February 2009

This has been a very busy start to 2009 with the initial release of the results from Phase I of the ‘What is a Well?’ project, delivery of pilot training classes in Houston and Calgary, together with kick-off meetings for Phase II. Things won’t calm down any time soon with preparations for the ESRI PUG followed by the first PPDM Users Group meeting of the year at the Hess facility in downtown Houston (see below). We (Trudy and Steve) hope to catch up with many existing members (as well as potential members) at these events and look forward to getting your feedback.

If you would like a face to face meeting with either of us while we are in Houston, please let us know.

New Members

We would like to welcome the following new members to the PPDM Association:
• Noah Consulting: Noah focuses on providing leading industry solutions by delivering best-in-class business intelligence and information management services to clients.
• LMKR: A leading technology company with expertise in developing and implementing advanced solutions for storage, processing, simulation and integration of sub-surface data.

What’s New at PPDM

• In preparation for upcoming conferences (PUG and PNEC), we have re-worked the material that we hand out at these events to reflect the name change and the expanded scope of the PPDM Association.
• Based upon feedback from the pilot training classes around the ‘What is a Well?’ project, we will be working to improve the content and then announcing a general training schedule.

Upcoming Events

Houston User Group Meeting: February 26th.
This will be held at the Hess Corporation facility in downtown Houston and will run from 8:30 to 3:00. Agenda:

8:30 – 8:45:
Introduction
Trudy Curtis, PPDM CEO

8:45 – 9:15:
Data Quality Rules: Project Update
Trudy Curtis, PPDM CEO

9:15 – 10:15:
Building an Administration Tool for a
PPDM-Model Database
Gus Nodwell, Integrashare

10:30 – 12:00: PPDM Future Direction
PPDM Board of Directors

12:00 – 1:00: Lunch provided

1:00 – 1:40: Implementing PPDM at a Small Oil and Gas Company
Steve Jaques, Laredo Energy

1:40 – 2:20: Upstream MDM – Effectively Delivering Value While Managing Scope in Challenging Economic Conditions
Noah Consulting

2:20 – 3:00: What is a Well? Project Update
Steve Cooper, PPDM CCO

ESRI PUG: February 23rd to 25th
Both Trudy and Steve will be attending the conference and are available for private meetings.

Work Group Updates

What is a Well?
• Pilot training classes were held in Houston on January 20th and on January 28th in Calgary
• A Phase II sponsors meeting in Houston on January 19th was attended by many of the original sponsors from Phase I along with representatives from BP, Devon, and Anadarko.

New Workgroups
• Data Quality: This work group will focus on a system to gather and distribute data quality rules, and a standard method to report the measured quality of data. Read the working documents…
• Mineable Oil Sands: This work group plans to expand the PPDM Data Model to include all aspects of the Mineable Oil Sands life cycle. The scope of this project is very large, and so will be divided into several phases. Read the working documents …
• PPDM Application: Members of the PPDM Association have been asking for an application that can be used to manage their PPDM data management system. A discussion will be facilitated at the upcoming Users Group meeting in Houston on this subject.

Member Focus: Petrosys

With Petrosys, you get to tap into all the best data sources to find the information you really need. It’s all about greater productivity.

Petrosys’ business is software and data management expertise that integrate multivendor environments. We focus on providing solutions that allow best-of-breed applications to co-exist and provide synergistic functionality by creating unique consolidated views of information.

Our dbMap™ data management capabilities are underpinned by the PPDM standard. dbMap allows you to gather, assimilate, validate and organize data from a wide range of sources and create a secure and valid corporate knowledge bank everyone can use, regardless of their application.

Petrosys also gives you the tools you need to visualize, spatialize, query and report exploration, production and geographical data in the most compelling, relevant way. Importantly this combines your PPDM master information in the context of your project data. And since dbMap and PPDM is open and accessible, you’re never locked in to any one software vendor.

As an independent mapping and data management specialist, Petrosys engineers technology to enhance your existing workflows – by leaps and bounds. If you haven’t already started a PPDM based data management strategy, Petrosys can provide the systems and experience required, as we’ve done for clients around the globe who are now using our solutions to great advantage. If you have an existing PPDM implementation and seek effective ways to put the information into broader context or geosciences hands, Petrosys can compliment and provide greater return on your investment.

Petrosys remains a long term committed contributor to the open PPDM standard. Since the early 90’s we have sponsored user meetings, contributed to workgroups and played a prominent role in the promotion of PPDM standards on a global scale. No wonder Petrosys is the choice of 250+ leading E&P firms.

For more information go to www.petrosys.com.au or email us directly: info@petrosys.com.au

PPDM Implementation Case Study

HESS CORPORATION
CREATING A MASTER WELL REPOSITORY

Several years ago, Hess Corporation came to a corporate crossroad. The independent petroleum company had expanded rapidly around the world, but the dynamics of the industry were changing, and it had to decide upon its long term direction. “We looked at ourselves and thought, are we a small major or a large independent?” recalls Fred Kunzinger, E&P data manager for Hess Corporation. “To be an independent and compete with the National Oil Companies and the Super Majors meant we had to be faster and smarter.”

In order to succeed internationally, Hess realized that they had to overhaul their antiquated database. Mounds of proprietary information were spread all over the world, cubby-holed in their offices in Houston, Kuala Lumpur and London. Not only was it unavailable globally, but much of it was poor quality and incompatible with other databases. “A geoscientist going from Houston to London was saying “Where’s my data? How is it indexed?””

Hess decided to upgrade their database on a business-driven model, so it struck a steering committee composed of representatives from data and information, geosciences, engineering and management. “Our work teams found three super-categories,” says Kunzinger. “The first super-category was issues that revolved around raw data. The second super-group was interpreted data, such as maps, and the third area was knowledge capture, such as project notes and what people were thinking.”

Hess adopted the PPDM model for their primary well database. “PPDM is straightforward and flexible and gets what you want it to do without overdoing it,” says Kunzinger. “It can accommodate all interaction with the database in a clear, straightforward manner.” They formed a data team and boosted the data management budget to $1 million per year. Their first order of business was to tackle the raw well data, standardizing and raising its quality. “We had a half dozen people working on it for two years,” says Kunzinger. “We had a lot of legacy data, but we’re now 98% of the way done.”

As Hess progressed through the process, they fine-tuned their task, dealing with such issues as the need for global access to its proprietary data. “At one point, we were looking to deploy our master well repository to all the main offices, but our master in Houston is now serving up data to all the offices,” says Kunzinger. “We get enough performance out of a product called MoveIT that we can send data to KL and London. It zips, encrypts and ships on the world wide web. It then decompresses and decrypts at the other end. Files that used to take us more than 30 minutes now take 6 minutes.”

Their current project is to use the PPDM master well repository to index all related documents and put them on the same database. “It can be anything from DST and core analysis reports to well completions and image logs,” says Kunzinger. “It’s just about anything you can tie to a bore hole.”

In the future, Hess is looking at ways to include production data into its master database.

“With production data, there are about 1,000 different attributes per well, but only 50 that people want to see on a regular basis,” says Kunzinger. “We could do a weekly or monthly rollup into PPDM.”

Working with PPDM has helped Hess achieve its business goals. “One master database allows us to be faster, and our interpretation can be better,” says Kunzinger. “We can compete.”