From 65438 to 0999, at the Digital Earth Seminar of the University of Maryland in the United States, most scholars agreed to define the Digital Earth as: "Digital Earth is the virtual representation of the Earth, which can gather the natural and human information of the Earth, and people can explore and interact with the virtual body." Similarly, a digital oil field can be defined as: "A digital oil field is a virtual representation of an oil field, which can gather natural and human information of the oil field, and people can explore and interact with the virtual body." According to this definition, digital oilfield should be regarded as a system integrating space, digitalization and integration, which brings together all kinds of information, network system, software system and knowledge of oilfield. Simply put, digital earth is a virtual earth model supported by information technology and earth science, while digital oil field is the application of digital earth in oil and gas exploration and development informationization, oil field management decision and other fields.
At the end of 1999, Daqing Oilfield first put forward the concept of digital oilfield in the world. At this time, digital oilfield is still a vague new concept, still in the conception stage, but its basic idea was immediately affirmed. In June, 2000, the concept and construction goal of digital oilfield were formally defined in Daqing Oilfield Co., Ltd. 200 1 Information Planning (Figure 1). Since then, the concept of digital oil field has been widely recognized quickly, and has aroused heated discussion. Many entrepreneurs, technical experts, scholars, engineers and managers in petroleum and IT fields at home and abroad actively explore and develop the concept of digital oil field. 200 1, digital oil field is listed as a major project of the tenth five-year plan of science and technology. Shengli Oilfield and Karamay Oilfield have successively determined the construction goal of digital oilfield, further enriching the connotation of digital oilfield.
In 2003, the master's degree thesis of management science and engineering of Tianjin University, "Research on Digital Oilfield Model and Development Strategy of Daqing Oilfield Co., Ltd." (Author: Wang Quan) laid the theoretical foundation of digital oilfield and was recognized as the pioneering work of digital oilfield theory.
Nowadays, digital oil field has become a hot topic in the global oil industry. Its connotation is also constantly enriched, as shown in Figure 2.