September - October 2007 Issue 8

FireFly wireless seismic - first survey in Wyoming

Automatically cleaning your data

Statoil and Landmark - $13m basin scale reservoir software

September - October 2007 Issue 8

™

Associate Member

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Contents

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Statoil and Landmark- $13m 'basinscale' softwareStatoil and Landmark have agreed to worktogether on a $13m project (investing$6.5m each) to develop new software whichcan be used to model entire basins, not justreservoirs.

Venture's risk analysis softwareWe interviewed North Sea oil and gas com-pany Venture Production about their proj-ect analytics software Primavera Pertmasterto analyse its changing project risk expo-sure for projects

Weighing up the drilling optionsOil and gas companies can weigh up theirdrilling options taking into account eco-nomic and political factors, as well as justengineering factors, using new softwaretools from Schlumberger

Collaborative geophysicsOil and gas software company Paradigm be-lieves it is close to working out how to dowhat other companies just talk about - toenable geophysicists, petrophysicists, androck physicists to plan projects at their on-set and conduct them collaboratively andconcurrently

Input Output - developments withwireless seismic Input Output has completed two projectsfor its new wireless seismic system FireFly, inWyoming and Texas.

Merrick's new data and RFID toolsMerrick Systems of Houston has developedtwo tools, one to bring data from differentsoftware packages onto the same screen,and another to manage surface and down-hole equipment using RFID

Future Fields conference report IQPC's Future Fields conference in Londonin May 2007 included healthy coverage ofhow digital oilfield techniques can improvesurveillance, leading to improved safety; itlooked at how systems can be successfullyintegrated in smaller fields, and the kind ofthings which often go wrong with digitaloilfield installations 14

6September/October 2007 Issue 8

September - October 2007- digital energy journal 1

Landmark and IT infrastructureWe interviewed Haris Rahi, Business Devel-opment Manager for Landmark’s OptimizedComputing Solutions and Services group,about how Landmark is helping oil and gascompanies optimise their IT infrastructures,including data management and disasterrecovery systems.

Automatic data cleaningIntervera of Calgary and Innerlogix of Hous-ton have an interesting new business - au-tomatically cleaning up oil and gas data.

Fast growth for BB VisualBBVisual Group, a group of visualisation andcollaboration technology companies estab-lished in late 2005 reports total annual rev-enues of NOK 30m (USD$5m)

Digital Energy Journal213 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9FJ, UKwww.digitalenergyjournal.comTel +44 (0)207 510 4935Fax +44 (0)207 510 2344

Editor Karl [email protected]

Technical editor/ IT managerKeith [email protected]

Consultant writerTracey Dancy, Paras Consulting

Production, design and circulationKaterina [email protected]

Advertising salesAlec EganTel +44 (0)207 510 [email protected]

Offshore Europe 3D offshore training simulators and achance to compare your ROV flying skillswith the professionals - some of the thingsyou'll find at this year's Offshore Europeexhibition in Aberdeen

Informing you about developments in information technology and communications in the upstream oil andgas industry

Digital Energy Journal is published on print 6 times a year, covering informa-tion technology and communications inupstream oil and gas production,drilling / completions and exploration.

Each issue of Digital Energy Journal ismailed to 2000 oil and gas executives, aswell as distributed at major trade shows

Subscriptions: £GBP 195 a year for 6 is-sues. To subscribe, please contact circula-tion manager Katerina Jeffery on [email protected]. Alternatively you cansubscribe online at www.d-e-j.com

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Front cover - FireFlyhandheld equipmentused in a wirelessseismic survey inWyoming. For moreinformation see page 12.Image Input Output

XTO Energy and Energy XXI sign up toOFS PortalWe talked to OFS's CEO Bill Le Sage about

how he is trying to persuade more

independent oil companies and national oil

companies to transact with their service

providers, and to use PIDX

PPDM - Version 3.8 out shortlyPPDM, the Public Petroleum Data Model As-sociation, will shortly be releasing version3.8 of its data model.We spoke to CEO TrudyCurtis about what it means

Spotfire - analysing dataData analysis tool Spotfire has met a lot ofsuccess in the oil and gas industry, beingused by nearly all oil majors.

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Section - Oil and gas operations

Section - data

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digital energy journal - September - October 20072

News updateEnergistics new chairmanwww.energistics.orgMike Benjamin, vice president of marketingfor Schlumberger Information Services hasbeen selected as the new Energistics chair-man.

Mr Benjamin has 20 years of upstreamoilfield experience having worked forSchlumberger in various roles in Paris andthe US, including director of recruiting,training and employee development world-wide.

He succeeds Jonathan Lewis of Hal-liburton who held the chairmanship for oneyear and will remain on the board.

Also joining Energistics Board is MarkGreene, executive partner in Accenture’s re-sources energy consulting practice.

Statoil - largest computer inScandinavia www.statoil.comStatoil reports that its supercomputer in Sta-vanger, Norway, thought to be the largestcomputer in Scandinavia, is ready for use. Itwill be used by geologists in both Houstonand Stavanger / Trondheim.

The computer has 256 interconnectedservers with 1024 processors, and can exe-cute 12 teraflops per second. It fills 17 racks,with each rack 2m tall, 60cm wide and 80cmdeep.

It has already been used to create seis-mic images of reservoirs beneath salt layersin the Gulf of Mexico, which takes an enor-mous amount of data processing because ofthe complex ways the salt reflects the seis-mic waves.

Shell uses Techsia reservoir softwarewww.techsia.comShell and Techsia have entered a worldwidecooperation agreement to further developand implement Techsia’s petrophysicalreservoir characterisation softwareTechlogC.

TechlogC is a reservoir characterisationsoftware package for analysis and interpre-tation of log and core data. Shell will use theplatform in the office and at the wellsite.

Landmark connects to OpenSpiritwww.openspirit.comLandmark has announced plans to developan adapter to OpenSpirit, which will enableLandmark software to integrate with othersoftware systems which work with Open-Spirit, including GeoFrame (Schlumberger),Recall (Petris), KINGDOM (Seismic Mi-croTechnology), and Petra (GeoPLUS) ap-plications.

The adapter should be available by late

2007. Landmark users will be able to use itsDecisionSpace environment to run softwareapplications side by side from different ven-dors.

Centrilift pump - one year at 190°Cwww.bakerhughes.comBaker Hughes reports that its Centrilift elec-trical submersible pump (ESP) has been run-ning for over a year at temperatures of over190° C (375° F), in a steam assisted gravitydrainage project in Alberta, Canada.

Baker Hughes spent four years devel-oping the pump, designing it to run reliablyat temperatures of up to 220° C (430° F).

WellDynamics and Expro telemetryintegrationwww.welldynamics.comIntelligent wells company WellDynamicshas integrated its technology with Expro In-ternational’s cableless electromagnetic wellcommunications system.

With the Expro system, data can becommunicated through the steel well casingand tubing, so no cables are required.

With the two systems together, cus-tomers will be able to install WellDynamics’well monitoring and control systems, with-out the trouble of installing cable in the well.

AVEVA on world’s largest FPSOwww.aveva.comChevron has selected AVEVA software formanaging critical engineering informationfor the operation of Agbami, which will bethe largest Floating Production, Storage andOffloading unit (FPSO) in the world.

AVEVA’s NET Portal is a web-enabledsolution for integration and collaborative useof engineering information including 3Dmodels, piping and instrumentation dia-grams, schematics, documents and data fromany application.

New Ikon Science staffwww.ikonscience.comIkon Science has appointed Peter Dolan asnon executive chairman. Mr Dolan has pre-viously worked in exploration roles for Mo-bil, Ball & Collins (assimilated into PremierOil) and then as a founder and director of JE-BCO Seismic Ltd.

David Gawith has been appointed prin-cipal geoscientist. Mr Gawith worked for BPfor 25 years in the UK, Europe and the FarEast, and was founder and director of Earth-Models Ltd (later purchased by Ikon Sci-ence) and of G&G Research Ltd.

Dr Pamela Gutteridge joins Ikon Sci-ence as a Principal Geoscientist. Ms Gut-teridge has a B.Sc. in Mathematics and a

PhD in engineering from Imperial College,London, and has worked in the oil industryfor 22 years, initially with BP and subse-quently with RCSquared / Veritas.

JP Kenny uses SIMULIA pipe simulatorhttp://www.simulia.com/Pipeline and subsea engineers JP Kenny hasdecided to use the Simulia software forpipeline design in a number of its West Aus-tralian gas field projects.

The software, produced by DassaultSystèmes, can be used to optimise pipelinedesign and plan for various different scenar-ios such as cyclones.

Ikon Science launches Petrel plug-inwww.ikonscience.comIkon Science has launched a plug-in toSchlumberger’s Petrel reservoir modellingsoftware, as part of its new version 5.2 ofRokDoc.

The plug in is called ‘modelling whilepicking’.

With the RokDoc plugin to Petrel, userscan access the predictive power of rockphysics from within the modern interpreta-tion workflow.

Events can be picked in the Petrel geo-logical model which updates the geophysi-cal 2D RokDoc model in real time.

The impact of changes to either modelby changing pick, pressures, fluids etc canbe realised immediately.

With the plugin interpreters can createinsights, reduce risks and check the validityof their picking decisions.

Apache Corporation uses RokDocwww.ikonscience.comApache Corporation has agreed to use IkonScience’s RokDoc software internationally,following a successful implementation in itsAberdeen offices.

Apache will also be using the RokDoc‘Modelling While Picking’ tool, which al-lows events picked in the Petrel geologicalmodel to automatically update the RokDoc2D geophysical model in real time.

Tigress consolidates Iraqi oil datawww.geotrace.comTigress Software has completed a threemonth project to consolidate large volumesof Iraqi exploration and production data intoa single, manageable database.

Data included maps, geophysical, geo-logical and petrophysical information as wellas engineering and production data.

The data was previously disorganized,which made it impossible to evaluate.

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News updatePetris buys Production Accesswww.petris.comPetris has acquired the software assets ofProduction Access, including its OperationsCenter software, which can be used to man-age drilling / production operations data, andincorporate it into company financial sys-tems.

Petris sees the acquisition as a good fitwith its software portfolio, which altogethernow includes tools for geoscience, drilling,production and pipelines.

BG Energy buys SRO data replicatorwww.srosolutions.netBG Energy in Trinidad has implementedsoftware from SRO Solutions to automati-cally replicate databases onboard its remoteassets.

BG was having problems with its pre-vious system, where the remote assets inter-rogated a central database directly, due to la-tency over the VSAT communication systemand poor response times.

SRO has also installed the system forAtlantic Oil Services, to replicate databasesbetween three rigs and the central databaseat its Amsterdam office.

Roxar markets Geomodelling’s seismicmodelling softwarewww.roxar.comSoftware and metering company Roxar hasmade a deal with Geomodelling Technology,to act as a reseller for its seismic modellingsoftware VisualVoxAt.

Roxar envisages that customers can useVisualVoxAt to draw rock layer maps fromseismic data, together with Roxar’s reservoirmodelling software IRAP RMS, its historymatching / uncertainty estimation softwareEnABLE, and its reservoir simulation toolTempest.

eProduction new WellFlo versionwww.ep-solutions.comeProduction Solutions, part of Weatherford,has launched version 4.0 of its WellFlo wellengineering software.The new version is designed to functionmore intuitively, and more closely matchconstructed well models to reality, the com-pany says.

The software is designed to help wellcompletion and production engineers to con-figure, tune, analyse, design and build theirwell systems. It can also be used to modeland analyse electric submersible pumps, gaslift, and inflow / outflow. It can integratewith reservoir modelling software.

Statoil contracts IP network to Orangewww.orange-business.comStatoil has re-contracted Orange BusinessServices to build and manage its internation-al IP network, in a €9.3m contract covering3 years, 40 sites and 23 countries.

It includes both data and telephony, andincludes strict requirements for uptime andperformance.

Orange has been running Statoil’s ITnetwork since 1999 (previously as FranceTelecom). Statoil renewed the contract fol-lowing an open competition which manyother telecoms companies participated in.

SOIL expands to Houston www.oilcamp.comOil and gas communications company Oil-Camp has announced that it is extending itsSecure Oil Information Link (SOIL) serviceto Houston, connecting with the existingSOIL nodes in Stavanger and Aberdeen.

The service can be used for secure dataexchange.

OilCamp’s new parent company,RigNet, is helping it extend the service toHouston; RigNet is headquartered there.

CapRock works with Phoenicia in Libyawww.caprock.comOil and gas VSAT satellite communicationscompany CapRock has formed an alliancewith Libyan business consultancy PhoeniciaGroup. Phoenicia is the sole licensed privatesatellite Internet and telecommunicationsprovider in Libya.

The two companies will work togetherproviding VSAT services to the Libyan oiland gas industry, including VSAT terminalsoff and onshore, network monitoring, andtechnical support.

CorrOcean acquires Roxar www.roxar.comOil and gas monitoring technology companyCorrOcean of Trondheim, Norway, has ac-quired 100 per cent of oil and gas technolo-gy company Roxar of Stavanger, at a priceof NOK 2220m (USD $369m).

Calling the deal an acquisition by Cor-rOcean is perhaps misleading - since beforethe deal CorrOcean had annual revenues ofNOK 152m ($25.3m) compared to Roxar’sNOK 946m ($157m). The acquisition struc-ture is understood to be a method of bring-ing both companies into private hands.

CorrOcean sees itself as the marketleader in subsea sand monitoring, and it seesRoxar as the market leader in subsea multi-phase and wetgas metering, and as such, be-lieves the two companies will make a goodstrategic fit.

AutoTrak used on 11,282m Exxon well www.bakerhughes.comBakerHughes INTEQ reports that its Auto-Trak drilling system has been used on thelongest well in the world according to meas-ured depth (length of the well).

The well, located on Sakhalin-1 (off theEast Coast of Russia), is 11,282m long, andwas drilled by ExxonMobil. It will be oper-ated by Exxon Neftegas Ltd (ENL).

AutoTrak is a complete electronics sys-tem for drilling, including measuring whiledrilling, logging while drilling, and drillbitdirection control.

Qinetiq’s in-well gravity gradiometer www.qinetiq.comUK defence and security technology compa-ny QinetiQ is developing a 3D gravity sen-sor called Scorpius which will work at thebottom of oil and gas wells, anticipated to beready for deployment in 2008.

It will measure changes in gravity overtime and distance, which can help indicatewhere hydrocarbons are and how fast theyare being drained.

It has been given a contract to developthe sensor by Gravitec Downhole Instru-ments Ltd, a joint venture between GravitecInstruments Ltd and Shell Technology Ven-tures Fund 1 BV (itself managed by KendaCapital BV).

The gravity sensor will be an adapta-tion of Gravitec’s gravity gradiometer foruse in oil and gas downhole. This gradiome-ter was considered the only one which wassmall enough and sensitive enough to workat the bottom of wells.

QinetiQ envisages that if the gradiome-ter works successfully, it should provide animpetus for further development of the sen-sor for static surface monitoring of reservoirsand airborne surveying.

Input/Output permanent subseamonitoring venturewww.i-o.comInput Output has formed a joint venture withHydro Technology Ventures (part of oil andgas company Hydro) and Reservoir Innova-tion AS to develop permanent subsea fullwave seismic monitoring systems.

The system will enable geoscientists tosee how the seismic response changesover time (4D seismic).

Sign up to our free e-mail newsletter atwww.d-e-j.com for the latest news in your inbox every monday

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News update Subsurface

It will be possible to use the software forlarge scale, basin exploration activities, evenin areas as large as half of Russia.

Altogether, the software will be forbasin modelling, seismic processing / mod-elling, seismic prestack analysis, and strati-graphic (rock layer) modelling.

Statoil will use the software, and Land-mark will have rights to resell it to other oiland gas companies. The software develop-ment will last 3 years.

Statoil is keen to reach what it describesas a ‘distinctive exploration technology po-sition,’ being able to do things with explo-ration technology better than other compa-nies.

John Reidar Granli, vice president ofexploration research and development forStatoil, says that the software tool should bea catalyst for helping the company developnew workflows (ways for people to work to-gether).

At the moment, Statoil has specialistsin areas such as gravity magnetics, seismicprocessing, seismic modeling, seismic depth

conversion, seabed logging, structural mod-eling, hydrocarbon maturation / migration,geochemistry and source rock models.

Helping them work together better willenable Statoil to get more out of their expert-ise, he says. It will also make remote collab-oration work better. “It is about de-siloingthe way we work,” he says.

Mr Reidar Granli believes that the newsoftware should make it more intuitive forpeople to find the data they want, and also itwill make it easier to integrate geophysical

data with other data, which he calls the ‘con-ceptual stuff’.

It should also stimulate more interac-tion between specialists and operational peo-ple.

“This will provide us with a toolbox tobetter integrate geophysical data,” he says.By looking at the basin as a whole, they willbe able to factor in knowledge about the en-tire basin and how it was formed, and howtemperature and porosity varies across it, hesays.

Ultimately it will provide a better “fi-nal outcome on business resources and risk,”he says. “We’re driving exploration technol-ogy to new heights.”

The software will be built using Land-mark’s DecisionSpace software framework.DecisionSpace can be used to run many dif-ferent software applications and databasesside by side. This is the “most ambitious useof DecisionSpace to date,” says Chris Usher,senior director of Decisionspace and inno-vative technologies at Landmark.

Statoil has been working with Land-mark for many years, and they have also col-laborated on developing a pre-stack interpre-tation tool. Landmark has done similar jointsoftware development projects with BP andConocoPhillips.

However Landmark says this is thelargest single joint project it has ever done.

“Landmark has a rich history of collab-oration with Statoil,” says Peter Bernard,senior vice president of business develop-ment and marketing with Halliburton.

Landmark will set up ‘rich dedicatedteams’ to focus on different areas of the soft-ware development, he says.

LandmarkLandmark sees developing basin-wide soft-ware as a gap in the market.

It hopes that the software will becomeas much an industry standard for basin-widemodeling as Schlumberger’s Petrel is forreservoir modeling.

[Basin modeling] “is a part of the work-flow that’s never really benefited from inte-grated software,” says Mr Usher.

“We believe a basin scale system hasbeen neglected. We thought - there’s a mar-

Statoil and Landmark - $13m 'basinscale' software development projectIn possibly the largest ever joint software development deals in the oil and gas industry, Statoil andLandmark have agreed to work together on a $13m project (investing $6.5m each) to develop newsoftware which can be used to model entire basins, not just reservoirs

ket that’s waiting.”Landmark is very pleased to be able to

develop its software working so closely withStatoil. “They’ll give you access to peoplein a focused way,” he says. “You have ahuge user base.”

However Landmark will not specifi-cally develop the software for Statoil’sneeds; it will have one eye on Statoil and theother eye on selling it in the open market toother customers.

Statoil will get a significant commer-cial advantage from being so involved in thesoftware at its early stages, Mr Usher says.“They will get a user base faster than every-body else.”

A basin model is essentially a reservoirmodel which is much larger and more com-plex. “We see there’s a continuum betweenreservoir scale and basin scale models. Atthe heart of it will be the same stuff,” MrUsher says.

However the basin simulator reveals alot more about how the oil has migratedover time, which is a very important factorin building up the overall picture. “So it’s alittle bit different,” he says.

Landmark expands services businessMeanwhile Landmark is on a move to getinto more services businesses and consult-ing.

The underlying philosophy is some-thing like this: Landmark will offer serviceslooking after oil companies’ ‘digital assets’,equivalent to the services its parent compa-ny, Halliburton, offers, to look after theirphysical assets.

“We’re thinking about Landmark nowholistically at the asset level, and being ableto produce the asset in real time,” says JorgeEstrada,

Landmark regional general managerEurope-Eurasia at Halliburton.

“We’re doing integrated reservoir stud-ies - helping them produce the reservoirsfaster,” he says. “We’re integrating from thereservoir to the production facility.”

It has also established a line sellinghardware, distributing systems from Dell,Sun and HP, to help its customers optimisetheir system.

“The most ambitious use of DecisionSpace todate” - Chris Usher, senior director ofDecisionspace and innovative technologiesat Landmark

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News update

Offshore Europe, held this year in Aberdeenon Sept 4-7, is one of the world’s largest oiland gas exhibition and conferences with ananticipated 32,000 attendees and 1400 ex-hibitors.

Speakers in the plenary session will in-clude Malcolm Brinded, executive directorE&P with Shell; David Lesar, president andCEO, Halliburton; Robert Olsen, chairmanand production director, ExxonMobil; andFrank Chapman, chief executive of BGGroup.

Technical papers which might be of in-terest to Digital Energy Journal readers in-clude using artificial intelligence to predictthe relative permeability of carbonate reser-voirs (Saudi Aramco); reservoir historymatching (Scandpower); surveillance of theDraugen Field (Shell); using geochemicalfingerprinting for production allocation in asubsea tieback (Shell), cradle to grave fieldmaintenance (BP); surveillance and loggingfor brownfield optimisation (Shell / Schlum-berger); powered rotary steerable drilling(Schlumberger / Nexen).

In the exhibition, there will be a special‘Intelligent Energy’ Zone with exhibitorswith new IT products.

This is our preview of some of the ex-citing IT and comms technology on display.

Aclaro Softworkswww.aclaro.comAclaro Softworks will exhibit its enterprisebusiness solutions for the petroleum indus-

try, including tools for common data naviga-tion, data integration, analysis, charting andreporting, reserves reporting, budgeting,planning, capital allocation, financial report-ing and performance monitoring.

Aclaro has offices in Houston and Cal-gary and over 50 clients in North and SouthAmerica, Europe, and Africa, from small in-dependent to super-major.Stand 1650 - Intelligent Energy Zone

AVEVAwww.aveva.comEngineering IT company AVEVA will launchits AVEVA PDMS 12 three dimensionalplant design software software at OffshoreEurope.

The software is designed to help differ-ent project teams work together on the samedesign, even if they are in different places.

Aveva oil and gas clients include AkerKvaerner, BP, Chevron, CNOOC OffshoreOil Engineering, ExxonMobil, Petrofac, Sin-gle Buoy Moorings and Shell.Stand 1351

Caprockwww.caprock.comSatellite communications company Caprockwill exhibit its desktop videoconferencingequipment, enabling clients to hold videoconferences over satellite links from theirdesktop, using IP connectivity. Stand 715

Deloittewww.deloitte.comDeloitte will exhibit its digital oilfield offer-ings, in particular its Advanced Collabora-tive Environments to enable experts to worktogether remotely.

It has assisted BP to re-organise its on-shore operations, to provide real time sup-port to its offshore assets.Stand 1601 - Intelligent Energy Zone

Diamouldwww.diamould.comDiamould will exhibit its electrical, fibre op-tic and hydraulic connectors for subsea anddownhole environments.

Items on show include medium andhigh-power ROV-mateable connectors andumbilical cable terminations. Stand 1231

Energy Institute / Energyzonewww.energyinst.org.ukThe Energy Institute will exhibit Energy-zone, an online service developed togetherwith Total to help young people learn moreabout careers in the energy industry, includ-ing oil and gas and renewable energy.

It will explain the different economic,technical, scientific and political careersavailable.Stand 1568

eProduction Solutions / Weatherfordwww.eproductionsolutions.comeProduction Solutions will exhibit its laserwater cut meter, Red Eye 2G which canmeasure the range of oil and water concen-tration in a commingled stream, by examin-ing how well the fluid absorbs infra red light.It can work for any oil water mixture (0 to100 per cent water).

It replaces the company’s previous RedEye Water-Cut Meter, which worked well athigh water cut levels, but not so well at low-er water cut levels.

The 2G model can take lower water cutmeasurements because it can simultaneouslymeasure multiple wavelengths that includeboth water and oil absorbent peaks.

It will also exhibit its multiphase me-tering solution, and control panels.Stand 46

Offshore Europe preview3D offshore training simulators and a chance to compare your ROV flying skills with the professionals -some of the things you’ll find at this year’s Offshore Europe exhibition in Aberdeen

32,000 people are expected at this year’s Offshore Europe in Aberdeen. Picture taken 2005

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September - October 2007 - digital energy journal 9

News update

ExtronicsUK supplier of intrinsically safe and explo-sion proof equipment Extronics will exhibitits USB digital camera for use in hazardousareas (right),which the com-pany believes isthe smallest de-vice of its kindon the market.

It is de-signed to beuseful for sitesurveys, acci-dent reports andmaintenance re-porting, becauseit can be easilycarried in thepocket.

The cam-era is certified for use in Zone 1 hazardousareas, and can take 2.0 megapixel images. Ithas a 256 mb storage capacity (400 pictures).It weighs 50g.

Extronics will also exhibit its data log-ger, which can work in a hazardous environ-ment powered by a battery, and upload datato a central server wirelessly, using GSM orGPRS. It has a battery life of around 3 years.It has three analogue inputs and three digitalinputs.

It will also exhibit its wireless commu-nications technology, which can communi-cate using 802.11 protocol.Stand 890

Flir Systemswww.flir.comFlir Systems will exhibit its thermal imagingcameras, which can be used to spot problemsin oil and gas equipment. It will show itsGasFind infra red gas leak detector (see be-low) which can detect gas leaks much fasterthan with traditional methods, the companysays. It can detect small leaks from severalmetres away and big leaks from hundreds ofmetres away, and scan over 3,000 processconnections per hour.

It will also exhibit its ThermaCAM

p640 heat camera, which has a 640 x 320pixel detector, giving an image resolutionfour times bigger than the standard 320 x240 model. This means the operator cantake a picture twice as far away without anyloss of accuracy.Stand 1243

General Roboticswww.generalrobotics.co.ukUK subsea simulator company General Ro-botics will launch two new products at Off-shore Europe, a visualisation module and alive data module.

The visualisation module will allowfast animation and clash checking.

The live data module provides realtime monitoring and 3D visualisation of off-shore equipment, using data from live datafeeds.

At its stand, you will be able to watchsubsea equipment in action, using real datafrom vessels working offshore.

Visitors to the stand will be able to try

flying a remote operated vehicle (ROV)themselves (see above). There will be a dai-ly prize and certificate for the pilot whoshows the best natural talent at a simulatedmission.

Professional ROV pilots will also beable to compete but for a separate prize.Stand 839

HRH Geological Serviceswww.hrhgeology.comHRH Geological Services will exhibit itsGravitas Software System, launched in2006, which can be used to gather well in-formation in a central database in real time,so that users can create reports, charts andlogs.

It will also exhibit its new HRHGeostream Service, where HRH employstrained geologists on the rig to interpret the

Gravitas data, and send their interpretationsback to the oil company operations geologiston shore.Stand 215

ICS Triplexwww.icstriplex.comAutomation company ICS Triplex willlaunch a new safety control system, designedto offer greater levels of choice and flexibil-ity.

It is the result of many years of researchto develop the shortcomings of existing safe-ty and control systems, the company says.

ICS Triplex will have a restaurant at itsstand, where visitors can meet celebrity chefAntony Worrall Thompson.Stand E4

It Buddies Ltdwww.itbltd.co.uk IT Buddies Ltd of Aberdeen will present itsautomatic risk assessment software for man-ual handling tasks, developed together withBP.

BP has been using the system on its off-shore platforms since 2006.

The software meets government regu-lations for risk assessment, and can replacepaper based systems. The software can alsobe used to share best practises around thecompany, and have an auditable trail that thishas been done.

The company also provides competen-cy systems support, general skills trainingand IT skills training.Stand 1138

Lios Technologywww.lios-tech.comLIOS Technology will exhibit its permanentdownhole temperature monitoring (DTS,Distributed Temperature Sensing) and com-munications system.

In the well, LIOS installs a fibre optictemperature monitor, which can be more re-liable and cheaper than conventional elec-tronic temperature monitoring systems.

Data can be communicated to the officeusing a variety of different data protocols,including DNP3, IEC60870-5, WITSML,and Modbus (Master/Slave) protocols, andproprietary systems. It can communicatewith SCADA systems and talk to differentsystems at the same time.

There is a data storage unit, which au-tomatically stores data if the communicationlink is broken. It can store 72 hours of data.Once the link is re-established, the commu-

Practise flying a remote operated vehicleusing General Robotics’ simulator

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10 digital energy journal - September - October 2007

Oil and gas operations

nication automatically restarts. Stand 1493 G -German Pavilion

Phenomaticswww.phenomatics.comPhenomatics of Austria will launch its virtu-al reality training simulator (shown below),

which can be used to put trainees in chal-lenging situations they might encounter onan offshore oil installation, so they can prac-tise how to deal with them, so they are pre-pared if they encounter the same situation inreal life.

Phenomatics has created a virtual off-shore scenario, and a virtual refinery, whichpeople can try out.

Uses wear 3D goggles - they have a dif-ferent picture for each eye, so the user seesthings in three dimensions, and can feel likehe/she is actually inside the facility, not justviewing it on a screen.

The system is already used as part ofregular training at a refinery in Schwechat,Austria.Stand 1431

PiSYSwww.pisys.co.ukAberdeen company PiSYS will exhibit itsmultipurpose training simulator for the oiland gas industry.

The simulator is used widely in theNorth Sea and elsewhere around the worldfor training control room operators and Off-shore Installation Managers (OIMs), helpingthem experience a variety of different reallife emergencies without any actual risk tolife or equipment.

The company recently delivered one ofits largest systems to SENAI Brazil andPetrobras, to train rig and FPSO controlroom operators, with a system which puts thetrainee inside a control room mounted on amoving platform, so the trainee can feel themovement from wind and sea, collisions, vi-brations, temperature changes and commu-nication systems.Stand 215

[email protected] will launch its computer aideddesign (CAD) / project management tool forcompletion engineering and management. Itwill help create multi-lateral and multi-zonedesigns. The software enables effective andco-ordinated collaborative working, includ-ing engineering, accounting, procurementand management personnel.

There are also completion specific 2Dand 3D CAD design tools and drag, fluid dy-namics and nodal analysis models.

The software is designed by completionengineers & project managers, for comple-tion engineers, the company says, and aimsto remove the frustrations and inefficienciesof working with the many uncoordinatedsoftware packages that are currently requiredto design a complex modern completion sys-tem.Stand 1625 - Intelligent Energy Zone

RoxarSoftware and metering company Roxar willdemonstrate what it can do having recentlyjoined forces with Norwegian monitoringequipment company CorrOcean.

The combined company has 800 staffand 28 offices, with expected turnover of$180m. It claims to be the world’s largestprovider of subsea instrumentation to the oiland gas industry.

At Offshore Europe Roxar will exhibitits subsea multiphase meter. It recently se-cured a US patent for the meter’s subsea re-trievable canister, following extensive test-ing with ExxonMobil. If the electronics failthey can be easily replaced, without replac-ing the entire meter.

Roxar will demonstrate its oil in watermonitor, which can provide informationabout the amount of sand and oil in water,using ultrasonic pulse echoes. This monitoris used on Statoil’s Sleipner A North Seaplatform to monitor overboard discharge.

CorrOcean will exhibit its subsea pres-sure and temperature sensors. CorrOceanproduces silicon piezoresistive sensorswhich can measure pressure and temperaturefrom the same measurement bridge.Stand 940

Sensornetwww.sensornet.co.ukSensornet will exhibit its Digital Flow Pro-filing solution which can be used to monitorthe flow distribution in production and in-jection wells in real time.

The permanently installed Pseudo PLTsystem is particularly useful when monitor-ing the affect of changes to production andinjection.

It can provide information which is of-ten not accessible when using productionlogging technology, the company says.

Sensornet will also exhibit its forth-coming Oryx DTS (Distributed TemperatureSensor). This compact surface monitoringunit has a low power consumption and worksin a wide temperature range, so it can beused in harsh environments. Stand 1615 - Intelligent Energy Zone

SpecTecwww.spectec.netSpecTec will exhibit its AMOS BusinessSuite management software for oil and gasassets, with modules for maintenance man-agement, asset control, spare parts control,purchasing, budget, documentation control,procedures control and staff management.

The software is installed in over 600 oiland gas sites, including Italy, Norway, Rus-sia, Libya Nigeria, Congo, Kazakhstan, Aus-tralia, China. Oil and gas customers includeSaipem, AGIP, SBM, Western Petroleum,Upstream Petroleum, BP, NGSCO, NYKand Bergesen. SpecTec has 23 offices in 18countries.Stand 894

Spotfirewww.spotfire.comSpotfire will exhibit its DecisionSite enter-prise analytics software, which can be usedto analyse oil company data.

The software can display the results vi-sually, so they can be immediately under-stood.

The software can be used in many as-pects of E&P business.

Typical areas the software might beused include seismic acquisition design, loganalysis, attribute analysis, 4D trends, basinmodeling, petrophysical and core analyses,reservoir engineering, production optimisa-tion, lost time drilling production analysis,supply chain, contractor performance, QHSEStand 1631 - Intelligent Energy Zone

Well Dynamicswww.welldynamics.comWell Dynamics plans to celebrate the 10thanniversary of intelligent well completionsat Offshore Europe, a technology the com-pany claims to have introduced. It will haveanniversary cake at its stand.

It will exhibit its broad complement ofintelligent well products and services, thatrange from reservoir engineering studies toadvanced completion design, zonal isolationand flow control, reservoir monitoring andsurface digital infrastructure - and of courseits seasoned, professional team.Stand 1605

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11September - October 2007- digital energy journal

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12 digital energy journal - September -


The first FireFlysurvey for BPwas in the plainsof south-centralWyoming, a no-toriously chal-lenging area forexploration andproduction.What are thechallenges facedwhen planning aland seismic sur-vey in this typeof geographicalregion?The Wamsutter field is in an area which isboth environmentally sensitive and archeo-logically significant, so seismic crews areconstrained in the areas in which they canoperate and the manner in which they do so.

Using traditional seismic methods,these 'no-go' areas can lead to the data qual-ity being compromised through an inabilityto access the land in order to deploy sensorsand their associated cables.

Why is cableless technology able to reduceenvironmental impact on seismic surveys onland?By eliminating the cables, we reduce thenumber of people and vehicles that need toaccess the land.

Crews are able to operate in what weterm a "one-touch" mode - once the stationhas been deployed, we only need to return toit one more time, when we pick it up to har-vest the data.

We've eliminated the need for conven-tional surveying, which often requires sur-vey crews to visit the station location morethan once, along with the associated surveymaterials, stakes and flagging, all of whichneeds to be picked up again after the survey.

We spoke to Paul Brettwood, director for FireFly solutions at Input Output, about the first field use of InputOutput's FireFly wireless land seismic technology in Wyoming and Texas, for BP and Apache

Wireless seismic on land - Fireflyabout 235 km2 with around 4,500 shots andan active receiver template of 3,456 three-component receivers. Data from this surveyis still in the early stages of pre-processingbut the initial comments are that the qualityis good with good signal-to-noise ratio.

Can you describe to me how the FireFly'sreal-time surveying works? The source and receiver X /Y coordinatesfrom the initial survey design are loaded in-to the handheld NavTools, (which are essen-tially PocketPC's with integrated GPS re-ceivers), and the layout crews are directedto the precise location where they need todeploy a sensor.

Once the sensor is on the ground, aGPS reading is taken. In this way, the actualX/Y location of the sensor is recorded, ratherthan where it is supposed to be.

At Wamsutter, BP flew a LIDAR [lightdetection and ranging] survey over the proj-ect area, providing a very accurate elevationmodel. Combining this elevation data withthe actual X/Y locations from the GPS read-ing at the sensor allows us to accurately lo-cate the sensor location in 3D space, with-out needing a lot of conventional surveying.

Furthermore, these X/Y/Z coordinatesare combined with the actual seismic dataduring acquisition, saving time and effortand improving accuracy in the processingstage that follows.

How much does FireFly save compared to acable system?As a general rule, cables make up as muchas 80 per cent of the weight of a convention-al system, so eliminating them directly con-tributes to reducing the transportation andmobilisation costs of a seismic crew.

There are also time savings with thissystem: BP saw a reduction of 50 per centin both layout and pickup times at Wamsut-ter based on their previous experience withcable-based systems in the region.

The actual shooting phase showed aneven greater efficiency gain: 10-days withFireFly versus 50-days for a cable system.

Are you planning more commercial tests forFireFly and when are you planning to com-mercialise this technology?Now that the Apache test has been complet-ed, we will be starting to plan the next BPsurvey. We are on-track to bring out the firstcommercial system during Q3 of 2007.

Paul Brettwood,director for Fireflysolutions at InputOutput.

What are the main technological benefits ofFireFly?Perhaps the key one is the scalability of thesystem in terms of the number of stationsthat can be deployed.

Cable-based systems suffer as the sta-tion count goes up, because of the numberof cables involved and the associated weightand telemetry problems. FireFly overcomesthese problems by eliminating cables.

Alongside this is the introduction ofwhat we term an ecosystem of supportingtechnologies which include navigation andpositioning, power-management and dataquality control.

Together with new survey design andprocessing technologies which leverage thedenser image sampling, these technologiesresult in fewer people being used to deploythe system (thereby reducing cost and health,safety and environmental exposure), elimi-nating conventional surveying and guaran-teeing data integrity, which in turn reducesthe effort required in the processing centre.These factors significantly reduce the totalcycle-time of a given project.

How much data was acquired in the two sur-veys? Do you have any results on the quali-ty of the data acquired? The Wamsutter survey area covered about72 km2 and comprised 7,200 shots intoabout 8,500 three-component digital sensors.This gave a dataset with between 5 and 24-times the fold coverage than all the other sur-veys in the area. BP reports that the initialresults of the fast-track processing are veryencouraging. Whilst the survey was shot pri-marily to record better P-wave data, the con-verted-wave data looks very good.

The Apache Upshur survey covered

Installing FireFly wireless seismic devicesWireless seismic units which fit in a backpack- await deployment

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Merrick Systems of Houston has developedan innovative software tool which can bringdata from different data sources and softwareapplications and put it on one screen.

It has been called “One VirtualSource,” a reference to the way it can makedata from different sources look like it allcomes from the same source.

The tool was developed by Jose Al-varez, now CTO of Merrick, who was work-ing on the project for three years as his ownprivate project before joining the company.

The company claims that it can workwith almost any data source or software. Itdoes not disturb or duplicate the data fromany existing systems or applications, anddoes not need any modifications to the ex-isting infrastructure.

The data analysis tools present in thevarious software packages can still be used,even if they are analysing data from a differ-ent software package.

Customers are using it to visualise largeamounts of data, and streamline and auto-mate engineering workflows.

The system has been used for work-flows including model based real time opti-misation of an offshore platform; unattendedsurveillance by exception; assisted wellboreand production network modelling; produc-tion deferment tracking; model based pro-duction test validation; and multi-variate op-portunity rankings.

One popular use is for generating “elec-tronic well files” (see image). These are re-ports containing all of the relevant informa-tion about the well, including petrophysical,production, and pressure data, as well asrecorded events, hyperlinks to external doc-uments, logs, Excel spreadsheets, and mod-els.

If additional information is requiredfrom any of the underlying applications, hy-perlinks also provide the capability to launchany of these applications in context.

All of these workflows were developedat a customers’ site, to comply with the op-erator’s specified best practices.

So far Merrick has conducted three pi-lots for major and international oil compa-nies, in some of the largest fields in theworld.

“We respect whatever the company isusing in terms of databases and applica-tions,” says Philippe Flichy, vice president

of business development with Merrick. “Weare only providing the glue between them.”

“We’re creating a kind of window intodifferent data sources and software applica-tions at once.”

RFIDA second new Merrick product line is fittingRFID (radio frequency identification) tagsonto oil and gas equipment in order to knowwhere your equipment is at all times, what itis, how it is used and how you can make bet-ter use of it.

It provides primary data capture ofcomponents used while drilling wells and in-terfaces to 3rd party visualization and engi-neering optimisation applications. It savestime on drilling rigs while reducing risk andextending drilling capabilities.

The flagship rig-site application iscalled ‘Rig-Hand’ and is led by a drilling ex-pert on Merrick’s staff, Ian Binmore.

Merrick’s RFID tags are the onlyproven tags able to withstand the harsh con-ditions downhole; including high heat, vibra-tion and pressure.

Basic information about the downholecomponents used are typically still trackedtoday by pencil and paper, a time consuming

and error prone approach that frequentlycauses serious problems to drilling opera-tions.

Many times service companies and op-erators do not even accurately known wherevaluable components are located when theyare sudden. Rig-Hand and Tool-Hand RFIDsystems will greatly benefit both servicecompanies and operators to maximise theuse of their assets.

Primary physical information aboutpipe, such as dimensions, strength, and loca-tion in the drillstring can also be combinedtogether with other data, for example, thewellbore geometry or the fluids used to drillthe well, the hook load and pipe rotationspeed.

This enables numerous sophisticatedengineering optimisations to take place innear real-time, extending the capabilities ofdrilling and reducing costs.

Rig-Hand may even be able to reducethe number of very expensive catastrophicdrill string failures that occur too, becauseyou can record how much stress the pipe hasbeen under for all the different times it hasbeen used. This enables operators to proac-tively recognise at what point a componentis more likely fail inside the well.

Merrick’s data and RFID toolsMerrick Systems of Houston has developed two tools, one to bring data from different software packagesonto the same screen, and another to manage surface and downhole equipment using RFID

Merrick’s software can draw “Electronic well files” - reports containing all of the relevantinformation about the well, including petrophysical, production, and pressure data, as well asrecorded events, hyperlinks to external documents, logs, Excel spreadsheets, and models.drawing data from different software packages

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Future Fields conference report

Eric Heijnsbroek, TAQA

Eric Heijnsbroek, director of Abu Dhabi Na-tional Energy Company (“TAQA”)’s Sea-horse Project, spoke at IQPC’s Future Fieldsconference about his experience using digi-tal oilfield tools on TAQA’s exploration andproduction assets in the Netherlands.

The digital oilfield was actually begunwhile the assets were in the hands of theirprevious owners, BP. They were sold toTAQA in early 2007.

Production at the field is very much indecline; in fact TAQA was more interestedin buying BP Nederland’s storage terminalsthan its offshore operations, because it want-ed to build up its position as a storage termi-nal operator.

However TAQA is continuing BP’s ef-forts to try to use digital oilfield techniquesto get as much out of the fields as possible.

TAQA now reckons that its digitaloilfield efforts are earning Eur 500,000 peryear by increased production.

It has already managed to bring manyoffshore personnel to work in shore offices.This enables them to have a much betterhome life, and work standard 8 hour shiftsinstead of the 12 hour shifts normal on off-shore oil platforms.

This has allowed many personnel tostart building up a normal social life. Theidea of having a social life when you areworking 12 hour shifts offshore is a myth,Mr Heijnsbroek said; you are rarely able togo out in the evening the same time as your

friends want to. The field was operated by 100 staff; so

far the number has been reduced by 5, al-though the company believes it may be pos-sible to reduce it by 12.

In the onshore collaboration centre, ithas a team of 6 staff from offshore, 3 staffwith onshore, and 1 external person. Theywork onshore and offshore in rotation. Whenthey are onshore, they work 8 hour shifts;when they work offshore, they work 2 weekson and 3 weeks off.

Tactics for encouraging staff to use col-laboration centres included concentrating onthe things which staff would like to get fromit, not the things they don’t like; and alsoworking first of all with staff you think willlike using the centre, not staff you think willhate it.

Mr Heijnsbroek stressed the impor-tance of being very sensitive when you aretalking about demanning anything. Compa-nies often use the word ‘demanning’ whenthey mean moving people from offshore jobsto shore jobs, but employees may not recog-nise this.

“If you say the ‘demanning’ word,some people start to detest everything youdo,” he said. “Demanning is terrible is some-one loses his job, but great if he gets a betterjob he can enjoy.”

BP Netherlands first started thinkingabout remote operations after its experiencetrying to bring an asset manager into the of-fice, Mr Heijnsbroek explained. The manag-er had managed to wire up the platforms sohe could control them from his laptop. Thisled BP thinking, why don’t we do everythingthis way, so we don’t need so many staff onthe rigs?

One important step has been to stream-line the alarms, and make sure the unneces-sary alarms are deactivated, he said.

Mr Heijnsbroek said that people hadasked him why he was putting so much ef-fort into making it possible for staff to man-age production platforms onshore. “Peoplesaid to me, why are you doing this, youcould just do your job for 2 years and getpromoted. Why take this additional step?”

Ronald CramerRonald Cramer, senior advisor, Shell GlobalSolutions US Inc. in Houston, presented a

picture of the benefits that digital oilfieldtools can provide, from a safety, surveillanceand optimization point of view.

“For me the biggest benefit is technicalintegrity,” he said. “If real time informationcan be used to spot something untoward intime to pre-empt a major incident, the sav-ings in human exposure to risk and equip-ment damage may be incalculable.”

Mr. Cramer suggested that the data inmonitoring systems should be regularly re-viewed for near misses, rather than only ex-amining the evidence after an accident hasactually occurred. It is not uncommon in in-cident investigations, to discover that therewas data available which could have enabledoperators to detect something was goingwrong and to have taken action to preventthe accident.

Productivity benefits are also interest-ing. “If you can find out about a problemsooner and fix it sooner, you’re getting moreoil,” he said.

The extent of production increase byeffective use of real time data correlates toprior production efficiency – application toefficient operations results in modest gains,application to less efficient operations canresult in very significant gains.

It is important to let users articulate theproblems they are having, be clear exactlywhat problems they are trying to solve, andthen work out precisely where automationcan contribute to the problem, and build sys-tems accordingly, he said.

A common mistake is to “bite-off morethan you can chew”, on the assumption that

IQPC's Future Fields conference in London in May 2007 covered how digital oilfield techniques canimprove surveillance, leading to improved safety; it looked at how systems can be successfully integratedin smaller fields, and the kind of things which often go wrong with digital oilfield installations

Helping rig personnel to start building asocial life - Eric Heijnsbroek, director of AbuDhabi National Energy Company (“TAQA”)’sSeahorse Project

Real time information could prevent amajor incident - Ronald Cramer, senioradvisor, Shell Global Solutions

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MODELING SIMULATION WELL & COMPLETIONINTERPRETATION PRODUCTION & PROCESS www.roxar.com

UNCERTAINTY

flows guide users through process activities,requesting user decisions (eg approve / donot approve) and triggers actions, he said.

It is important to consider carefullywhether it is worthwhile building a guidedworkflow tool.

Mr Milligan suggests that they workwell for repeated processes which involveseveral members of staff; and the processesdo not have to be one day long, they can beas long as a year long.

Building guided workflows can be par-ticularly good for document management, hesaid.

One potential pitfall is overkill onworkflow. “Don’t guide people through theireveryday work,” he said. “You don’t need toprescribe every action of every day.”

Guided workflow does not work wellin intense data analysis, and monitoring realtime data. “Surveillance does not need guid-ed workflow,” he said.

Mr Milligan cautioned against keepingprocesses too rigid. “You don’t always knowwhat the process needs will be, or where it’sgoing to end up at,” he said.

Mr Milligan also suggested that youshould see the process as a gradual transfor-mation, rather than change the way the en-tire company operates.

“It’s better to roll out the entire process

workflow tools for the oil and gas industry.Most of us are familiar by now with a

guided workflow tool - like when we booktickets on the internet or apply for a loan, thesoftware takes us through a series of stepswhile we answer questions and input details.

All the time, the software is connectingwith other databases; for example a userdatabase which has information about us;different databases of what flights are avail-able; and the bank database which tells thesystem if we have money in our account.

Most of the time we are using work-flow software we are not really aware of it(we just think about the form we are fillingin), and this is very important, Mr Milligansays. “If the user doesn’t know its guidedworkflow, we’ve done our job well.”

In the oil and gas industry, the work-

the more you have the better it will be. “Peo-ple sometimes don’t spend enough time dis-tilling and refining the basic requirements,”he said.

It is also important to maximise thecommodity and minimise the specialty.Keeping the specialist stuff to a minimumreduces cost and implementation time. Andif you can’t measure something, rememberthat you may be able to estimate it, he said.

During his talk, Mr Cramer led effortsto establish a joint industry/academia forumto establish safety and technical integritystandards/benchmarks in digital oil field ap-plications.

Greg Milligan, SAIC Greg Milligan, senior consultant with SAIC,spoke about how his company is developing

Attentive delegates at IQPC's Future Fields conference in London in May

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It has been dormant for 22 years. Thefield was previously drilled by Occidental,but 22 years ago they did not have access totoday’s seismic technology, and did not hitany of the reservoirs.

However Addax managed to produce it,with first oil on March 2nd 2005 and maxi-mum production since then of 43,800 barrelsof oil per day.

Addax made use of the best availablemodern tools. It began by doing a 3D seis-mic survey, and put together a 3D model us-ing Petrel.

One problem was that the Nigeria oiland gas authorities have not approved oilproduction from different reservoirs beingco-mingled, so Addax has installed slidingsleeves in its wells, which allow oil from in-dividual zones to be kept separate. The slid-ing sleeves an be remotely operated, toswitch production from different zones onand off.

The oil production is gathered in an FP-SO (floating production storage and offload-ing vessel), and the sliding sleeves are oper-ated from here.

Now Addax is experimenting with geo-chemical fingerprinting to identify howmuch of a multi-zone oil stream comes fromeach zone. “The authorities are yet to fullyaccept this technology,” he said.

On the FPSO, the oil and gas in pro-duction streams are separated, and the gas isre-injected.

Lee Cross, SAS Lee Cross, director of global energy practisewith software giant SAS, spoke about theidea of doing statistical analysis on data toidentify patterns. The beauty of this methodis that the computer does not need to haveany understanding of what the data means.



to a few select users then slowly add on usersas you feel more comfortable, adjust theprocess as you move forward,” he said.

SAIC is still managing all of the proj-ects it has implemented so far. “We have notyet handed over administration of the sys-tem to an oil company - we’re always twosteps away,” he said.

Guided workflows are particularlyhelpful for jobs where staff change positionregularly; they make it clear to people whatthey are expected to do.

“The tasks and processes we capturecan coach and help them on the job,” hesays. “It helps them work through what theyare supposed to be doing.”

A good workflow system can also givepeople tips when they are stuck, he said.

Prof Nikolaou, University of Houston

Dr. Michael Nikolaou, associate professorchemical engineering at the University ofHouston, said that the purpose of collabora-tive technology is letting users have all thedata they need at any time to make informeddecisions, and the components of this are da-ta acquisition, visualisation, data processing,decision making and decision implementa-tion, he said.

The benefits of doing this are that peo-ple can have a better social life, interact witheach other more, and you can make betteruse of a decreasing number of experts, hesaid.

The standard problem with collabora-tive technology is that it is driven by engi-neers, who love making changes; but sys-tems are used by operators, who hatechanges like nothing else.

The criteria for a successful adoptionof collaborative technology include “a will-ingness to take a risk, technical backbone, amix of short and long term business objec-

tives, time, visibility and measurement, in-volvement,” he said.

Real time does not necessarily mean ina split second. “It can be decade to decadeand still real time,” he said. “Optimising anentire operation is so complex and youcouldn’t do it second by second.”

Dr Nikolaou said that people should notfeel that they have to implement every pieceof new technology and encourage colleaguesto do the same. To illustrate his point, heasked conference delegates how many ofthem had upgraded their PCs to Vista (notincluding ones who had purchased a new PCwith Vista) and none of them had. “Doingnothing is an extremely competitive idea,”he said.

For example, at today’s technology lev-els, it may still be sensible not to opt for mul-tiphase flowmeters operating continuously,in every well. “People say - we do not havereliable multiphase flowmeters we can usein real time. They are expensive,” he said.“Most people measure multiphase flow oncea month.”

There are still plenty of unfulfilledpromises from technology, including that ex-pert systems will replace the need for ex-perts, and neural networks can learn any-thing.

Prof Nikolaou dismissed ideas thatpeople in the oil and gas industry are conser-vative. “People in oil and gas industry havea ‘can do’ attitude. They say, I want to makethis work. They may be risk adverse. Butthere’s reason to be risk adverse - you haveto make sure it works. Frankly I have onlypraise for the people in this industry,” hesaid.

Professor Nikolaou presented some ofthe experiences of the refining industry,which has been doing real time decisionmaking since the 1950s, although they took10 to 15 years before they could fully do re-al time optimisation. People originallyplanned to get all the available data anddump it into a huge computer, but then de-cided this was a bit too ambitious and lookedinstead for ways to split the problem intomanageable chunks.

Tony Ezealkum, Addax Petroleum Tony Ezealkum, asset manager with AddaxPetroleum in Nigeria, spoke about his expe-riences looking for technology to automateOkwori field, a relatively small field off-shore Nigeria.

The field is complex to produce, withover 100 small fault dip closures. The oil-field is 50km away from any other facilityand there is not a great deal of energy avail-able to drive recovery.

Tony Ezealkum, asset manager with AddaxPetroleum in Nigeria

Dr. Michael Nikolaou, associate professorchemical engineering at the University ofHouston

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The computer system builds up an un-derstanding of how the data behaves in nor-mal operation; if the data suddenly starts be-having differently to normal patterns a hu-man can be alerted that something might beup.

Pattern identification techniques havealready been used successfully in many dif-ferent arenas. For example, large investmentbanks continuously analyse share data tolook for patterns. If the data follows a knownpattern in the future, the bank can get a bet-ter idea of which prices are likely to go upand down as the pattern plays out, and invest/ sell accordingly.

Banks also use feed credit card trans-actions through this model, to see if thetransaction fits with the user’s usage pattern,and if it doesn’t, disallow the transaction.

The US Department of Defence usesthe software to try to predict what resourcesit will need for every soldier, by building uppatterns of what resources soldiers haveneeded in the past.

In the oil and gas industry, the systemhas been used by Shell to try to predict whena sanding is about to occur.

The software can analyse well data andlook for changes which typically occur be-fore a sanding. Then next time, when it spotsthe same changes happening, it can alert op-erators that a sanding is about to happen, socorrective action can be taken in time.

Stan de Vries, InvensysStan de Vries, director of industry solutionswith automation and software company In-vensys, spoke about some of the things he

has seen going wrong with digital oilfield in-stallations.

Having made over 170 flights during2006, mainly visiting Invensys digital oil-field installations, Mr de Vries believes heprobably knows more than many peopleabout what makes one good or bad.

The first indication of a poor digital oil-field installation is that it is not being used,

he said. There are plenty of digital oilfieldinstallations which have been installed andnever used, particularly in the North Sea.

The big killers of an investment in dig-ital oilfield are that the system is nottrustable, it isn’t effective, the results aren’teffectively measured, he said.

Many times companies put a lot of ef-fort into developing a system for one asset,and find it can’t easily be adopted in otherareas.

Often, staff are not trained how to usethe system. A good illustration of whatmight happen if people are given tools andnot trained to use them, is like giving chain-saws to lumberjacks for the first time. If theytry to use a chainsaw the same way as theyuse an axe, it doesn’t work and they end upunsatisfied.

Mr de Vries showed an image of peo-ple working in a collaboration centre, butthey were all looking at their own screens,as though they were still working in individ-ual offices. This indicates that the collabora-tion centre has failed, he said.

On the trust issue, Mr de Vries pointedout that if a gauge is only 70 percent reli-able, people will choose not to use it at all.“If you inflict something which people don’ttrust, it’s a failure,” he said.

“Many senior operators spend 40 percent of their time on phone and e-mail. Theysay, I don’t trust the data, but I trust you.”

Another pitfall is to try to enhance in-frastructure before enhancing a workflow.Mr de Vries cited one energy companywhich embarked on a project to implementSCADA across the whole company, andthen requested more funds to take advantageof the infrastructure. “They never got there,”he said.

As an example of a successful installa-tion, in Kazakhstan, oil company KPO im-plemented a real-time back allocation tech-nique, to try to estimate what the productionfrom individual wells was, from the totaloutput flow. “They found they sometimeshad manifold position errors wrong forweeks,” he said.

As another example of a successful in-stallation, Mr de Vries told a story of Total’s23 offshore oil platforms in the Netherlands,where everything is benchmarked, and allwork processes are managed using tem-plates, using safety engineering design.

The production is overseen by just oneperson.

“I wanted to see if one person couldhandle 23 platforms on collaboration cen-tres, and he was calm as anything,” he said.“They fundamentally improved HSE per-formance and improved business perform-ance. There is an enormously high degree of

trust.”Mr de Vries went on to talk about other

challenges the oil and gas industry faces. The median age of people entering the

oil and gas industry is 29; the median age ofpeople leaving the industry is 52. So oil andgas companies should focus on making surethat most day to day work is done by 29 yearolds, and the 52 year old people are workingon continuously improving the processes.

There are plenty further obstacles tosharing production information.

Some countries, including Russia, treatproduction data as a national secret, so thereare complex security rules preventing peo-ple from seeing it. In other countries, peo-ple’s need to see production information canbe considered linked to race, gender and age.

When it comes to preventing accidents,the important thing is to enable people tohave a good understanding of the evolvingconditions. “When people say observe, ori-ent, decide and act, the emphasis is on ori-ent,” he said.

“In many cases, the information is com-ing at them too slowly for them to realisewhat is happening. There are a number ofslowly evolving events. There has to be amuch better way to handle slowly and quiet-ly evolving events.”

Dene Vanstone, Scandpower Dene Vanstone, senior consultant with SPTGroup, talked about his company’s imple-mentation of its e-field Dynamic ProductionManagement (EDPM) on the Na Kika fieldin the Gulf of Mexico, run jointly by BP andShell. The Scandpower software creates a re-al time computer simulation of how fluid isflowing through pipes between the well headand the rig.

It constructs the computer simulationby filling in gaps from the available data. Forexample, the input data might be pressure,temperature and flow rate at the well headand at various points in the pipeline.

Companies can use the simulation toget a good idea of what is happening in partsof the pipes which they can’t monitor, andkeep the fluid flowing smoothly. The systemcan provide warnings of (for example) abuild-up of liquid in the base of a riser,which can indicate slugs about to occur, sothe plant can be prepared for them.

SPT’s flow simulator is different to oth-er simulators on the market, because it canmodel non-steady state flow (ie how the flowcharacteristics change during a start-up).Other simulators on the market can onlymodel steady state flow, he said.

The system has four operating modes:real time monitoring, look ahead (forecast),what happens if I do this (planning), and

Stan de Vries, director of industry solutionswith automation and software companyInvensys

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we go along. There are also legal implica-tions.

Whilst we can reasonably keep docu-ments which might prove important in thefuture, if we keep absolutely everything, andare ever required to produce any piece of da-ta which could be relevant to a case, that willlead to some very time consuming search-ing.

But you would be excused for being notconvinced. There’s plenty of data on the in-ternet, and nobody ever talks about archiv-ing that. Could it be a generational issue -with younger people far more at ease withthe idea of enormous amounts of data?

And just like everyone has their ownway of cleaning out their house, everyonehas their own way of doing data manage-ment, there is no universal good way of do-ing it, it is not even possible for one personto work out how they want to do it and stickto this method because the needs are con-stantly changing. And of course the job isnever finished.

In the words of Eric Heinsbroek, SeaHorse Project director with Abu Dhabi Na-tional Energy Company, “Data managementis like juggling with crystal balls and rubberballs. You have to know which the crystalballs are because there are always too manyballs in the air.”

StandardsThere was also widespread discussion aboutstandards.

In particular, speakers said that the cur-rent standards efforts are just the tip of theiceberg for what we can see in future, as ef-fective data management becomes more andmore critical to running a successful busi-ness.

In future we can expect to see standardsfor every aspect of data management to en-sure that our data systems fit together as re-liably as a screw fits into a socket.

This will take a great deal more stan-dards efforts.

To illustrate how much standards wemight see in future, you could consider howmany standards are involved in, for exam-ple, a building; or indeed, how many stan-dards are involved in creating a single screw,covering at minimum the head shape, the di-ameter, the length, distance between thethreads, and the materials.

For example, said Stan de Vries, direc-tor of Upstream Solutions with Invensys, agroup of compressor manufacturers couldget together and develop a standard way ofcommunicating monitoring data from theircompressors, so in the future any compres-sor could talk to any monitoring device.

thority, Norway, spoke about the relationshipbetween integrated operations and safety.

The Petroleum Safety Authority is con-cerned that there have been no reduction inaccidents over the past few years, and is un-der pressure to find ways to improve safety,and believes integrated operations could helpthis come about.

The Authority views integrated opera-tions as a “socio-technical system change,”he said, or in other words, a general changeto the way things are done technically andpeople-wise, with many new processes be-ing introduced.

It holds the potential for reducing riskin many areas, but also creates a potential foran increase in risk and uncertainty, he said.Integrated operations can lead to manage-ment shifting its focus from safety to im-proving production, he said.

The Authority is also concerned aboutcomputer viruses, after an experience withone operator where a virus implemented ona laptop computer by an employee inVenezuela affected hundreds of computersworldwide.

“IT is becoming more functionally crit-ical,” he said. “You get more open systemsand increased number of interfaces.”

However IT staff are starting to under-stand risk management, he said, and devel-oping reporting systems for IT incidents,similar to the reporting systems in place forany other accident.

. Ultimately, company health and safe-ty management need to develop a strategyfor how they use integrated operations, hesaid.

“Integrated operations can improvehealth and safety if realistic visions of riskreduction through integrated operations so-lutions are developed.”

Data archiving There was interesting discussion during theconference about the correct attitude to dataarchiving. Like deciding when to archive (iethrow away) our no longer wanted posses-sions, it is a subject many of us would rathernot think about from day to day, but have tothink about sometime.

One big difference between archivingdata and archiving possessions is that, de-spite the exponential growth in the amountof data we have, we can still store it for nextto nothing.

This leads to an interesting discussionof whether to bother archiving it at all.

The case for doing data archiving isthat, however you look at it, we will need todelete old data at some stage or other, wemay as well have a procedure for doing it as

comparing the model with what actuallyhappened (retuning).

Engineers can use the system to findout how fast different parts of the systemwould cool down in different conditions, soit can work out if hydrates would be likelyto form and block the pipe.

A hydrate inhibition tool can tell youhow much hydrate inhibitor to add. There aretools to track the flow of pigs through thepipe. You can see how the flow patternchanges through the pipe.

At Na Kika, at simulates pipelines 1770to 2135m underwater, carrying the oil andgas to the Na Kika semi-submersible rig.

There had been numerous problemswith flow assurance, including formations ofhydrates in the pipe, severe slugging and anunstable flow in general. This was leadingto numerous unplanned shut-downs and lostproduction.

BP had come up with a wish list ofthings they wanted from a simulator, includ-ing having data always available and up todate, being able to evaluate the effect of do-ing things before actually doing them, andincreasing understanding of the operabilityof the system.

It embarked on a pilot program, in-stalling a system on the North loop.

The input data (pressure, temperatureand flow) was gathered continuously by theSCADA system, and which is then fed intoSPT’s flow simulator in OPC data protocol.

In an analysis, BP found that bottomhole pressures modelled by the simulatorwere within 10 per cent of the actual pres-sures, and both flow and cool down data waswithin 10 to 15 per cent of the actual data.The simulator estimated the severe sluggingwould occur at under 4134 m3/d, but it actu-ally occurred at flows under 3975 m3/day.

This accuracy was achieved withouttuning the simulator to the actual conditions.

BP estimated that the revenue it savedfrom avoiding downtime was three times thesystem cost in 3 months. BP considered theproject to be a success overall, proving thatan online simulator can be successfully im-plemented for a deepwater installation, andnow it will be using the simulator to replaceits offline simulators.

Plans are now in place to use the sys-tem in fields Blind Faith, Lobito Tomboco,Tahiti, Dolphin, Ormen Lange, Qatargas II,Qatargas III/IV, Mikkel Midgard, and Gull-faks LDOSS.

Dr Eirik Bjaerkebaek, PetroleumSafety AuthorityDr Eirik Bjaerkebaek, project manager forintegrated operations, Petroleum Safety Au-

layout1.qxp 23/08/2007 13:27 Page 20

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Thor Langeland, manager of integrated op-erations for the Norwegian Oil Industry As-sociation (OLF) talked about the work beingdone by OLF to help and encourage Norwe-gian oil and gas operations to optimise theirdigital infrastructure.

The potential financial benefit couldbe as much as NOK250bn ($43bn), 80 percent due to accelerated production, the other20 per cent in cost reductions, he said.

But this only happens if systems areimplemented properly and quickly; the in-come potential drops substantially with anydelay or compromise on integrated imple-mentation..

Focuses of OLF’s work include creat-ing a data integration strategy for Norwe-gian industry, including wording and defi-nitions; building a database for oil and gasontology; improving production data, whichis currently 80/90% in PRODML; andbuilding on work done so far with drillingdata. It is also focussing on health, safety,environment and maintenance issues.

OLF is working with IBM to build anew data model which the whole industrycan use, using service orientated architec-ture, the Semantic Web, Common XMLschematics and web portals.

One problem is that companies all usedifferent software which makes it hard to im-plement an initiative for the entire Norwe-gian industry.

OLF asks all oil and gas companies toprovide a daily drilling report in XML for-mat, and is anticipating also asking them tosubmit daily production reports in XML.

OLF has concerns about data security,with typically data coming from the fieldmoves through anything up to 7 or 8providers, including radio links and localnetworks, with security risks at every stage.It is working on compliance with ISBR – In-formation Security Baseline Requirements,in particular with ISO/IEC 27001/2, by2009.

Trudy Curtis, PPDM Trudy Curtis, CEO of oil industry data stan-dards body PPDM (Public Petroleum DataModel Association), talked about the howthe challenge of implementing a structureddata system, so that systems and databasescan talk to each other.

There are efforts going on to createwhat is known as ‘correlated thesauri’, she

said, which means a map to show how oneperson’s data set correlates with another’s.

But the Holy Grail for taxonomies isto make standard ways of structuring data to-gether with rules that govern behaviour (‘on-tology’). This has proven very hard so far,due to differences in how the data is usedby different organisations and individuals,and problems fitting new data structures intothe existing computer systems, she said.When integrating diverse data sourcesmeaning and nuance can be lost.

The most important thing is to estab-lish solid data management rules and frame-works, she said. This can include recogni-tion of the asset value of core data; consis-tent use of corporate business rules; makingsure key data stored only once – but with theability to be accessed many times; life cyclemanagement – knowing who “owns” the da-ta; and identifying and managing dataflows.

While the initial integration effort willbe high, ongoing maintenance effort shouldbe significantly reduced, she said.

You need to look at data quality man-agement – and build in processes wherebybad or incomplete data is flagged and fixedat the most appropriate point in the process,she said. You also need to look at transitionplanning to decide what you’ll do when de-veloping your integrated architecture.

The initial steps in putting in place anintegrated data architecture include agreeingand documenting policies, practices and pro-cedures; working out who the business own-ers are; identifying the value of data and in-formation; identifying data and informationflows; working out user needs; identifyingbusiness rules; and putting security / entitle-ment rules in place.

Data standards are becoming more andmore a vital part of building a frameworkthat works, she said.

Currently there is still a tension be-tween the use of corporate, in-house stan-dards and moving towards global industrystandards – not only in the way data is storedin the first place, but in the way in which itis moved between applications and users.

In the oil and gas industry currentlythere are a number of industry and interna-tional standards bodies.

For data model standards there isPPDM (Public Petroleum Data Model Asso-ciation), PODS (Pipeline Open Data Stan-

dard Association), NADM (North AmericanGeologic Map Data Model). For data ex-change standards we have Energistics stan-dards based on XML – WITSML (WellsiteInformation Transfer Standard Markup Lan-guage) and PRODML (Production XML).

Professor Michael Nikolaou Professor Michael Nikolaou of the Chemi-cal Engineering Department at the Universi-ty of Houston talked about real time opera-tions.

He described real time as a multi-scalechallenge – from the minutiae associatedwith bottom level regulatory control, meas-ured in seconds, to management level capac-ity planning design and operation planning,measured in months and years.

We need intelligent wells with newtechnological advances in sensors, valvesand data networks, enabling access to datain shorter and shorter timescales, he said.

This will enable management teams tomake decisions more quickly, thus makingan impact on bottom line results at a funda-mental level.

Drilling and operations are alreadydemonstrating the value of using real time,and the techniques involved in downhole re-al-time data and remotely activated valvesare becoming daily more available to the ex-ploration community, he said.

Quoting from his colleague AliDaneshy, Professor Nikolaou said that in or-der to implement real time technologies youneed a strong technical backbone, willing-ness and ability to take risk, a healthy mixof long- and short-term business objectives,time, visibility and measurement, and in-volvement.

To a certain extent the ability for theupstream industry to implement new tech-nologies is restricted by the monopoly en-joyed by major service providers, whose pol-icy is often to upgrade and patch rather thanre-invent the wheel, he stated.

In the downstream part of the oil andgas industry (eg refining), Prof Nikolaounoted that there were many benefits to com-puter technology which had not been antici-pated, such as the ability to install plant widereal time monitoring, and doing ‘what if’analysis using simulators.

There were some unfulfilled promises,including the idea that neural networks canlearn anything.

Data management workshop IQPC held a workshop about fine tuning data management in London on May 8th, with speakersincluding Thor Langeland from Norwegian Oil Industry Association; Trudy Curtis from PPDM; andProfessor Michael Nikolaou from the University of Houston. Tracey Dancy reports

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Since 2004, North Sea oil and gas companyVenture Production has used Primavera’sPertmaster software to manage the differentrisks it faces, optimise its scheduling andmanage documentation.

“The complexity of our projects andcurrent market challenges mean we have tobe forward thinking in terms of threats andopportunities against our projects,” explainsFiona Bannister, project controls teamleader.

“If we do not schedule accurately, thentarget dates could be missed having an ad-verse effect on the overall programme.”

As project controls team leader, MsBannister takes responsibility for develop-ing processes and procedures for projectcontrol that help the company bring new ex-traction projects on-stream within budgetand on time.

Primavera Pertmaster software was se-lected because it offers powerful analysis ca-pabilities and clear visual representation ofits analysis, she says.

“We needed a risk profiling solutionthat would support our entire project man-agement system from the screening phase ofthe development through to execution anddelivery of the project.”

“We use Primavera Pertmaster torecord assumptions and quantify uncertaintyat the outset of a project by populating theminimum, maximum and most likely valuesfor both cost and schedule.”

“As the project scope develops and theuncertainties are reduced, we hold risk work-shops where Venture and its contractorsbuild a register of risk exposures and oppor-tunities.”

In support of project sanction docu-mentation, the information is analysed andthe outcomes reported to Venture’s manage-ment. This gives realistic expectations forbudgets and timescales.

“The risk process continues throughoutthe execution of the project where the proj-ect manager takes responsibility for review-ing, communicating and mitigating risks inan effort to reduce their probability and im-pact,” she says.

“We gather the schedules from our con-tractors, consolidate into Primavera softwareand then identify, communicate and managethe risks and uncertainties that could impact

on the project.”Venture needs realistic expectations of

costs and delivery timescales. The compa-ny’s growth and the size and complexity ofprojects means it needs a sophisticated riskmanagement solution.

“Managing the risk on a project, man-ages the schedule and the cost. In my view,dynamic project management must includerisk management. As such all our projectmanagers will soon have access to Primav-era Pertmaster.”

“We have a lot more structure in ourrisk meetings and a systematic approach torisk scheduling within project management.Things are running much more smoothlynow that risk is a more visible process,” shesays.

SchedulingAn improved risk management process hasdelivered improved accuracy in bookingtime-windows for scarce resources.

For example, suitable diving vessels arein short supply and if the project isn’t readyfor the vessel at the time for which it wasbooked, months could be lost waiting for thevessel to be available again, potentially de-laying the whole project.

Venture Production uses the software tocome up with the best schedule for divingvessels, based on the uncertainty of the as-sociated time window.

The software can be used to determinethe financial impact of schedule overruns,and expose periods of budget under-alloca-tion or over-allocation.

“In the future, we aim to utilise moreof the sophisticated functionality that Pri-mavera Pertmaster has to offer,” says MsBannister.

“We’re confident that Primavera Pert-master can help us to decide on the mostsuitable options for our developments by us-ing features such as conditional branching,weather modelling and estimating uncertain-ty.

“This will help us to determine theprojects that fit best with our overall pro-gramme and make most economic sense.”

Project management Venture Production focuses on revitalising‘stranded’ reserves in the North Sea - oil and

gas fields with proven but untapped poten-tial.

It brings together advanced technology,modern operating practices and a talentedteam of project managers, engineers, geolo-gists and other professionals - ready to focuson fields that may no longer fit the portfo-lios of other companies.

By 2006, when the company was just 9years old, Venture was producing over40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. It istargeting over 70,000 by 2008/9.

To achieve this, it will typically havesix to eight new extraction projects in devel-opment at any one time.

With such growth, project managementhas become a very professional aspect of thecompany’s operations.

Venture’s development programme is acomplex system of projects each with a stan-dard work breakdown structure and series ofactivities managed by Venture and its con-tractors.

GoosanderThe proof of good risk management canclearly be seen in the development ofGoosander, a new oil field in the North Sea.

Developed as a sub-sea tie back to Ven-ture’s Kittiwake platform, it went into pro-duction on August 7th 2006, four weeksahead of schedule and just under budget.

Goosander is expected to produce some10,000 barrels of oil per day, which will in-crease gross production across the Venture-operated Kittiwake platform to over 28,000barrels of oil equivalent per day, more thanthree times the average production rateachieved during 2005.

Venture’s risk analysis softwareNorth Sea oil and gas company Venture Production is using project analytics software PrimaveraPertmaster to manage its risk exposure across many different projects. Derek Harris interviewed projectcontrols team leader Fiona Bannister

Using Primavera software to control risks -Fiona Bannister, project controls team leaderleader, Venture Production

layout1.qxp 23/08/2007 13:36 Page 24

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layout1.qxp 23/08/2007 13:37 Page 25



Weighing up the drilling options

(Carlesi, Verster, Wenger in McKinsey quar-terly, 2007)

Consistent high quality dataThe first step to optimise oil and gas portfo-lios is to gather high quality and consistentdata to describe all assets.

Only then can effective analysis beginand comparison of the true relative merits ofan exploration project in Angola, or a devel-opment project in Oman becomes possible.

With the right data capture mechanismsit is possible to perform analysis of assetsunder various scenarios and from differentpoints of view (economical, engineering, andpolitical.)

Working with a quality planning datasnapshot it is possible to understand the re-lationships as well as the limits of what theasset collection might deliver.

Schlumberger Merak softwareSchlumberger’s Merak software suite

is a tool for weighing up different drillingoptions.

The software can take data from otherSchlumberger software such as Eclipsereservoir simulation software or Petrel seis-

mic-to-simulation software, as well as Excelor clients database to the Merak suite and theCapital Planning module.

Once standardised data has beenloaded, Merak Capital Planning software al-lows you to create either single outcome (de-terministic) or multi outcome (discrete-sto-chastic) strategies by:

i) Setting constraints, i.e. saying I can-not spend more than x amount of capital peryear on the following regions or projects, Icannot accept more than 20 per cent work-ing interest in projects with a possibility ofsuccess less than 15 per cent;

ii) Setting goals, I want to make xamount of revenue from North Africa, I wantto invest in more than 20 countries.

You can then optimise selected assetsagainst specific variables, with the ability toselect four different analysis techniques, asfollows:

i) Simple Rank and Cut, giving a firstview of the best projects ranked on individ-ual KPIs;

ii) Linear Program optimiser (using ei-ther the Lindo or ILOG engines) to generatean “efficient frontier” where the relative riskand return of alternative portfolios can be

Oil companies now have a have significantcapital available as well as increased com-petition for projects and resources.

At the same time they are under in-creased scrutiny from both their boards ofdirectors and the capital markets to demon-strate that they are doing everything possi-ble to meet the investors’ expectations.

All international oil companies haveexperienced planning teams to manage ex-isting and prospective assets in order to havethe best portfolios possible, but most of themuse simple selection methods such as rankand cut based on a short list of key perform-ance indicators (KPI).

The KPIs use almost exclusively engi-neering data (added barrels, probability ofsuccess) as well as limited economic data(lifting cost, capital expenses).

These methods are manageable at asimple level, within one region or group ofassets and using a limited number of indica-tors. This is what Harry Markowitz calledoptimising at the local level in his “ModernPortfolio theory” paper in The Journal of Fi-nance, 1952.

However, effectively managing portfo-lios of assets involves more than listing themon a spreadsheet and selecting the 10 bestperforming assets individually based on oneor two specific indicators such as added bar-rels or Expected Value.

In this new business environment sev-eral companies are discovering value byevaluating the risks, rewards and opportuni-ty costs at a global level using modern port-folio techniques and specialised software tofacilitate the process.

Thebanking andinsurancesectors haveunderstoodthis for manyyears, butstill today itis estimatedthat only 28per cent ofthe energyindustry ap-plies theseprinciples

Oil and gas companies can weigh up their drilling options taking into account economic and politicalfactors, as well as just engineering factors, using new software tools. Olivier Mussat, Merak Consultant withSchlumberger Information Solutions explains

Schlumberger’s Merak software is a powerful tool to weigh up different drilling optionsaccording to many different criteria

Oliver Mussat, MerakConsultant withSchlumbergerInformation Solutions

layout1.qxp 23/08/2007 13:38 Page 26



compared; iii) A Genetic Algorithm optimiser,

which is unique and capable of analysing al-most any kind of economic model consider-ing competing or conflicting objectives

iv) A random portfolio generator, thatmay, in some circumstances, find unexpect-ed answers.

After portfolios have been assembled,selected indicators can be viewed from allangles within reporting and charting tools.

The software provides feedback to theuser on the achievability of goals and wheregoals are not achievable it will calculate the“best infeasible portfolio” and this is an in-dustry first.

Case studyRecently, one of Europe’s largest interna-tional oil companies was faced with such ashift in corporate strategy and it was decid-ed that the Long Term Planning team shouldreassess its portfolio management process.

Since the company is active in 70 coun-tries worldwide and the long term planninggroup was made up of engineers and econo-mists but no portfolio management special-ists.

The company wanted to implement asolution within a year and hiring a specialistwas not an option, as he would require train-

ing, integration within the organisation, anddevelopment of company specific tools be-fore being able to be productive.

The decision was made to implementthe Schlumberger Merak Capital Planningsoftware. The software was chosen as itcould integrate quickly into the existingworkflow and databases as well as handlethousands of individual cases.

The planning team desired the abilityto run its own economic evaluations to avoidburdening the economics team (who usespreadsheet based economic models) eachtime a new field or changed price scenariohad to be considered.

Subsequently it was decided, after test-ing, that all economics for portfolio optimi-sation would be run through Merak Peep,and these results would then be used for theportfolio analysis and optimisation.

A simple script file was created to linkthe client’s database to Merak Peep, and re-create the 600+ economic evaluations. Theseevaluations would then be stored in a localdatabase shared with Merak Capital Plan-ning.

There were distinct phases to the im-plementation project:

i) Design of the workflow to best fit theneeds of the planning department, includingthe creation of Peep economic cases to feed

into Capital Planning. Training of users us-ing dummy data and basic Peep cases to seeif the Fiscal Model Library (FML) modelsmatch the results of existing spreadsheets.

ii) Testing the process with real data -here there was less than 2% variance be-tween the spreadsheet and Merak Peep Fis-cal Model Library (FML) results.

iii) Modelling the company in capitalplanning, including data transfer and qualitycontrol, establishing groupings of the explo-ration opportunities, setting up customKPIs, reviewing constraints.

iv) Providing assistance and consultingin order to determine and create alternativefeasible strategies as well as ensure adequatein house knowledge of the tools in order toachieve the March 2007 deadline for prepar-ing an optimised portfolio based plan.

After two weeks of training and assis-tance, users were able to create and comparestrategies, as well as evaluate and optimiseportfolios.

Within 3 months, the users have be-come completely self sufficient with theprocess and software tools and have begunto further improve the analysis by integrat-ing more risk-based measures into theprocess. They successfully achieved theirtarget to deliver optimised portfoliobased alternative strategies.

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In recent years, advancements in Radio Fre-quency Identification (RFID) and Global Po-sitioning System (GPS) technologies haveled to their increased use in production andexploration applications, by major operatorssuch as BP, Shell and Exxon.

When first introduced in the 1990s,RFID and GPS technologies were oftenviewed as prohibitively expensive and re-quiring significant hardware and infrastruc-ture. RFID tags were bulky, somewhat frag-ile and often required powerful readers. GPSdevices were unnecessarily large, and thesatellite signals sent to the receivers wereweak and vulnerable to interference.

The technology has moved on. The lat-est RFID tags are under $1 and the readersrange from $400-2,500 depending on com-plexity.

Recent advances in RFID technologyinclude the encapsulation of tags within la-bels, viability in extreme temperatures (fromminus 100 to +300 Fahrenheit) and toleranceof sustained pressures (up to 20,000 psi) –all of which have increased the use of RFIDin upstream and downstream productionphases.

RFID-based systems are now used ex-tensively to monitor and manage fixed andmobile assets, track the flow of petroleumby-products in cargo vessels, deter equip-ment theft, and provide performance metricsfor subsurface tools in harsh downhole envi-ronments.

Meanwhile GPS systems are used in oil

Will em-ployeestrust thecompanyto keep thechip dataprivate?

Whileno majoroil compa-ny haspubliclyannouncedthe deploy-ment ofim-plantable RFID chips, we may never knowif such a strategy is ever implemented, as anymove of this sort would be highly confiden-tial.

For personnel in remote danger zoneswhere risk of kidnapping is high, embeddingconcealed GPS devices can assist in thesearch phase, should such an unfortunateevent occur.

Furthermore, a combination of the twotechnologies allows for energy operators,service companies and asset owners to keeptrack of their personnel from a logistics andresource-management perspective.

Regions such as West Africa and theMiddle East, which are highly volatile,would probably see a faster return on invest-ment than the Gulf of Mexico or North Sea.

ImplementationThe latest GPS devices range in price from$300-800, depending on battery life and cov-erage range.

The latest RFID tags are under $1 andthe readers range from $400-2,500 depend-ing on complexity.

Integrators such as IBM, SAIC, Bear-ing Point, Accenture and EDS have builtstrong competencies in these technologies,thus reducing the cost of deployment.

Users should anticipate deploymentcost of $800,000-$1 million for integration,equipment and training.

If you use active (powered) RFID tags,you can monitor the location of tags aroundthe facility, without needing to have the tagright next to a reader. You can do this bycomparing the strength of signal picked upby different readers in the facility, and trian-

and gas exploration as part of spatial tech-nology solutions to map, monitor andanalyse field data, identify well locations,supply level measurements in offshore activ-ities, and position vessels in demandingweather conditions.

Personnel safetyOne area where a combination of GPS andRFID can increase efficiencies is safety andsecurity of rig personnel.

These devices can track health, safetyand environment (HSE) credentials of em-ployees while monitoring their movementwithin the energy-producing assets.

A platform operating in an offshore en-vironment typically employs 60-110 peoplein various roles, ranging from riggers,drillers and derrickmen to reservoir, produc-tion and process engineers.

Each of these professionals, while mak-ing a significant contribution to the produc-tion process, brings certain safety liabilities.

Ensuring that these rig-based profes-sionals have the right credentials, skill setsand training to operate the equipment is keyto operational safety.

Tracking their location is also critical,as it verifies the right people are at the rightplace during important phases of production– and that they can be located in an emer-gency. This is where a combination of GPSand RFID can be effectively applied.

By implanting RFID chips within theperson or within the gear of rig profession-als, operators can validate that those personsare certified to be in hazardous environ-ments, and possess the right safety equip-ment and security clearance to be on the rig.

The most notable advantage of RFIDchips is that they are visually undetectable.Should an employee be kidnapped, the tagwould be concealed even after all physicalarticles are removed.

From a workplace-safety perspective,implanted RFID chips have an obvious ad-vantage over tagged wristbands. Platformpersonnel are prohibited from wearing wrist-bands, watches or anything else that couldget tangled in the equipment.

Any company evaluating the feasibilityof implanting RFID chips in humans willhave to weigh important privacy and data-access issues. How will employees react tobeing monitored during their personal time?

RFID tracking - people and assetsYahya Mehdizadeh, director of International Development with satcom companyStratos, explains how oil and gas companies can make use of RFID tools to track people and assets

Yahya Mehdizadeh, directorof internationaldevelopment with Stratos

Satcom infrastructure on an offshore oilplatform - can help staff in headquartersmonitor what is going on in great detail

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analyses the information, and provides theresults to the reservoir or asset managers –delivering total situational awareness of per-sonnel.

A major value proposition of such aninfrastructure is the reduction of the manage-ment staff needed to monitor and manage rigoperations.

The ability to oversee multiple drillingactivities from a remote site provideseconomies of scale and thus reduces operat-ing expenses. Well-placed sensors ensurethat rig personnel follow all safety proce-dures. Also, the ability to locate personnelin the event of a natural disaster or a terror-ist attack helps reduce the mitigation cost as-sociated with such incidents.

As a result of recent technological im-provements, RFID and GPS form the com-ponents of a sensory network that, whenproperly deployed, can help reduce acci-dents, enforce processes and enhance securi-ty for the professionals who staff these valu-able platforms.



gulating this to work out the location of thetag.

Before deployment, operators shouldinsist that GPS devices be self contained,small, durable, moisture-resistant, and intrin-sically safe – with long battery life and sup-port of quad band GSM(850/900/1800/1900).

They should also have a GPS-assistfunction to boost sensitivity when GPS sen-sitivity is temporarily lost.

It is also recommended that the GPSsystem be Wide Area Augmentation System(WAAS) enabled, which increases the accu-racy of position within three meters, 95 per-

Yahya Mehdizadeh has more than 18 yearsexperience designing and deploying logicaland physical security systems for leadingcompanies in the oil & gas industry. He nowserves as director of international develop-ment for Stratos Global Corp.’s BroadbandServices Group in Houston. He can bereached at +1-832-463-2133 [email protected].

cent of the time. The tags, readers and GPS devices

should be interconnected with a personnel-management software system such as Peo-ple on Board.

SatellitesSatellite-based communications networksprovide the non-terrestrial communicationinfrastructure needed to transmit data fromthese sensors to a command and control cen-ter on shore (CCC).

Based on a network-centric architec-ture, the CCC collects intelligence and infor-mation from the sensors, processes and

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Left and right - oil and gas workers communicates with home by satellite, using a laptop sizedInmarsat BGAN terminal

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Definitions for non geophysicistreaders

Geophysics is the study of data you canget from the surface (seismic, gravity, elec-tromagnetic)

Petrophysics is study of data you getfrom the well itself, from both well loggingequipment and well cores. This includes rockcomposition - porosity, saturation, perme-ability, shale volume, net pay, fluid contact.

Rock physics is the science of connect-ing geophysics with petrophysics.

Geostatistics is the science of building3D models from well log data, working outhow the rock looks like around the well.

Paradigm believes perhaps the most impor-tant contribution it can make to the geo-sciences today is helping people in the dif-ferent subsurface disciplines - geophysics,petrophysics, rock physics - work together,rather than sequentially, and it is designingits software applications and database sys-tems to support this.

“We are designing our software and in-frastructure to enable and encourage collab-oration and concurrency of process,” saysDuane Dopkin, senior VP technology withParadigm. “We are bringing the petro-physics, rock physics and seismic worlds to-gether, addressing the current limitations,and working on solutions that will make thisunion more common place in the future.”

Achieving this, as many oil and gascompanies have found, is easier said thandone, with enormous challenges both onpeople and in information technology.

There’s a lot more to it than just gettingthe different systems to share data.. “Peopleoften refer to “integration of disciplines” inreference to data sharing but data integrationalone doesn’t go far enough to do what wewant to do when it comes to transforming,imaging, analyzing, and interpreting subsur-face data,” he says.

The benefitsFor many years, oil and gas workflows havebeen fairly strictly ordered.

You do your seismic survey, build yourreservoir model, drill your wells, analyse

your cores and well logs, work out if there isoil and gas in the well and then produce.

Oil and gas geoscience departmentsand structures of working (‘workflow’) havelong been organised along these strict tradi-tional lines.

The industry realised a number of yearsago that there could be benefits to changingthings around a bit. For example, what if wecombine velocity data from the well logswith seismic velocity estimates to do a bet-ter seismic depth conversion?

To explain, a seismic depth conver-sion for a subsurface region which has neverbeen drilled involves some extrapolationsabout the measured seismic velocity and itsrelationship to true vertical lithologic veloc-ity.

If you know much more about the rockvelocity from the well log, you can do amuch better seismic depth conversion.

Of course the first time the geophysi-cist does the seismic depth conversion, prob-ably no wells have been drilled, and so nowell log data exists. But once the well logdata exists, it is possible to do a better seis-mic depth conversion and get a better under-standing of how good your initial model was,and get a better idea about where to drill thenext well, or if another seismic survey wouldbe a good idea.

The same principles can be applied, toreservoirs that are highly fractured and fault-ed.

When you performed your initial seis-

Collaborative geophysicsOil and gas software company Paradigm believes it is close to working out how to do what othercompanies just talk about - to enable geophysicists, petrophysicists, and rock physicists to plan projectsat their onset and conduct them collaboratively and concurrently through the life cycle of the field. Weasked senior VP technology Duane Dopkin how this works.

Geophysics with petrophysics: seismic and electro (well log) faciesclassification for improved porosity modeling

mic interpretation, you would have made as-sumptions about the the subsurface - perhapsyou made the assumption, that all rock lay-ers were layered and reasonably homoge-neous.

Once wells have been drilled, you havevarious well log measurement and coreswhich tell you more information about theproperties of the rock layers, including thepresence and orientation of fractures. Youcould use this information to update yourseismic interpretation and model or design amore diagnostic seismic survey, which mightprovide better information about fracture ori-entation and the permeability characteristicsof the reservoir.

“Designing another seismic program -can really help you better understand, vali-date, or extrapolate what have learned fromyour well log and core data,” says Mr Dop-kin. “It also allows you to apply differentsubsurface imaging and transformationmethods to better model the subsurface over-burden and better characterize the reservoir”.

Once you have seismic data and welllog data, you can do clever things like ”pre-dict” or simulate what well logs would likeat desired locations or perhaps every loca-tion that you have a seismic signal (trace).Or you can use various combinations of data– seismic waveform shape with well logs, orwell logs with core data to predict litholigicfacies at well locations or spatially acrossvast regions of the subsurface. These “pre-dictions” are frequency carried out with neu-ral network methodologies. The resultant fa-

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cies models are invaluable to the reservoirmodeler and drilling engineer in planningthe next well or performing reservoir simu-lations.

Seismic and logging technology haveimproved a great deal in recent years, alongwith the computer processing, which is sup-porting many different developments in howthe data is used.

Doing all of these things involvesbreaking down traditional workflows be-tween the different departments, and creat-ing computer tools which enable them to allwork together on the same common data-base, and persuading them to use it. This isnot easy.

Bridges between softwareThe first step, in helping geophysicists,petrophysicists and rock physicists work to-gether, is building bridges between their var-ious computer packages.

Many oil and gas companies have builtconnections for their own proprietary toolswith third party software solutions as abridge to connect disciplines.

Or a software company can adapt andextend a software application made for onediscipline so that people in other disciplinescan use it.

For example, Paradigm has adapted itsGeolog well data analysis and petrophysicalsoftware solution so that key components ofit are available in all of its software solutionsthat make use of well data. By doing so, geo-physicists, seismic imaging specialists, andreservoir characterisation personnel have ac-

meter or less).Paradigm has not only implemented a

flexible visualization and interpretation tosupport these multiple resolutions, but it hasalso implemented a solution that allowsthese visualizations to be constructed overthe same subsurface space. “These detailedreservoir perspectives embedded in a region-al setting provide new insights into thebroader petroleum system, a useful prereq-uisite for planning the next well”, stated Mr.Dopkin.

CultureGetting the best possible understanding ofthe subsurface means that people in the dif-ferent disciplines, petrophysics, geophysicsand rock physics, work together often on thesame data at the same time.

“You have three somewhat independ-ent but interrelated disciplines - petro-physics, rock physics and geophysics - thatfeed off each other - they feed off informa-tion from each other,” he says.

This needs quite a change of habit, to-wards a perhaps more organic workingmethod, with many people working on thesame project and same data concurrently,rather than staying with the ‘workflows’ ofthe past.

How do you change the workinghabits of people who have been (in somecases) interacting in the same way with peo-ple in other disciplines from their entire ca-reers, and using the same computer tools foralmost as long?

The solution, Mr Dopkin believes, isbreaking down barriers - something whichmany oil companies have found difficult, butmany have also succeeded at. “For compa-nies who are flexible enough - those barriersare broken down,” he says.

Mr Dopkin believes that the new gen-eration of geophysicists might be more com-fortable with these different ways of work-ing - or in any case, they won’t have any ex-perience of the old ones!

“We engineer our software for the no-tion of concurrency of process,” he says. “Geophysics with Petrophysics, Interpretationwith Modeling, Well Planning with drillingengineering, and pore pressure predictionwith lithologic modeling will be commonplace moving forward. “Your software hasto appreciate, understand and support the no-tion of concurrency.”

“You need to be willing to take chances- get away from traditional vendors, choosebest of class applications,” he says.

“The notions of rich data models, flexi-bility, real time updates, collaborative envi-ronments - can become not just wordsbut reality.”

cess to a rich library of petrophysics androck physics functions.

Common infrastructureThis level of integration is achieved

with a common infrastructure, which meansthat all applications serving different geo-science disciplines can share, use and visu-alize the same well log data, core data, andmodel data. This level of integration is ab-solutely necessary, as projects that integrategeophysics, rock physics, and petrophysicsdata typically require continuous calibra-tions, corrections, and model updates as newdata is acquired.

Sharing data amongst different disci-plines require rich data models. This is whatParadigm has developed. These rich datamodels, in turn are managed by very low ad-ministration and flexible repositories, thatprovide rapid access to data” says Mr Dop-kin. “These repositories operate in a broaderdistributed data environment that allowsgeoscientists to easily collect data registeredin different projects and repositories”.

Another critical infrastructure elementis an interpretation and visualization solu-tion that provides geophysicists and petro-physicists with common visualization per-spectives of the subsurface.There are plentyof enormous challenges to this, not least thatgeophysicists and petrophysicists typicallylook at the subsurface at a different resolu-tions (geophysicists looking at large areas ofthe subsurface at vertical resolutions of tensof meters, petrophysicists looking at a singlewell location at vertical resolutions of one

Geophysics with petrophysics: neural network well property (impedance) prediction (bottomimage) from seismic attributes derived from seismic amplitude volume (top image)

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Oil and gas data

Landmark established its Optimized Com-puting Solutions and Services group in orderto help its E&P customers pick the right ITtechnologies for their E&P computing envi-ronments.

Managing computer networks and datafor E&P applications is far from a trivialmatter. This is especially true when you con-sider the fact that E&P companies have tokeep geoscientists and engineers productiveat all costs, even if they encounter somethingas extreme as a data centre loss.

For example, as E&P companies addterabyte upon terabyte of data, they must al-so ensure that it remains easy for geoscien-tists to find and access such data, while atthe same time preserving it for disaster re-covery and compliance purposes.

Only by following proper data manage-ment practices, implemented using the righttechnologies, can companies hope to find theright data quickly when needed.

Picking such technologies is especiallycritical given our industry’s high perform-ance computing, enormous seismic datafiles, and data visualisation systems. The so-lution lies in tailoring horizontal IT technol-ogy for the oil and gas industry.

So it helps to have a partner that canuse expertise in E&P as well as IT.

Landmark’s Optimized Computing So-lutions and Services Group aims to adaptgeneral IT technologies to the needs andchallenges of the E&P industry.

It tests and certifies various third-partytechnologies at its laboratories (as well ascustomer sites) and, once released, supportstheir use among customers.

By keeping up with new and existing

IT technologies, Landmark is able to provideguidance to E&P customers on their techni-cal computing environments.

In addition, Landmark can sell and in-stall new technologies worldwide and con-figure them according to customer-specificworkflows.

Landmark works one-on-one with cus-tomers to fine-tune their E&P infrastruc-tures. It also offers a guarantee to help sup-port all third-party products it certifies. Thisis no small feat in a world where application-specific hardware support is rarely availabledirectly from IT system vendors.

Having the right IT systems can makea lot of difference when it comes to ensuringapplication and data availability for geosci-entists.

Landmark claims to have helped E&Pcompanies raise their E&P application avail-ability from the 80 - 90 percent range to animpressive 99.9999 percent level.

And, as we well know, applicationavailability directly affects productivity ofscientists and engineers working on E&Pprojects.

For both large and small customers,Landmark also offers outsourcing (in a host-ed facility or on customer site) of a cus-tomer’s technical computing infrastructureand E&P applications and data.

It is important to note that all productsand services within Landmark’s OptimizedComputing Solutions and Services portfolioare designed for both Landmark and non-Landmark E&P software and workflows.

Landmark and IT infrastructureWe interviewed Haris Rahi, business development manager for Landmark’s Optimized ComputingSolutions and Services group, about how Landmark is helping oil and gas companies optimise their ITinfrastructures, including data management and disaster recovery systems.

This vendor neutrality means thatLandmark’s Optimized Computing Solu-tions and Services group stands to grow dra-matically in coming years, especially whenyou consider the fact that the oil and gas ITinfrastructure market is five times the size ofthe oil and gas software market ($5bn com-pared to $1bn, according to IDC).

“The goal of Optimized Computing So-lutions and Services is to understand theproblem and only then apply the technolo-gy,” says Haris Rahi, business developmentmanager for Landmark’s Optimized Com-puting Solutions and Services group.

“The customer sees us as an advisor,not a vendor trying to sell them products andservices. Many times, we simply providesome strategic guidance to our customers.”

Data archiving / disaster recovery Since May 2007, Landmark has been work-ing on a data archiving and disaster recov-ery system for a large oil and gas companythat suffered permanent data loss during ahardware upgrade.

Following the failure, the company ap-proached Landmark to help it get a betterhandle on its data situation, mainly by im-plementing processes and technologies forlong-term data preservation, while also en-suring data and application availability incase of loss or disaster.

Landmark determined that there weremany factors that led up to the data loss in-cident. For example, the company had been

Reviewing reservoir models using a 52-inch display - IT infrastructure needed to make this workis enormous, including fast servers, databases, computer networks and equipment

Haris Rahi, business development managerfor Landmark’s Optimized ComputingSolutions and Services group

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Oil and gas data

diligently making data backups by puttingthem on tape and posting them off-site, buthad no idea if it could find and restore datain case of loss or disaster.

In addition, a large amount of its activedata were not being backed up because thecompany’s primary storage was so full of in-active data.

The company was repeatedly backingup inactive data and not fully backing up theactive data; it simply could not back every-thing up within the back up window. On topof all this, the company was adding ten ter-abytes of data every six to eight weeks to ac-commodate data growth, compounding theproblem.

Landmark engaged with this customerby first conducting a comprehensive assess-ment of the customer’s data and storage en-vironment. It then produced a report show-ing storage allocation, utilisation, file age,consumption by file types and duplicatefiles.

The report included recommendationsthat would preserve inactive data and reduceend user non-productive time by making iteasier for users to find data, and reduce therate at which the customer was buying diskstorage.

The report not only quantified the cur-rent problem, but also provided a startingpoint to begin solving the problem. After theassessment, the customer tapped Landmarkto design and implement the system.

Landmark designed a tiered data stor-age environment that moved inactive dataoff to nearline storage so that it was not tak-ing up space on primary storage.

The environment still allowed endusers to get to the data instantly. As a resultof these changes, Landmark’s customer re-duced the amount of data on primary storageand is now able to back up all the active da-ta within the backup window.

Reducing the amount of data on pri-

mary storage also increased end user produc-tivity as well as application performance.Certain applications now had to traversefewer files and folders before launching.

As a result, seek-time for a geoscientistlooking for data was reduced from an aver-age of 45 minutes to an average of sevenminutes.

In addition, the older, inactive datawere organised within the archive, making iteasier to find historic information for opera-tions or regulatory purposes. Landmark alsoimplemented technologies that protect datafrom tampering and deletion.

Having implemented the methodolo-gies and technologies for archiving and pre-serving data, and “cleaning up” the environ-ment, the next step was to tackle the cus-tomer’s disaster recovery and business con-tinuity plan.

As a result of the archiving implemen-tation, there were now far less data to backup. Landmark also conducted an assessmentof the backups, similar to the data assess-ment, to determine areas for improvement.Landmark recommended and installed a re-mote disaster recovery site for this customerbased on the customer’s recovery time andrecovery point objectives.

This site ensured that the data wereavailable in case of disaster, and also ensuredthat the applications themselves were avail-able.

“Backing up data is not enough. If yourengineers cannot get to the applications, thedata backups are useless. We have patentedmethods of setting up disaster recovery sitesfor E&P data and applications that users canget to with just an Internet connection. Andwe can set up such sites for Landmark aswell as non-Landmark E&P applications,”says Mr Rahi.

Mr Rahi goes on to point out that dis-aster recovery implementations can be ex-pensive, so Landmark spends time up front

with the customer to establish recovery pointobjectives (how much data can the customerafford to lose) and recovery time objectives(how long can the customer be offline).

For example, a plan might involve set-ting a recovery point of 30 minutes (thismeans a company would lose no more thanthe preceding 30 minutes of data) and a re-covery time objective of one hour (thismeans users have to be online within onehour of the outage).

By matching the level of protection tothe information, Landmark ensured that crit-ical information was always prioritised andcosts were contained for the disaster recov-ery infrastructure.

Data compliance In a separate project, Landmark was askedto help a large independent oil and gas com-pany secure and preserve data used in esti-mating reserves so it could meet regulatoryrequirements.

Landmark approached the problem byassessing the company’s current storage sys-tem to classify all its data and identify whichdata sets must remain on primary storage andwhich data sets must be organised and storedon archive storage.

“We also had to contend with a hugevolume of data that the company hadarchived on tape, which we loaded on thearchive disk -– making it better organisedand much easier to find and submit to thelawyers.” Mr Rahi notes.

For archiving projects, Landmark typi-cally uses its Corporate Data Archiver,which integrates with the EMC Centeraarchiving platform.

”We can support any archiving soft-ware or disk platform for the archive data.But the advantage of this solution is that itlogically groups all your E&P projects andprovides an online catalogue of the archivesso that you may view the contents of a proj-ect archive before you retrieve it.

“It also allows you to surgically retrieveonly the data you need. And the Centera au-tomatically attaches a digital fingerprint toeach file ensuring its authenticity. On top ofthat, data retention policies ensure that noone, not even a systems administrator, maydelete the data for a specified or infinite pe-riod of time,” said Mr Rahi.

This solution helps cut down on dupli-cate data storage, which saves space.

The independent oil and gas companythat hired Landmark to improve its storageoperations, reports that its new system ishelping it meet regulatory requirements andalso provide easy and quick access to vitaldata. Landmark’s visualisation system - a complex piece of IT infrastructure

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Oil and gas data

IBM develops master standardwww.ibm.comIBM has embarked on an ambitious projectto develop a “master standard”, or a standardway to connect together all the availablestandards, to describe an entire oil and gasproduction system.

Anybody can use this master standardwithout paying royalties to IBM; IBM willmake money from developing software ap-plications which use it.

The project is being developed togeth-er with Statoil in Norway and the NorwegianOil Industry Association (OLF) and will bepublished in October this year. IBM calls itan “enterprise wide well information datacollection system.”

It will include data from control sys-tems (OPC format), field data from sensors,and other process information; it will takedata from drilling (in WITSML) and produc-tion (in PRODML), and also data models inPPDM format. It will incorporate conditionmonitoring data in MIMOSA standard.

The model will include electrical spec-ifications, and data about the equipment (egpumps and compressors).

It will enable the computer system tobuild a model of all the equipment on theplatform and what it is doing. It will also in-clude documents.

IBM hopes that vendors of equipment,will enable data streams from their equip-ment to be incorporated into the model.

Metacarta - business “doubling every year”www.metacarta.comMetacarta, the company which creates aservice to index documents according to ge-ographical location, has “doubled its busi-ness every year for the past 4 years,” thecompany says.

The company aims to ‘disambiguate’data, in other words reduce complex text in-to data which the computer can understand.

Typical benefits of the software arehelping users dig out documents related tothe reservoirs or basins they are working on,or about the reservoir next door.

Often people do studies on reservoirswithout even knowing that there are docu-ments available about nearby reservoirs, be-cause those documents have been filed un-der a non-geographic index (eg about thetype of reservoir, not the location).

Or sometimes people have a vague ideathat studies have been made of nearby fields,but cannot find the documents because theyare not filed according to geography.

On MetaCarta’s website you can try thesystem out for yourself, and search 10 mil-lion public exploration and production doc-uments for specific things in specific places,for example search for documents about ris-ers in the North Sea.

The results can be sorted for both like-ly relevance to the search, and how likelythey are to target the geographical place youmentioned.

Neuralog launches new scannerwww.neuralog.comHouston company Neuralog has launched a

new version of its log scanner, NeuraScan-ner II (above), which can scan at 10 inchesper second.

The scanner will prove particularlyhelpful to companies with rooms full of oldpaper logs which they want to digitise tomake them more accessible to staff.

The software creates a .tif image of thelog, at 600 dots per inch. It can scan incolour, black and white or grey scale.

There is no limit to the length of paperthat can be fed through the scanner, it willjust pull the whole log through, even if it isone mile long.

The scanner is designed to be carriedaround, and is made of aircraft quality alu-minium.You can set the system to only scanspecific tracks of a log if you like by settingthe width to be scanned.

Access OpenSpirit data over the webwww.openspirit.comOpenSpirit has launched a web server tool,enabling exploration and production profes-sionals to interact with their geotechnical da-ta and applications via the web.

The web server is a lightweight brows-ing tool that allows casual and experiencedusers to quickly navigate, select and view allOpenSpirit-enabled data (basic well, seis-mic, interpretation and culture data) at theproject level without initiating application li-censes.

This includes viewing data in the con-text of publicly available map data via 3Dbrowsing tools, such as Google Earth, ESRIArcGIS Explorer and NASA World Wind.

This means that it is possible to viewdata from software systems such as Open-Works (Landmark), GeoFrame (Schlum-berger), KINGDOM (Seismic Micro Tech-nology), GoCad (ParadigmGeo) and PPDMover their intranet without a local OpenSpir-it client.

Users cannot edit the data, just view itin a common form. The data will look thesame, no matter which software applicationit is taken out of.

You can review checkshots, logs, well-bore paths, horizon grids and 2D / 3D seis-mic sections using simple web viewers. Youcan export data with a geographical compo-nent into Google Earth, or other graphicalsoftware such as ESRI. For example, youcould see locations of wells, pipelines, or arock image from seismic data (as viewedfrom above), overlayed on a satellite photo-graph of the area on Google Earth.

The company envisages two types ofusers: 'casual user,' for example, senior man-agers who want a quick spatial view of theirareas of interest, without the hassle and costof setting up software licenses on their ownPCs; and "power users," who want to be ableto see project data from different applica-tions, without having a local OpenSpirit in-stallation.

"People wanted a browser-based tool tolook at their data stores, but don’t really carewhere the data comes from," says Clay Har-ter, chief technology officer of OpenSpirit..“Even if the user does not have OpenSpiritinstalled on their desktop, they can still get aglobal view of the latest information, browsedata in a table format, and get a spatial viewof G&G data by overlaying true-life 3Draster imagery from a Geographic Explo-ration System.”

To access the web server product, cus-tomers pay a license fee per server, and aweb connection license for each concurrentworldwide user.

News from EAGEHere are some of the news stories we picked up whilst attending the 69th meeting of the EuropeanAssociation of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE), in London in June

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Oil and gas data

The mantra 'garbage in, garbage out' is issomething most of us have heard so manytimes in respect to data management, wemaybe no longer question its truth. You can’tturn bad data into good data.

But hang on a second - we all know Mi-crosoft Spell and Grammar check. We mightnot trust it to automatically correct our writ-ing, but it can at least point out the flaws init, which has to be a step in the direction ofautomatically cleaning up data?

And oil and gas data might be highlycomplex, but surely not as complex as theEnglish language?

Two companies, Intervera and Inner-logix, are developing tools which can do foryour oil and gas data what MicrosoftSpellcheck can do for your writing - that ispoint out errors in it and suggest improve-ments, by running thousands of differentchecks against different rules.

InterveraIntervera Data Solutions, based in Calgary,provides a detailed solution specifically foroil and gas data, with software that can spotwhere data quality problems are.

Intervera's flagship product is known asDataVera HealthCheck, which profiles thequality of the data and quickly assesses it todetermine the scope of the problem and pos-sible solutions, similar to a virus scan.

Oil companies can purchase the soft-ware and do the profiling themselves, or askIntervera to do it on their behalf. Clients cancustomise their solution by using the

DataVera phases which they feel are mostnecessary.

The technology was built to solve com-plex problems in every part of the well life-cycle. For example, the tools have solvedmis-matched down-hole components whereperforations and intervals were associated tothe wrong sidetrack on a well. As well, in-complete data may be derived by looking atassociated data.

Many commercial wellbore schematicapplications will not draw a well properly if(for example) casing size is zero or missing.

DataVera has the ability to derive themissing data (and tag it appropriately) to im-prove the use of the rest of the correct datarather than leaving the value at "zero."

"We can follow every component downthe well to make sure that it logically followsone another," says Paul Gregory, president.

The software is also very useful forcleaning up old data, or assessing its accura-cy. "The oil and gas industry has historicaldata which potentially goes back 80 years,"Mr. Gregory says. "Some data in the NorthSea is 50+ years old. Not all the data that'sbeen collected in that time has been collect-ed in the same way."

Even consistency in naming conven-tions across a large enterprise can cause hav-oc. Often different divisions and geologistswill use different naming conventions fortops, picks, pools and formations. Unfortu-nately computers cannot easily recognizewhether or not they are the same.

Using DataVera Clean, these errorscould be corrected and standardized auto-matically.

Continuous improvementDataVera constantly learns about commondata errors, and then captures these into re-useable and scalable rules to automaticallycorrect the issues. These rules are then storedin a continuously growing repository.

The repository already has thousandsof industry specific data quality rules builtfrom solving issues for over 15 millionwells, millions of seismic lines, and hun-dreds of thousands of production facilities.

Intervera has established a softwaresuite to automatically check for oil & gas da-ta quality issues and correct them 'on the fly'.

"An energy company doesn't have toworry about coming up with ways to find

We spoke to two companies, Intervera of Calgary and Innerlogix of Houston, who have developedinnovative tools to automatically clean up people's data

Automatic data cleaning

and fix errors on their own, DataVera can au-tomatically find errors for them based onwhat their peers have done before,” he says.

"It's a community of industry knowl-edge that's been embedded into one library."

Customers can choose which of therules they want to look at or turn on (similarto a grammar check in Microsoft Word thatcan be optionally selected). This way, issuescan be resolved in a gradual process withoutoverwhelming the end user.

"You don't have to turn all the thou-sands of rules on at once," Mr. Gregory says.

"When you initially begin a project, wesuggest to start with some very high levelquality checks and as the data improves, turnon more and more rules and checks overtime. That way you're not bombarding your-self or feeling frustrated with found issues."

Intervera's tools go through the datawherever it is normally stored. "We don'tpull the data out - because we feel that it con-taminates the data," he says.

DataVera can also help with data quali-ty issues when a company moves data fromone database into another, for example fromOpenWorks into PPDM, cleansing it and tag-ging the data as it is transferred.

All about dataMr. Gregory observes that data quality man-agement has gone much further up the prior-ity list in recent times.

"When we started years ago, we had toeducate the industry about what data qualitywas and why it is important," he says. "Wedon't have to do that any more."

The challenge used to be finding waysto store the vast amounts of data the E&P in-dustry consumes, and finding ways to moveit around the world to the right teams. Tech-nically both of these problems have nowbeen solved. Now the problem is managingthe quality of the data itself.

"Today's advanced 3D modeling appli-cations and sophisticated collaboration toolsare fascinating technologies but are also verydata hungry," he says. "As more data is con-sumed, there is a higher likelihood thatyou're going to find bad and incorrect data -especially with older data."

Many companies continue to rely onbad data because the task of cleaning it upcan be tedious and aggravating. Intervera, onthe other hand, enjoys the challenge of

“You don't have to turn all the thousands ofrules on at once,” - Paul Gregory, president ofIntervera, Data Solutions

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restoring confidence in data."People look at us strangely because we

love cleaning up data," Mr. Gregory says."We love seeing systems go from having is-sues to being trusted and used. It's great tosee users being first sceptical about the datathen defending it to others as trusted."

Of course, the better quality the data,the easier it will be to analyse and spot pat-terns, which can provide useful insights youdidn't have before.

Mr Gregory points out that the indus-try's entire existence is based on data.

"You can't go to a field or a part of theNorth Sea and look through binoculars andcount the reserves," he says. "It is all deter-mined by interpreting data gathered frommany different sources and disciplines."

"It's OK to have bad data - as long asyou know that it's bad," he says. "Knowingthe issues can really change the way youwork with the data."

"Many companies become caught inthe situation of fire fighting rather than firepreventing. Intervera's role is to help E&P'sfind and fix issues before they occur - not af-ter the fact," he says.

InnerlogixInnerlogix, based in Stavanger and Houston,offers automated data clean-up tools.

What is unique about Innerlogix is thatit is not pursuing a holy grail of one perfectset of data everybody can use, but doing adifferent clean-up of the same input data ac-cording to everybody's different needs.

It wanted to enable different depart-ments in an oil and gas company to workfrom the same data.

But the company soon realised thiswould be very hard to do, because differentpeople need different levels of accuracy andresolution from the same data.

"We saw the need to accept and accom-modate that the data is represented in differ-ent formats and flavours," says presidentDag Heggelund.

"Each consumer of the data has a dif-ferent requirement of how the data is pre-sented to them. It's not the data that needscleaning, it's how you present it."

"For example, the petrophysicist hasdifferent demands on his core data than thegeologist."

"For production data, if I'm in the ac-counting department - I need to have the ac-counting ID on my data. If I'm a controllingengineer I want the completion ID. If I'm areservoir engineer, I might want the reser-voir data on a reservoir basis. A geologistmight want the reservoir data on a formationbasis.

"They are all asking for the same pro-

duction data.""People start with all the data in a com-

mon database, then copy it to separate data-bases for all the different departments," hesays. "And as the data moves it actuallymorphs."

The methodology is built around theidea of working with the user of the data todefine what their requirements are, whatmakes the data most useful to them, or wherethey have the most problems, the 'frictionpoints'. Then it can build rule sets.

"You can associate with each frictionpoint a cost, then associate with each of thesethe cost of correcting it. Otherwise you don'tdo it," he says.

"The end user has to define what it isin the data that keeps you from getting yourjob done," he says. "The geologist and theengineers have to be part of defining theserules, otherwise they will not trust how it'sbeing corrected."

By involving the end user in theprocess, the user is much more likely to trustthe process, than if it was done by some dis-tant IT department.

Also, the incremental value of cleaningup data is much greater for the end user ofthe data than the company IT department,who see very little incremental value apartfrom that it is generally expected as part oftheir job.

Mr Heggelund cautions against the ideaof trying to clean up data without thinkingabout how it will be used. "People mightcome up with rules which make their owndata look good, but because of this, mightcreate problems when the data is used in adifferent process."

"These corrections can be huge - we'retalking about millions and millions of ob-jects that are being automatically corrected."

"The problem is not about moving dataabout or making data available, it's about be-ing consumer centric," he says.

About InnerlogixInnerlogix looks makes tools which oil andgas companies can use to assess and auto-matically correct their exploration and pro-duction data (not seismic or accounting).

This includes information about wellcompletions, perforations, markers, picks,deviation surveys.

The company now has 65 clients, withrevenues growing 70 to 80 per cent a year,and has 25 employees.

Customers include Amerada Hess,Anadarko, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Devon,Dominion, El Paso, EnCana, EOG, Exxon-Mobil, Houston Exploration, Maersk,Maxus, Newfield Exploration, Norsk Hydro,

OMW, OPEX, Pioneer, Santos, Shell, South-western Energy, Statoil, Total and Woodside.

The company can connect to 80-90 dif-ferent databases, carrying a wide variety ofdifferent data. This includes databases whichlink directly to the web (operated by Norwe-gian Petroleum Directorate), LAS file direc-tories, SOAPs and standard SQL databases.

It can work directly with proprietarydatabase formats including Geolog, Recalland GeoFrame.

Its recently released QCPro softwarehas functionality where users can set whatquality of data they are looking for, and thesoftware can calculate whether it meets theirneeds.

It recently signed up Newfield Explo-ration Company, an independent oil and gascompany, to use its QCPro data lifecyclemanagement tool.

One philosophy of Innerlogix is that thecompany IT department can move from con-tinually patching up problems with poor da-ta (reactive), to working putting systems inplace to ensure good data (proactive).

"I ask people - what would happen - ifyou had an error every month on your bankstatement? You would probably fire thatbank. So why do we accept so much error onE&P data?" says Dag Heggelund, presidentof InnerLogix.

A lot of dataTo give an example of the volume of data,Mr Heggelund tells a story of a 10,000 wellproject, with 30 items per well, and the databeing used in 10 different projects.

"You have about 3 million entities," hesays. "We find that about half of it has de-fects, so you have to fix 1.5 million items."

"A user could fix 10 items per hour - soit would take 5 to 7 years. So clearly youcan't do it manually."

Another example of something to spotwould be if data is moved from one zone toanother, but without changing the data forlatitude and longitude. Innerlogix systemscan look at all the data with latitude and lon-gitude attached, and work out the probabili-ties that any of it is false.

It can examine the spatial continuity ofdata (how well it would all fit together inthree dimensions), with data such as bottomhole location, elevation, and picks, to seehow well it all fits together.

"We are putting everything together ina picture and seeing how well it all fits to-gether," he says. "We are putting everythingtogether in a picture and seeing how well itall fits together."

Records are kept of every changewhich has been made, in case some-thing may later prove to be incorrect.

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Fast growth for BB Visual GroupBBVisual Group, a group of 3 oil and gas visualisation and collaboration technology companies basednear Bergen, Norway, reports total current annual revenues of approx NOK 30m (USD$5m).

can see what has already been discussed ora review of a certain decision can be madelater.

Visual Solutions helps oil and gascompanies work out better ways they canmanage the visualisation of their existingsoftware, so they can get more out of the in-vestment.

“Sharing large screens in a meetingroom with people at their desktops and lap-tops in a unified collaborative session iswhat we can provide to the teams and com-panies around the world,” says CEOMagne Arne Brekke.

"We are not developing applications -we are a system integrator developing solu-tions. We leverage the applications they arealready using - so they get a more efficientbusiness out of it. "

No more platforms?The company believes that offshore oil plat-forms could soon become a thing of thepast, being replaced by drillships, FPSOsand experts managing the reservoir from re-mote collaboration / visualisation rooms.

"It means they have to change theworkflow and need much more informationabout what's going on," says Mr ArneBrekke. "And in between there will be ascenario of moving people offshore to on-shore."

Not bad for a company which was only es-tablished at the end of 2005.

The BB Visual Group includes 3 sepa-rate companies - Visual Solutions, VisualDevelopment and Visual Consulting.

Of its total annual revenues of approxNOK 30m (USD$5m), NOK 6m (USD $1m)is from its consulting company; the rest ofthe revenue is from software developmentand other services.

Its customers are mainly Norwegian oiland companies, with some non Norwegiancompanies including ConocoPhillips andABB.

The technology is focused on crossfunctional collaboration, visualisation andvirtual technology.

The company is keen to implementmore pilot projects at oil companies, identi-fying challenges the technology can helpwith, and introducing the technology.

Visualisation and CollaborationVisual Solutions is promoting what is, in ef-fect, a new way of using computers.

We are all used to the idea of runningour own software programs on our deskcomputers. But what happens when we wantto share what we are doing with someoneelse?

Currently, there are three different waysto do it. We can call the person to our deskto see the model on our computer. We can e-

mail the person a flat image or screenshot.Or, if that person has the same software ontheir computer, they can open our files them-selves.

Visual Solutions suggests that instead,a distributed, software-based networkingsystem can be set up so people can look atand share the same applications on a num-ber of their PCs, regardless of their physicalenvironment.

It can work if they are sitting next doorto each other, or halfway around the worldfrom each other.

This concept can be expanded further -you could add a communications or video-conferencing component, so people can talkto each other about their models, and thecomputer network carries the videoconfer-encing or audio data.

You could also include people's hand-held computers in the system, so someonecould see the model you are looking at ontheir Blackberry - with the image automati-cally adjusted to fit the smaller Blackberrydisplay.

You can bring related data in differentsoftware applications onto one display, forexample putting a well plan in LandmarkOpenWorks, together with real time datafrom the sensors in that well, on the samescreen.

Other tools include documenting a col-laborative working session, so late arrivals

BBVisual is already earning $5m a year from its visualisation systems and services, although it was only established in late 2005

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Oil and gas data

E-Business facilitator OFS Portal re-ports that two new oil and gas companieshave signed up, XTO Energy and EnergyXII, both of Houston.

Energy XII has assets primarily in theU.S. Gulf of Mexico waters and the GulfCoast onshore.

XTO Energy is claimed to be one of thelargest independent oil and gas producers inthe US.

Other oil companies in the OFS Portalcommunity include Anadarko Petroleum,ARC Resources, BHP Billiton, Bill BarrettCorp, BP, Chesapeake Energy, Chevron,ConocoPhillips, Delta Petroleum, DevonEnergy, Encana;

EnerPlus Resources, ENI, ExxonMo-bil, Forest Oil, Jetta Operating Company,Marathon, Noble Energy, Oxy Inc, Petro-bras, Quicksilver Resources, Repsol YPF,Samson, Shell, Statoil, Total, Venoco.

Today, OFS estimates that whilst 95 percent of oil majors (OFS Portal calls them ‘in-tegrated oil companies’) are within its com-munity , the number is currently about 35 percent for independents and national oil com-panies as measured by amount of global

XTO Energy and Energy XXIsign up to OFS PortalAs XTO Energy and Energy XII sign up to eBusiness facilitator OFS Portal of Houston, we talked to OFS'sCEO Bill Le Sage about how he is trying to persuade more independent oil companies and national oilcompanies to transact with their service providers, and to use the PIDX standard

spend in upstream oil and gas.. Signing up to OFS Portal does not

mean that the companies agree to put theirpurchasing transactions through OFS Por-tal’s hub, but it means that they agree to dotheir eBusiness following certain standardsof data confidentiality and security and us-ing PIDX (Petroleum Industry Data Ex-change) standards.

PIDX is a sub-committee of the Ameri-can Petroleum Institute (API).

Not what you expectFor people used to the conventional idea ofelectronic purchasing services, OFS Portalis more or less the opposite.

OFS Portal is not trying to funnel asmany orders as possible through its transac-tion hub, so it can take its commission off asmany transactions as possible.

It is not competing with the oil and gascompanies some of whom are involved indoing this, or the third parties which helpthem manage transactions.

On the contrary, it works very closelywith these companies. This includes Ariba,CC HubWoo, ChanneLinx, Digital Oilfield,ElectroBusiness, Emptoris, EntComm,Quadrem, Procuri, Oildex and Wellogix.

Its primary role is trying to help (andencourage) oil and gas companies to maketheir transactions to the PIDX standard.

And when everybody in the industryglobally has software and systems in placeto transact seamlessly in PIDX, there will notbe any need for any third party to translateor transfer or check the documents, or pro-vide advice, and OFS Portal could closedown.

When originally established in 2000,the expectation was that it might just take afew years before all oil companies weretransacting in PIDX.

But, as is often the case, the technolo-gy development took longer than expected.There is still a long way to go.

About OFS Portal

OFS Portal is funded by the main oil servicecompanies (Baker Hughes, BJ Services,Cameron, FMC Technologies, Greene,Tweed & Co., Halliburton, M-I Swaco,Schlumberger Oilfield Services, Smith Inter-national, Trican Well Services, Vetco Inter-national Ltd., and Weatherford Internation-al).

Bill Le Sage, CEO, spent many yearsin the oil and gas industry (ultimately ashead of marketing for Baroid Fluid Services;he subsequently left the industry to run ahome building company, which he sold atage 49, planning to retire.

He was lured out of retirement in 2000to help create and head up OFS Portal, onthe basis that the organisation needed some-one with substantial oil and gas experience,but who did not currently work for any spe-cific service provider, so he would not be ac-cused of bias towards one or the other.

It does employ five members of staff inHouston and one (part time) in the UK. Thesame management team has been in placesince the organisation was established in2000.

OFS Portal does a great deal of justtalking and advising, helping oil and gascompanies learn from other companies’ mis-takes.

“We spend a lot of time sharing the in-dustry’s experiences on best practises. We goto their offices and meet them,” says Mr LeSage.

Coupled with this is the challenge ofmanaging expectations, and understandingwhich aspects of the transaction can and can-not be easily automated.

In the dot com era, many people estab-lished very high expectations of what elec-tronic purchasing can do, and since thenmany lessons have been learned, such as theimportance of communication between in-ternal operations and purchasing peoplewhile a system is being implemented.

Helping oil and gas operators transactelectronically with service companies - Bill LeSage, CEO, OFS Portal

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The fact that it is not ‘selling’ anythingmakes the company much more popular withoil companies. “If you say, I want to sell yousomething, that gets you locked out of thedoor,” says Bill Le Sage, CEO of OFS Por-tal.

OFS has also put together a legalframework for transacting with service com-panies. “Oil companies can make 1 contractwith us, and all our member service compa-nies are covered,” says Mr Le Sage. “It savestheir legal teams a lot of hassle. “

For companies which do not want tomake investments into software to manageand transfer PIDX documents, OFS Portalruns its own service, called ‘TransactionMessaging Service’. This service will helpcompanies format their data properly intoPIDX standard format and transfer it.

It also offers tools to host catalogues forservice companies. These are not for exam-ple a mail order catalogue, with lists of itemsyou can purchase, but express the terms ofcontract under which an oil company doesbusiness with a service company, and howthe service will be priced.

For example, a service company maysay, if their well tools are subjected to a tem-perature above a certain level, then the pricerises, to allow for the increased risk of dam-age to the tools at that temperature. But com-plex prices like this usually can not be con-sumed by the buyer’s systems.

Encouraging PIDXOFS Portal staff take an active role in en-couraging the development of PIDX.

OFS Portal participated in a recentmeeting in Dubai on May 30, where mem-bers of PIDX member companies met rep-resentatives of Middle Eastern oil companiessuch as ADMA OPCO, ADCO, BAPCO andPDO, and discuss how they can make moreuse of the PIDX standard.

Speakers at the meeting were fromservice / supply companies and solution

providers. PIDX hopes that a local PIDXgroup will be established as a result of themeeting.

A second meeting of PIDX was held inLondon on June 5 2007, in Sunbury onThames (BP was the host), with speakers onimplementing e-business projects, solutionsto complex billing procedures, and how oth-er global standards bodies manage theprocess of master data synchronisation.

DifficultiesPersuading all oil and gas companies totransact using PIDX has proven harder thanyou might expect for many reasons.

Maybe the biggest obstacle is the oftennatural inclination of oil and gas companiesto want to do things their way and expecttheir vendors to follow.

Large companies deciding that they arebig enough to dictate their own terms withsuppliers, and come up with their own sys-tem which suits the desires of their IT de-partment.

Here, OFS takes what could be consid-ered a lobbying position on behalf of theworld’s oil and gas service providers, tryingto persuade the oil and gas company thattransacting using PIDX would be a greatdeal easier for all involved.

It is intriguing to note that larger oilcompanies have proven more likely to joinOFS Portal than the independents, who youmight have expected to be more dynamic,and faster to try new technologies such aselectronic purchasing.

The reason that fewer independentshave signed up is because they typically puta higher proportion of management focus in-to finding and producing oil, than buildingup financial systems to manage their pur-chasing which takes secondary importance.

“The majors all had huge financial sys-tems in place. For the independents, e-com-merce is often a lower priority for them upto now,” says Mr Le Sage.

Types of transactionsThe types of transactions oil and gas opera-tors make with their service providers aretypically very complex and not the kind ofthing which lends itself easily to the kind ofonline transactions most of us are used to,booking planes or buying books.

Typically, an oil company will give anorder to a service company along the linesof “frac my well,” or “fix this problem,” andspecify a maximum amount that can be spenton the job, or request to be informed whenthe cost had risen above a certain level.

The service company will then discusspossible alternative solutions. The price willchange depending on the solution chosen,and other factors which cannot be foreseen,for example the amount and type of mudwhich is required, and the conditions down-hole.

At the end of the process, when the oilcompany receives a long complex invoice, ithas to somehow work out if the goods deliv-ered were the ones which were purchased atthe price contracted for the conditions of thejob.

It is not currently envisaged that thisprocess will ever be fully automated, but bycommunicating in PIDX, it gets much easierfor the accounting and purchasing systemsof the oil service company and oil companyto talk to each other, so there are fewer sur-prises.

VisibilityOne of the most important benefits of e-com-merce is improved visibility - companies canwork out much easier what they are spend-ing.

It is not uncommon for a company todiscover half way through a project that theyhave spent their entire budget, and are facedwith a tricky decision of either stopping thedrill bit or trying to find some more budgetallocation.

OFS Portal does not make softwarewhich helps people understand what they arespending, but if all data is being received inPIDX format, the process of creating analy-ses and reports becomes much easier forcompanies using their existing systems..

“The biggest sales patch to independ-ents is spending analysis, spend visibility,process improvements, reducing administra-tive cost. Knowing where your money gotspent,” says Mr Le Sage.

A side benefit which some peoplemight not be too happy about is that man-agement can see much easier what their staffare spending money on.

It is typical in many oil and gas fields,that asset managers have a list of ten peopleon their speed-dial who they call if there is aproblem, and never question whether or notthey are getting the lowest cost. “It’s notnecessarily a match with the way the pro-curement department would want the moneyspent,” says Mr Le Sage.

A further in depth article about OFS Portalwill appear in the November-Decemberissue of Digital Energy Journal

Dave Wallis, Europeanrepresentative for OFS Portal

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Finally Woodside Energy of Australiawanted a system which would help create anintegrated working environment for geo-physical and geological information, and de-cided to use a PPDM model, covering wells,well logs, tests, permit management.

“The PPDM provides us with a verycomprehensive footprint of datatypes - morecomprehensive than any other models or sys-tems available in the industry,” Woodwidesaid.

“Woodside Energy values the vendorneutrality of PPDM standards. This allowsWoodside to map any software to the corpo-rate database, including software for inter-preters, reporting, spatial and data manage-ment,” the company said.

Standard definitionsPPDM has produced a list of standard defi-nitions for things, such as ‘stratigraphic age’and ‘work order’, so when the definition isused by one department of one company,people in different departments and in othercompanies know exactly what is being re-ferred to.

It then puts the definitions together inmodules, covering more complex areas suchas seismic licenses, consultation meetingminutes. Each module can include many dif-ferent standard definitions.

Keeping data in the standard, non-pro-prietary formats is the best way to ensurethat people in different departments can ac-cess each other’s data, and make sure the da-ta will still be available and usable in thelonger term, even if any of the vendorswhich created the software are no longeraround.

Oil and gas companies are well awarethat they might be called upon to produce allkinds of data at various points in the future,including for regulatory purposes, and it’snot much use if the data (when you eventu-ally find it) is in an incomprehensiblespreadsheet put together by someone whohas left the company. “This is everyone’snightmare,” says Trudy Curtis, CEO ofPPDM. “Even worse, the same data may bestored in hundreds of spreadsheets, eachslightly different from the others. This in-consistency makes the data very difficult tointegrate and use.”

By keeping data in a structured format,it is much easier to implement company-

PPDM - Version 3.8 out shortly

PPDM, the Public Petroleum Data ModelAssociation, is releasing version 3.8 of itsdata model within the next few months. ThePPDM Data model is used by E&P compa-nies, vendors and regulatory agencies tomanage geotechnical and business informa-tion related to their operations.

Version 3.8 will include new or upgradesections on additives, classification systems,equipment catalogues, equipment manage-ment, facilities and equipment, HSE inci-dent, land sales, projects, records manage-ment, seismic, spatial descriptions, supportfacilities, well activity, well operation anddata management functions.

PPDM creates open standards fordefining terms commonly used in the oil andgas industry, covering subsurface and sur-face, including land rights, contracts, pro-duction, facilities, reserves, geophysical, pa-leontology, wells, and well operations.

This ensures that one person’s databasecan be properly understood by someone else,no matter what software they are using, andwhether they are looking at the data today orin five years time.

PPDM has over 100 members, includ-ing oil and gas companies, data vendors,software companies, regulatory agencies andservice companies.

Members include Chevron, ExxonMo-bil, EnCana, Nexen, Talisman, Shell Cana-da, Hess, Saudi Aramco, PDVSA and Pe-mex. It has been used by a number of gov-ernments, including the government of Al-berta.

The organisation was established in1989, as a club of oil and gas companies,helping each other share knowledge and ex-

perience about how to move and share datafrom mainframes to PCs. PPDM has had aninternational membership since the begin-ning.

User experiencesTo give some examples of oil and gas com-panies using PPDM:

EnCana Corporation wanted a systemto integrate and manage project reporting. Itdeveloped a web based application based onPPDM’s projects model. The system was lat-er re-used for a health, safety and environ-ment project.

Anardarko Petroleum wanted to devel-op a technical database for critical well in-formation, such as well header, tops, tests,production volumes, directional and veloci-ty surveys.

After looking at different home growndatabase models, three proprietary solutions,it selected the PPDM. “Experience told usthat implementing yet another proprietarymodel, either ours or one of the leading ven-dor solutions quickly demands a high levelof maintenance overhead,” the companysaid.

“We chose PPDM because of its matu-rity & capability to handle our data require-ments.”

Nexen Canada wanted to have one cen-tral database for its proprietary data, includ-ing both Canadian and international data,and better data standards in the company. Itwanted to make the different data availableto users through a geographical informationsystem.

It chose to load data into PPDM datamodel, including wells, production, projects,seismic, geodetic data, using the PetroleumSpatial Data Model to access it geographi-cally.

We determined that PPDM would pro-vide a strong framework for most of the re-quirements for our Canadian and Interna-tional divisions,” says Nexen.

“PPDM 3.7 allows us to remain vendorand application neutral through the use ofstandards in which we have a high degree ofconfidence.”

Yukon Territorial Government of Cana-da wanted a system it could use to managedata handed over by the Government ofCanada. It decided to load the data intoPPDM data model.

PPDM, the Public Petroleum Data Model Association, will shortly be releasing version 3.8 of its datamodel. We spoke to CEO Trudy Curtis about what it means

Avoid the nightmare of incomprehensiblespreadsheets from long gone employees -Trudy Curtis, CEO, PPDM

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wide rules about how the data should bemanaged, how it should be stored, and inwhat circumstances it can be changed, giv-ing much higher confidence in the data in thefuture (and also for any visiting regulatoryauditors).

“Business rules that can be enforced bya database are much more rigorous and con-sistent than rules that are written in a hand-book sitting on someone’s shelf,” says MsCurtis.

Another benefit of using standard defi-nitions, Ms Curtis points out, is that you usea data model which is specifically designedfor the purposes of your business. Propri-etary data models are specifically designedfor the purposes of running one piece of soft-ware.

Common definitionsThe problem is, of course, that terminologyand definitions vary widely between compa-nies, departments and regulatory agencies.It’s probably not possible to get everyoneeverywhere to agree to use the same defini-tions everytime – but it is possible to getpeople to agree to document what they meanby various terms, and to document how in-formation is derived. It’s these hidden se-mantics and business rules that make mostdatabases so difficult to maintain over time.

To explain the problem of not havingcommon definitions, take the example of theterm ‘annual well count’.

Do you include abandoned wells inyour ‘annual well count’? Do you includewells currently being drilled? Do you in-clude injection wells? Or only wells with as-sociated costs? Different people in the com-pany might have different definitions thatthey use. PPDM standards are built so thateveryone can get the information they needwhen they need it, even if their definitionsare slightly different.

What information is necessary to fullydescribe, for example,a stratigraphic age ora work order?

PPDM workgroups, which must eachinclude at least one oil and gas operator,work on putting together standard defini-tions. There must be at least 3 companies in-volved, including one operator and one ven-dor.

These standard definitions can then begrouped together, so you have standard waysto describe more complex things (which in-volve many different definitions).

You can reach a scenario when an en-tire well can be described digitally, in a waythat different pieces of software made by dif-ferent vendors, can fully understand.

Spatial models

PPDM makes spatial data models, or stan-dard ways to describe the location of some-thing.

This helps software systems which usespatial data to work together.

So, for example, you can connect yourmapping software directly into your compa-ny database, and see the data on a map.

Then you can drill down to get furtherinformation - for example click on a well andbring up detailed information about the well,and bring up associated documents.

The added benefit of this is that com-panies only need to keep one master copy oftheir data - many companies have got intothe nasty habit of making copies of theirmaster data to import into their mapping sys-tem.

“If the locations are being stored in lotsof places, some are likely to be missed in anupdate – the result is confusion because onceyou have two sets of locations it’s very diffi-cult to find out which one is right,” says MsCurtis.

“Best to store it once (correctly) andjust re-use it.”

Financing a standardThe financial issues of data standards arevery complex, because it is something thatbenefits everybody, but often does not bene-fit individual companies (or individualswithin companies) enough to invest moneyinto creating them.

It is not the same as (for example)spending money on a new software license,when you have something obvious to showfor it.

This fact has been exploited by manysoftware companies over the years.

Their clients might not have understoodthe importance of data standards, but thesoftware companies did.

By storing their clients’ data in a non-standard way, it was nearly impossible forclients to move to a different software com-pany should they ever want to, which meantthat the software company could carry oncharging maintenance and upgrade fees for-ever.

Now oil and gas companies have gotwise to this, many of them are driving thedevelopment of international standards, sothey never get the same problem again.

From the software companies’ point ofview, it often becomes good business to helpget involved in the development of stan-dards, which is why you find many softwarecompanies involved in the developmentwork.

Pay to joinThere is a lightweight version of PPDM(“PPDM Lite” which can be downloadedfrom the PPDM website and used by anyonefree of charge.

But to use the full standard, companiesneed to be a member of PPDM, which re-quires that they pay an amount every year ona sliding scale of between $ $500 (annualrevenue under $1m) to $27,830 (annual rev-enue over $10bn).

Once you are a member of PPDM youcan participate in anything you want to withno extra cost. Some projects are run only ifthere is sufficient additional sponsorship tofund the work, but you don’t have to pay toparticipate. “Generally a few companieswill sponsor the work but like to see lots ofparticipation,” says Ms Curtis.

PPDM believes that this amount is lowenough to be affordable for any company,and if a company says they cannot afford it,“we will talk to the company and arrive at asolution that works for everyone,” says MsCurtis.

This is slightly different to the fundingmodel of Energistics (where people who areinterested pay to join the community, but theresulting standard is free for anyone to use).

However PPDM defends its model -saying that over $50m has been spent so faron developing the standards, and the peopleputting the money in want to see some re-sults.

Ms Curtis points out that with ISO (In-ternational Standard Organisation) stan-dards, users often have to pay every timethey use the standard, although they are stillconsidered ‘open’, because there are no re-strictions on who can purchase it.

For further reading on the ins and outsof charging access for standards, Ms Curtisrecommends an article online atwww.techstreet.com/myth1.htmlcalled “The Myth of Free Standards:…”

Work programThe annual budget for the organisation isaround US$500,000 (not including volunteertime); this is spent on running the office,staff and organisation events.

PPDM is registered as a non-profit or-ganisation so it is legally obligated to notmake any profit.

PPDM staff take a role of co-ordinat-ing the development work, and trying to helpmembers find solutions to disagreements.

Work groups are set up to work and de-velop specific standards; each work groupmust have at least three members, in-cluding at least one oil company.

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Oil and gas data

Scottish company Cassini Software haslaunched a software system ‘Stroma’ to cre-ate a computer model that shows the rela-tionships between business processes and ITassets.

After six years of development theproduct is now being put on general releaseand the company is seeking its first client.

The software can draw what the com-pany calls ‘Business and IT diagrams’(B&ITs) showing which business processesuse which parts of the IT infrastructure, andhow the data flows through the business.

The inspiration for the service is thePiping and Instrumentation Diagrams(P&ID) which show the flow of oil and gasthrough a business.

"Engineers use P&IDs created from acomputer model to show how the assets in aplant are connected together, and the rela-tionships between the assets and processflows," says Paul Wallis, CTO.

"We came up with the methodology byadapting and applying to IT the methods thatengineers use to communicate with the busi-ness."

Mr Wallis was previously one of BP’sglobal experts in management informationsystems, and subsequently IT demand man-ager for BP Grangemouth.

Fergus Cloughley, CEO, previouslyworked at BP Grangemouth, UK, managingengineering and business data transfer be-tween BP and its contractors, such as FosterWheeler and Honeywell.The company alsohas Nick Shelness, an IBM Fellow and for-mer CTO of Lotus on its board.

The computer model stores business, fi-nancial and technical information about eachbusiness and IT resource. This means it is

possible to clearly see the roles, responsibil-ities, risks and costs of every IT resource (orgroup of IT resources) employed in supportof each business activity

Having business and IT diagramsshould help oil and gas companies managetheir IT costs, in both equipment and man-power, because they can see which parts oftheir IT infrastructure and which dataflowsare providing value and which parts are not.

If any part of the infrastructure fails,you can tell immediately who will be affect-ed by it and what it is costing the business.

The software portrays the relationshipbetween business and IT in a framework ofsix layers:

Ownership - “owners” ofdifferent business processes

Business Process - usedby different owners

Application - softwareused by business processes

System - operating sys-tems which applications run on

Hardware - computerhardware on which the operat-ing systems run

Infrastructure - the net-work infrastructure into whichthe hardware is connected.

Most companies have de-

Mapping your IT infrastructureCassani Software of Aberdeen has an innovative idea - taking the approach of modelling plant assets on piping and Instrument diagrams and applying it to IT and business assets

veloped highly complex IT infrastructuresover time, with different servers and data-bases being used by different departments,and nobody really knows who is using what,especially when key staff leave.

"The complexity means that there isseldom clear communication between busi-ness professionals and IT professionals,"says CEO Fergus Cloughley.

"IT managers frequently find it difficultto convince the business of the need for in-vestment, struggle to anticipate and min-imise the length and impact of downtime,have incomplete documentation, are unableto manage licenses as efficiently as possible,and have to manage IT reactively instead ofproactively."

"Meanwhile business managers man-age IT by wading through audit reports andspreadsheets. They find governance andcompliance onerous, wondering where to be-gin. They are sceptical of IT budgets andperform risk analysis based on opinion in-stead of hard fact."

"The result is that IT managers remainfrustrated as they continue to be regarded aspresiding over a 'money-pit', while businessmanagers are unable to gain an adequate un-derstanding of just how crucial IT is to thesuccess of the business."www.stroma.eu

Stroma software can be used to draw a diagram of your IT infrastructure, including servers andthe computer network, similar to a piping and instrumentation diagram, so you can understandhow different parts of the plant are using the IT infrastructure

(Left) Fergus Cloughley, CEO and (right) Paul Wallis, CTO, of Cassani Software

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http://www.stroma.eu


Oil and gas data

Did you know there is a data analysis toolwhich is so good it is used by Anadarko, BP,Burlington Resources, ChevronTexaco,ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, El Paso,Halliburton, Kerr McGee, Occidental Petro-leum, Pemex, Santos, Shell, Statoil, Total,Maersk, OMV, Petrom, Nexan?

Shell uses the tool in global data quali-ty control, global exploration portfolio man-agement, global business development, glob-al oil and gas studies, global well engineer-ing, finance, HSE. Shell uses it in nearly allof its exploration and production regions,and even uses the system in its downstream‘global solutions’ division.

The company reports that one oil andgas client is so pleased with something it hasmanaged to do with the software, that it re-fuses to tell anybody what it has done, be-cause it believes it gives it analytical abilitywhich is a source of commercial competitiveadvantage.

Some oil and gas clients use the soft-ware live in their presentations. They pre-pare a few graphs to show on powerpointslides, and then as executives start askingspecific questions, they put Spotfire on theprojector and provide the answers.

If people ask you questions about thevisuals you’re not prepared for, the softwareis so powerful that it can often enable you tobring up the answers immediately, Spotfireclaims.

Companies buy the software both forits powerful visualisation techniques, and al-so for its powerful technical / computingability.

It works well for companies whichhave large amounts of data they need toprocess quickly

Its not Microsoft Excel, but Spotfire, atool which can analyse data out of differentcorporate data stores and spreadsheets andlet you immediately share the results withanyone in the company, with impressivelooking visuals.

Most people are familiar with what Ex-cel can do - but imagine a software whichcan take data out of networked databases,and process much larger quantities of datamuch faster (eg 500,000 lines).

One of the beautiful things about thetool is its genericism - it is something every-body in the company can use.

This means it is a way of getting away

from the world where everybody in differentdisciplines has their own data tool no-oneelse knows how to use.

With Spotfire, people in different de-partments can use the same tool, and sharetheir charts and models that they build on iteasily with colleagues.

Spotfire has over 200 employees andwas founded in Sweden. It was acquired bybusiness analysis giant Tibco in June.

Limitations of ExcelProbably every reader of this article has anin-depth knowledge of Microsoft Excel, andalso understands its limitations.

Excel can pull data out of corporatedatabases, but you pull the data into thespreadsheet before you do analysis on it, youdon’t analyse the raw data.

There is plenty of potential to makemistakes with Excel, probably most readershave had the agonizing experience of sort-ing only 4 columns out of the 5, not noticingsoon enough, and ruining their spreadsheet.

Excel gets quite tricky when the size ofthe data gets larger.

So you can see that many users havewelcomed a software package which canprocess (for example) data about every wellin North America in one go, working direct-

ly with data from the database, and displayit in powerful ways.

Many new users of Spotfire are peoplewho previously were using Excel, and knowhow to build graphs and calculate formulas.“If you show Spotfire to them - usually in 15mins they se they need to have this,” saysAndré Kooy, consultant, Quintus, who helpscompanies to implement the software.

Easy to use“Most users can use half the functionalityquite quickly without any support,” claimsMr Kooy.

To demonstrate how easy the softwareis to use, Quintus asks potential customersto download their internet banking data intothe software, which can immediately provideilluminating data and insight into their per-sonal spending and their partners (if it is ajoint account).

Most companies only need assistancewhen they want to network the software, sothat their colleagues can see the visualisa-tions and work on it together.

Different databasesThe software can read out of the company’sexisting database, or (for example) take datasimultaneously from the corporate database,

Spotfire - analysing dataData analysis tool Spotfire has met a lot of success in the oil and gas industry, being used by nearly alloil and gas majors. We asked them how it works

Spotfire can help you quickly and cleverly analyse large amounts of data

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Oil and gas data

a public database and data in a spreadsheeton the user’s computer.

This feature is particularly helpful forusers who want to for example combinecountry information on the main databasewith their own analysis of the political situa-tion in each country.

To include their political data in themain corporate database could be quite achallenge, involving asking the data ware-house manager to add a new field, gettingother people in the company to agree withthe political assessment and so on.

But by pulling data simultaneouslyfrom a users’ own spreadsheet and the cor-porate database, you can get around this dif-ficulty.

This function is also useful after merg-ers, when users want to combine data fromtwo databases, but without the trouble of ac-tually merging the databases. Or they mightwant to share the knowledge of two peopleworking in different parts of the companywithout the trouble of combining their com-puter systems.

The software was used once to pull da-ta out of 53 different spreadsheets, some-thing it did fine, says Steven Harding, seniordirector, Tibco Spotfire Division.

ExamplesSpotfire suggests three particular areaswhere the software can add value in explo-ration and production.

The first is exploration planning - help-ing oil and gas companies make decisionsabout where to drill, based on all the infor-mation available.

Many companies would do this by egranking each possibility by probability ofsuccess and size of the find, and putting iton a chart, and presenting the chart to explo-ration managers on a powerpoint slide.

But typically, the exploration managersstart asking deeper questions about the typeof technology needed and the type of well(eg unconventional, deepwater, oilsands), orsaying things like, ‘what are the implicationsof postponing this project’.

Instead of reaching a point where theplanner making the presentation has to say‘I’ll get back to you on that’, the questioncan be immediately answered.

One Spotfire customer gets requests forcapital investments every year which cost 5to 10 times as much as is available. UsingSpotfire it has managed to reduce the timetaken to analyse the proposals from 8 weeksto 6 weeks.

A second example is well cost estimat-

ing. Oil companies have a lot of data aboutthe costs of previous wells; how can theybest use this to estimate the cost of the wellthey are drilling now? For example, in theUS, 4 million wells have been drilled andthere is a lot of public data available aboutthem.

All this data can be loaded into Spot-fire, which can quickly crunch it to presentyou wells which are most similar to the oneyou are currently drilling.

A third example, is an application froma oil major working in Africa, which used tosystem to combine their local database withthe corporate database, and worked out howthey could find another 30 million barrels.“Without Spotfire they tell me they wouldnever been able to do this,” says Mr Kooy.

People with a small amount of databaseprogramming competence can easily buildtools to bring out and process data residingin corporate databases, but Spotfire’s advan-tage is that you don’t need database pro-gramming competence, and even if you do,this will enable you to do it faster, and youcan make better visualisations with it.

“You can get data out of it in an hourwith this,” he says. “I challenge anybodyelse to do it as fast as this with any othermethod.”

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Oil and gas data

Philip C Crouse, conference director, be-lieves that his annual PNEC oil and gas dataevent is the largest event about oil and gasdata management in the world, if you con-sider the SPE Intelligent Energy Expo eventmore about equipment rather than data man-agement, he says.

This year, over half the delegates werefrom oil and gas operators, he says. The ex-hibition was also 30 per cent bigger than lastyear, he says, demonstrating services to thepetroleum data and information managementindustry.

"The technical program continued toreceive rave reviews and remarks from at-tendees.”

"We had leading presentations made byvarious international units of Shell includingfor the first time a real-time intranet connec-

They use many innovative tools, in-cluding scanner technologies that allow hardcopy historical data to be uploaded into acomputer, and third party conversion pro-grams which can be used to transmit datafrom one system to another.

Advances in programming languagesover previous generations (like from FOR-TRAN to Java) have been instrumental ascorporations move increasingly to accessweb based information. “This has changedthe playing field to allow organisations toprovide an integrated view of the many dataresources available to their user communi-ties,” they said.

“Users are now able to get all of theright information…to facilitate timely analy-sis and decision making.”

Ms Tessier and Mr Sanders suggestedthat a global standard is needed for taxono-my, ontology, methodology, tools, and tech-

niques. They urged the need for a 3rd partyorganization responsible for the advance-ment of standards in data management.

Well identifier standardsAlan Doniger of Energistics (formerlyPOSC- the Petrotechnical Open StandardsConsortium), talked about Energistics’ Glob-al Unique Well Identifier (GUWI) classifi-cation system, an international standard sys-tem for well identification.

Many oil, gas, and petrotechnical com-panies have already signed a letter of intentto utilize the new system and have providedrecommendations for the program underconsideration by the committee, he said.

The idea was initially postulated by apanel at the 2003 Houston Petroleum Net-work Engineers’ Conference (PNEC).

Energistics was founded in 1990 (un-der the name POSC) by five energy compa-nies and currently lists approximately 75members who actively participate in specialinterest groups working towards standardsand unification in their areas of interest.

The details of this operational systemare in final stages of development, he said.

A formal service agreement and the in-dustry-based steering team will be formed asan organised special interest work group un-der Energistics Data Management.

The system includes a master well in-dex, public and proprietary data sets, and aprovision under which proprietary data tran-sitions to standards base or public informa-tion. Each well will have a unique numeri-cal identifier that will not be reused and willbe maintained along with given public andproprietary data sets indefinitely. There arealso provisions for parent wells and industrylabeling of existing wells.

400 delegates at HoustonPNEC oil and gas data meetingAt this year’s PNEC oil and gas data man-agement conference in Houston, Pat Cauleyof GeoTrace explained what is perhaps thereal challenge. “Data management is not re-al sexy.”

“It is what it is [information in a com-puter]. All we have done in the last 10 yearsis throw more technology at it and make iteven more convoluted than it already is.”

Simplifying data processesCarol Tessier, director of engineering and en-terprise solutions for Pioneer Natural Re-sources, and James Sanders, senior productmanager, IHS Energy Services, said that da-ta management processes need to be inte-grated and simplified.

“Standards, consortiums, mergers andacquisitions, changes in technology, andchanges in business practices have made itpossible for many companies to the addressdata management challenge of the past,”they said.

“Unfortunately, these advances are notenough to address the underlying challengeof providing interoperability, integration,and aggregation of the various data resourcesavailable as companies still struggle with is-lands of data.”

Pioneer has developed a single plat-form, Enerdeq, which can be used for all ofthe energy data in the company, includingboth public and private information.

tion demonstration of Shell's internal datamanagement system.

"We had leading presentations alsomade by Conoco, Chesapeake, Saudi Aram-co, RasGas, Hydro, Pioneer Natural Re-sources.

"The operator panel headed up byMadelyn Bell of ExxonMobil was very wellreceived. The keynote by John Soat of Infor-mation Week provided great insight to the 7megatrends impacting data management anddata architecture - including service orien-tated architecture."

The complete papers can be purchasedfor $195 from Philip C Crouse and Associ-ates.

Our Houston correspondent ChristinaAlegria chatted to some of the exhibitors andattended a number of conference sessions.

At the Petroleum Network Education Conference (PNEC) run by Philip C Crouse and Associates in HoustonJune 27-29, 400 delegates discussed how the industry can improve its data management.

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One good decision leads to anotherEvery day brings fresh challenges. Responding to them is part of the job. Whether you want to boost production, enhance field operations or optimize maintenance schedules, you will encounter both opportunities and obstacles. To succeed, your team will have to share knowledge and apply it in new situations. How can you help your colleagues reach the right decisions?

Faster decisions, greater efficiency and better use of resourcesEpsis provides the world’s leading oil and gas companies with advanced technology and service solutions for integrated operations.

Our user-friendly software tools make it easy to develop and manage workflows, collaborate, visualize the asset and make real-time decisions. By drawing on years of experience in this field, we can help you to implement integrated operations solutions that enhance your collaborative environment.

Epsis: Helping you make the important decisions

www.epsis.no

layout1.qxp 23/08/2007 13:48 Page 49

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September - October 2007 Issue 8

Documents

Transcript of September - October 2007 Issue 8