Harness Oil and Gas Big Data with Analytics (Wiley and SAS Business Series) 1st Edition

Great book useful insights. A worthwhile read for anyone interested in energy data science.

The book certainly covers a wide range of topics of data analytics application in upstream oil and gas industry. It is an interesting read if you would like to have a very rough idea how data analytics can be applied. However, the book is not for you if you are an oil and gas engineer hoping to apply the workflows described in the book to your project. You will certainly get a basic idea from the book about what the workflow should look like (which indeed is helpful), but if you dig into details in the book you will likely be disappointed.The explanations in many chapters are not thorough. I do not expect the explanation to be so detailed that all the theories of each method are covered clearly, because this book is supposed to target beginners or outsiders of the oil and gas industry. However, at least the explanation should complete a logical cycle so that a beginner can understand easily. Unfortunately, in many cases, I feel the explanation is vague and sometimes imprecise. For me, it is not a big problem because I have a PhD degree from a good petroleum engineering program in US and have been working in a major oil company for many years. I am able to read between the lines and understand what the author truly means. However, I do not think a beginner can follow.A previous Amazon reviewer of this book wrote “This book is greatly lacking in detail if you don't already understand EXACTLY what the author is presenting. The introduction doesn't specify who it is written for, but he doesn't provide enough detail, definitions or explanations on the statistical concepts or the oil and gas concepts.” I completely agree with this review. I think the book is written for those who want to know just a little bit about oil and gas and data analytics, but don’t really care and won’t use this knowledge in their work. For the beginners who care about and will use data analytics in their oil and gas projects, you will likely be disappointed by the lack of details and logical explanations in this book.What really bothers me is the writing style of the author. The author tends to pile a number of big words and terminologies in data analytics, without providing any explanation. The use of verbs is sometimes vague, pestered with many empty words. It appears that the author is talking a lot professionally, but after a close read you will find you don’t get anything. In many places, the paragraphs seem disconnected. Sometimes, the same paragraph or sentence will appear over and over again in different places. You will notice it when you read the book. The writing style bothers me because I feel the author did not put enough care and rigor in writing this book.Another problem of the book is its lack of citations. It is typical for a scientific review to have tens or hundreds of citations. However, in this book, most of the chapters have only 6 to 8 citations, which is abnormal since this book should be a comprehensive review of data-analytic applications in oil and gas industry. Of course, the quality of a book should not be judged by the amount of its citations, but at least a comprehensive literature review shows the author’s knowledge of the subject and provides a good reference to beginners. Many of the citations in the book are SPE conference papers (not peer-reviewed), whose quality is not guaranteed.

This book is greatly lacking in detail if you don't already understand EXACTLY what the author is presenting. The introduction doesn't specify who it is written for, but he doesn't provide enough detail, definitions or explanations on the statistical concepts or the oil and gas concepts. I have worked in oil and gas for 12 years, although not as an engineer, and have an introductory level of understanding of analytical tools like PCA and ANN, and I found this book very hard to follow and understand. His writing style makes it even more difficult. I had a lot of hope for this book given the other reviews, but it was a complete let down.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It explains in an easy and intuitive way the analytical workflows that are appropriate for E&P. Not too much detail on algorithms and no code; but I don’t believe it is written for that purpose. It is an excellent introduction to statistical analyses in the upstream and introduces some insightful non-deterministic workflows that provide a different perspective to traditional interpretation. Thoroughly enjoyed the book. Suggest the e-book as the figures are in color!! The author’s deep knowledge jumps out and even though I have a doctorate in statistics, I learnt some interesting applications of analytics and machine learning across an industry shrouded in determinism.

The adoption of analytics in the upstream side of the Oil and Gas business is lagging other industries like Finance and Communications. This is the only book I have run across that provides a comprehensive view of how analytics can be applied in Oil and Gas. The author has a superior grasp of both Oil and Gas and predictive analytics.

At last, a book that provides detailed insight in how to apply data driven models and techniques in the real world. Mr Holdaway goes beyond the theory, and provides practical and concise examples on how to unlock the value that is often trapped within the disparate data sets in oil and gas.

An excellent read for someone who is not expert. But even the experienced data modeler can learn from well defined analytic workflows. Well written and organized for easy and effective self-tuition. Highly recommended.