This meant that for the first time we had 3 Communities all coming together; oil and gas companies, EO service companies, geological researchers. Many of the attendees expressed their pleasure at the unique opportunity this presented to interact.
Over 200 persons were registered for the 3 day meeting. The GRSG met on the 1st and 3rd days with the middle day devoted to the OGEO workshop which was opened by the OGEO chair Peter Hausknecht (Woodside). The first session dealt with the setting up of the OGEO and the progress that had been made in the year. Colin Grant (BP) explained the Joint Industry Project (JIP) run under the Oil and Gas Producers Association (OGP) and Geoff Sawyer (EARSC) explained the OGEO-Portal and how people could have access and use it.
Technical sessions were then presented on Oil Spills and general applications of EO for the O&G industry. Thomas Heege (EOMAP), Charlotte Bishop (NPA-Fugro) and Jerry Helfand (Exxon) chaired the 3 sessions.
Full details of the workshop and a report will shortly be available on the ESA web-site.
The OGEO working group met afterwards to assess the results of the workshop and to decide on follow-up actions. It was agreed to consolidate the activities with an agreement between the main parties; OGP, EARSC, and ESA. Given the welcome boost from association with the GRSG it was agreed that the chair of the GRSG should also participate to enable links with the geological research community. It was then agreed to continue to develop the OGEO-Portal as well as publicising the results of OGEO. An early action will be to consolidate all the standards available and used for EO products relevant to the O&G sector. A third workshop will be organised in 2012.
Thanks were expressed to ESA (Stephen Coulson and Ola Grabak as well as many others) for organising and hosting the event so successfully.