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Track record

More than twenty years of engagements carried out as an employee of an international survey contractor, then of an energy major, before Oktri was founded in 2026.

Public work

  • Geospatial market atlas

    An interactive atlas of the market, from the first companies of 1969 to today’s consolidation: who bought whom, what disappeared, who sells what now. A versioned dataset, reviewed by difference from one version to the next, published in the open.

  • Notes

    What twenty years of operations taught, written plainly: geodetic reference frames, open standards, governance of geographic data. Pieces that take a position rather than summarise the state of the art.

More than twenty years of Geospatial in the energy industry

One geospatial function for a group that had become multi-energy

Related service
Geospatial strategy
Sector
Energy, international group
Period
2021-2026
Role
Global head of the geospatial entity

Context

An energy major creates a cross-cutting technology branch to serve all of its activities: oil and gas, wind, solar, hydrogen, carbon capture. The geospatial function, until then attached to exploration and production, has to become a group function: remote sensing specialists, land surveyors, hydrographers, geodesy engineers, GIS analysts and engineers.

What was at stake

Serving businesses that share neither vocabulary, nor scale, nor contractors, without losing the technical standard inherited from offshore, and without letting each branch rebuild its own tools in isolation.

The work

Leading the entity and running a worldwide community of more than 170 people. Governance of a portfolio of more than 550 web GIS applications for close to 5,000 users (2023). More than 100 industrial GIS projects delivered every year across oil and gas, wind, solar, hydrogen and carbon capture. Topographic, satellite and drone survey campaigns in more than 20 countries every year. An internal event bringing together affiliates from 20 countries to align practices and priorities.

What it taught

Geospatial does not hold together through its tools, but through a centralised team where domain specialists and IT specialists answer to the same authority, work side by side, and spend their days among the people they serve. Scattered branch by branch, or kept at arm’s length, the very same skills produce tools that duplicate one another and decisions that never come.

The first implementation of an open subsurface data standard for exploration

Related service
Ecosystem and GIS data
Sector
Energy, exploration
Period
2018-2021, including eight months leading the project
Role
Head of exploration maps and technical data

Context

Exploration technical data (maps, databases, subsurface data) is managed by a team covering database administration, artificial intelligence and machine learning projects, and project management. An open subsurface data standard emerges across the industry; the group decides to implement it for the first time.

What was at stake

Making data accessible and reusable beyond the applications that produced it, without freezing the organisation into a tool or breaking what already works.

The work

Leading the group’s very first implementation of the standard, over eight months.

What it taught

A standard is worth no more than the first dataset loaded into it, and the team appointed to answer for it.

Positioning and subsea surveys for a West African offshore affiliate

Related service
Survey and positioning
Sector
Energy, deepwater offshore
Period
2015-2018
Role
Head of the affiliate’s geomatics entity

Context

In an affiliate operating deepwater exploration and development assets, the geomatics entity is responsible for positioning operations and subsea surveys, for the affiliate’s geographic database, and for publishing it on several WebGIS.

What was at stake

Every vessel day is paid for; every loosely specified scope is paid for in vessel days. Operations have to be specified, contracted and supervised when the cost of an error far exceeds the cost of the work itself.

The work

Leading the entity: writing specifications, selecting and monitoring contractors, supervising operations, and maintaining the affiliate’s reference geographic data.

What it taught

Supervising operations is how you learn what a loosely specified scope costs. No statement of work teaches it.

Geodetic and positioning support for affiliates across three continents

Sector
Energy, exploration and production
Period
2006-2010
Role
Senior surveyor, technical headquarters then affiliate

Context

From the technical headquarters of a major, a survey engineer provides survey, positioning and geodesy support to affiliates (central Africa, West Africa, the Arabian peninsula), then joins an offshore affiliate to run its day-to-day positioning, in marine and subsea settings.

What was at stake

Seismic data, wells and installations acquired at different times, by different contractors, in different coordinate systems, have to overlay to the metre. A badly chosen reference frame is invisible on the day it is chosen; it shows up ten years later, as metric offsets.

The work

Acquiring and processing data onshore and offshore, supervising operations, and making geodetic calls for affiliates: reference frame selection, transformation parameters, quality control of contractor deliverables.

What it taught

A badly chosen coordinate system is paid for in metric offsets, ten years later. Checking it costs a few days; discovering it on a well costs a great deal more.

Pipeline routes and site selection, alongside the field architects

Sector
Energy, project development
Period
2010-2015
Role
Geomatics and positioning, technologies division

Context

Within the technologies division of a major, the geomatics and positioning team works hand in hand with the field architects who design developments: where to place an installation, where to run a pipeline.

What was at stake

Giving heavy, barely reversible engineering decisions a reliable geographic basis (seabed, constraints, existing survey data) at the moment when it is still possible to change course.

The work

Providing pipeline routing and site selection expertise to development studies: integration of existing surveys, constraint analysis, specification of additional surveys.

What it taught

Geographic data is only worth the decision it informs, and that decision has a date, after which it serves no purpose.

3D laser scanning for exploration and production, before it was called reality capture

Related service
3D industrial data
Sector
Energy, international survey contractor
Period
2003-2006
Role
Survey engineer

Context

At an international survey contractor, a survey engineer handles acquisition, geodesy and operations supervision for exploration and production clients, and takes on a then emerging technology: 3D laser scanning, from acquisition through processing to imaging and visualisation.

What was at stake

Turning a point cloud into a deliverable a plant engineer can actually work with: real accuracy, georeferencing, format, viewing tool. At the time, none of these questions had a standard answer.

The work

On-site acquisition, processing and georeferencing of point clouds, production of images and views usable by engineering offices.

What it taught

Reality capture changes the game for whoever masters the whole chain, from acquisition to use. Twenty years later the question is the same; only the volumes have changed.