Shell’s OneGulf Atlas App Makes GIS Data Access and Collaboration Easier and More Efficient

With a long operating history in the United States, Shell supports energy supply and related activities across multiple states through its operational footprint. Shell is a major deepwater operator in the Gulf of America, the company is supported by a workforce of more than 11,000 US employees. Yet despite Shell's scale, global Geomatics standards and impact, teams sometimes work from disparate data sources and disconnected systems, making it difficult to quickly locate authoritative information. This fragmentation can lead to duplicated datasets, redundant tasks, and inefficiencies that hinder Shell’s ability to operate with the speed and precision its mission demands.

Shell’s Geomatics staff recognized the opportunity to enhance access to trusted geospatial data by leveraging its proven capabilities in geodesy, data governance, and enterprise‑wide geographic information system (GIS) integration in supporting Gulf of America projects, with a focus on trusted data and consistent governance. As long-term Esri Advantage Program members, Shell has long partnered with Esri, selecting and shaping GIS technologies to meet Shell’s enterprise geospatial requirements in their Geomatics global discipline. For the past 20 years, Shell has used ArcGIS technology to conduct exploration work, development, and production. The organization has adopted ArcGIS Online for their web GIS work and ArcGIS Pro for desktop applications—two of Esri’s foundational products for mapping and analytics.

“Often, staff don’t even realize they are using an Esri product,” said Robert Heider, geospatial consultant for the Gulf of America at Shell. “That’s a testament to how well the software can be integrated into the day-to-day business.”
 

Although Shell Geomatics already had strong GIS foundations and standards, the team observed opportunities to further strengthen data consistency and governance - particularly where legacy formats or local practices created fragmentation. This included data that occasionally still stored in shapefiles that needed to be converted into geodatabases. Geomatics would get a request for the same map multiple times with only slightly different layers, or the maps were not updated.

Additionally, numerous staff from other departments who weren’t always proficient in GIS, experienced difficulty using GIS data effectively. “We had a group of users that needed a basic map, and they needed to be able to turn on and off layers and add their own data where they can quickly and easily search,” said Heider when describing the app’s key desired benefits.  Heider explained that the Geomatics team sought to build an out-of-the-box application with simplified maps, centralized resources, and self-service tools. “We needed a solution that made mapping easier for everyone.”

“The main trick to all of this is trusted geospatial content, and that’s what Geomatics is all about,” said Heider. “If a petroleum engineer can’t trust a map, then that’s a problem for success and safety.”
 

While attending the 2023 Esri User Conference, Heider saw that the National Geographic Society and Esri partnered to create MapMaker, a digital mapping tool for K–12 students and educators created with the ArcGIS Instant Apps Atlas template. “The thing that made it so attractive was that when I saw this presentation, it was school children [on stage] making their own maps,” said Heider. “If children can learn how to use this, then surely I can design a system around this application for us to deploy successfully, in line with our enterprise geospatial standards.”  

Inspired by what he saw, Heider started to sketch out on a napkin what he could take back to the rest of Shell’s Geomatics team. “What really struck me was the strategy—actually being able to categorize and organize our trusted geospatial data,” said Heider. In summer 2023, the team introduced OneGulf Atlas in beta form. “It’s meant to be a one-stop emporium for all trusted data resources to make a basic map,” said Heider. “We have good data, templates, and content, so nobody needs to create their own maps from scratch.”

Known colloquially around the company as “Atlas,” the Instant Apps template formally launched in October 2023 and became available to hundreds of daily users in ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise.

“The newest GIS maps are very user-friendly, allowing for incredibly easy design and modification of basemaps to get the right information visualized,” said John Munroe, senior commercial analyst for commercial production and trading at Shell.
 

“What Rob did was brilliant—he made a basemap that everyone has in the Gulf of America,” said Steven Bridges, manager of embedded geospatial, deepwater and exploration at Shell, explaining that before OneGulf Atlas, staff would share multiple different links for any new map layers or updates. “But then it has a bunch of custom and group layers that are not very accessible, so it was easy and efficient to capture everybody with one link.”

OneGulf Atlas is available to authorized Shell users, with access managed through ArcGIS Online groups. These groups are organized by job functions and on a need-to-know basis for sensitive information. For example, “A geologist could be an advanced user within Atlas for exploration, and someone versed in working with web maps, and maybe even create their custom layers,” said Heider. The action of user group segmentation is achieved through a feature manipulation engine (FME), a standalone geospatial extract software commonly used to move data between formats without coding. The FME and GIS combination create an automated, repeatable workflow, thus reducing time and increasing security across the platform. Within the different user groups, administrators can also create additional access controls to be applied for certain datasets where needed and used inside Atlas.

With built-in security levels based on user type, OneGulf Atlas is a hub for GIS and non-GIS users within the Shell organization to discover, view, and explore a collection of maps. Additionally, to help reduce decision-making time, Heider built a tutorial story with ArcGIS StoryMaps and linked it to the Atlas to show non-GIS staff how to effectively use certain capabilities. “It’s intuitive, but we embedded work instructions to keep everything within our Esri solutions for ease of access,” Heider explained.

In the application, users can access multiple themed maps and a broad set of additional data layers to support different workflows inside of Atlas. Users also have access to several tools to explore and interactively measure distance and area and view bathymetric profiles. Additionally, users can create their own maps for the specific workflows required and share them with others without leaving the application. “We were previously getting so many requests from different individuals and business units, so Atlas is a self-help service in a way,” said Heider.

“I am able to do a quick visual inspection of our own records and positions geospatially. I can quickly visualize our own records and positions geospatially to support more informed internal analysis,” said Munroe.

Staff new to the Gulf of America region can use OneGulf Atlas as a tool to locate the nearest f ield, license boundary sites, and identify ownership. “Since most of our staff in the Gulf are not advanced GIS users, Atlas becomes our front porch as far as utilizing our GIS data and bringing it to people in a space where they can feel comfortable creating web maps on their own for the first time,” Heider continued.
 

After launch, OneGulf Atlas grew to several hundred users, with regular monthly engagement. The users of the app support Shell’s work in planning, emergency response, regulatory compliance, lease sales, and documentation.

For urban planners at Shell, they use the app to look at infrastructure, environmental concerns of an area, legal rights to be in a specific location and take notes, show data points, and share information with other teams and their stakeholders.

“When I joined the Gulf, they weren’t doing things as collaboratively as they could be, and Atlas has really helped with that,” explained Heider. “You don’t have to be a GIS professional to use Atlas; you just have to be able to turn on and off layers and add in trusted data.”  For emergency management staff inside Shell, Atlas gives those professionals the opportunity to work within an internal common operating picture.

“Working with Robert and Atlas was a great experience,” said Paola Santoli, principal benchmarking analyst for deepwater development at Shell. “In a short time, we could visualize complex data, enabling the business to perform high-quality analysis and make better decisions.”
 

Because Shell’s staff has seen success in various business divisions, they want to expand the use of Atlas to their play-based exploration team. That work involves taking different geology layers with structural and fluid properties across a large region to determine where oil or other commercially viable products could be. “We’re trying to better understand how fluid moves through the earth,” explained Heider. “This is a very GIS approach, and we have seen this work collaboratively through online maps during COVID-19.”

Additionally, the Geomatics team hopes to add more to their Atlas application in the future. “We know that not everything is in there, so we do have a request process for data curation,” explained Heider. “The best feedback that I’ve gotten from our users is ‘Wow, this is easy to use’…and I don’t usually get a lot of feedback when things are going well.”  “

Rob’s maps continue to evolve and involve more spatial data than ever before,” said Munroe. “The ease by which to add or remove spatial layers for analysis not only transcends geographic boundaries, but also time limitations. It’s a verifiable wealth of data that combines modern tools with historical actions.”