to be limited to data that was loaded prior to the introduction of quality control measures when the current service was launched in 2021. Since then, all SEG-Y data has been required to meet the minimum requirements that are set out in the appropriate industry standard. Sub-standard files cannot be loaded until improvements are made to the data.
Header quality indicators do not extend to the quality of trace data in the file.
File table: Description column showing the SEG-Y file Header quality values.
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