Data Mining: Applications in the Petroleum Industry

The proliferation of data gathering technologies and instrumentation has led to the acquisition of great volumes of data whose interpretation using analytical mathematical approaches or history matching with numerical simulators is often unsuccessful, incomplete and invariably partially satisfying.

Data Mining is an evolving discipline which uses a series of modern tools to extract hidden relationships and influences embedded in the data. This data-driven analysis contrasts the knowledge-driven analysis of traditional engineering and scientific approaches. However, data mining is not supposed to replace knowledge. On the contrary, it is supposed to be a tool to aid in the quantification of relative influences and reveal their inter-connectivity.

This book, dealing with data mining in the petroleum industry, is a major step towards the understanding of the exceptionally complex influences of the inherently chaotic geology, lithology, geochemistry, fluid phase behavior, multiphase flow and other phenomena, affecting petroleum production and exploration.