June 2009

Membership Renewal time is coming up!

In the next week or two, members should receive their renewal package in the mail. We appreciate you taking the time to review this package and completing it as soon as possible, so that we can continue to work on your behalf in the coming year.

PPDM in Industry

We have just completed a busy few months with a number of industry trade shows, user group meetings, and training sessions:

A training session was held in Houston that was attended by around 25 people. This one day class provided an introduction to PPDM with an emphasis on data management.
We hosted a user group meeting in Calgary, hosted by Petro-Canada, that included presentations from operators including Devon and Laredo Energy as well as the vendor community from Geologic, IHS, and Progress Software.
A user group meeting was held at the ConocoPhillips facility in Houston prior to the PNEC conference on May 11th. We had 100 people register to listen to presentations from Noah Consulting, SAS, HP, P2ES and Volant Solutions in addition to workgroup updates from PPDM.
Both Trudy and Steve presented papers at the PNEC conference and handed out material at the PPDM booth. We were pleased to meet with many companies during the week, learn about exciting new standards related projects and make some good contacts.
Trudy gave papers at the Integrated Operations Conference in Aberdeen and at the Geoconvention in Calgary. These provided excellent opportunities to catch up with some operating companies including Total, StatoilHydro, BP, and ConocoPhillips. We plan more activities in the European area in order to support our growing membership community.
Steve presented a paper at the GeoGathering conference in Estes Park on GIS and Data Management and then attended the AAPG conference in Denver to catch up with a number of PPDM members.
We held our first user's group meeting at the outstanding Chesapeake facility in Oklahoma City and had over 100 people sign up for the event. In the morning session, presentations were made by Trudy and Steve, Jonathan Smith from Chesapeake, Volker Hirsinger from Petrosys, and Paul Haines from Noah Consulting. The afternoon session comprised of a 'What is a Well?' workshop. Based upon the positive feedback we received, we will repeat this event next year.

Presentations from these events are available on the PPDM web site where we have permission from the presenters.

While we do not have many formal events scheduled over the summer months, it will be a busy time as we continue preparations for renewals, the Perth data management conference, and the Fall AGM, conducting workgroup sessions, and expanding the education and training material.

New Members

We would like to welcome the following new members to the PPDM Association:

FUSE Information Management
SAS Institute Inc.
Southwestern Energy
JuneWarren-Nickle’s Energy Group
Infosys

Whats New at PPDM?

• The ‘What is a Well?’ interactive tool has been updated on the web site.
• Many new pages have been added to the PPDM Wiki. Please visit the site and browse the contents.

Upcoming PPDM Events

You can review details and register for all of these events through the PPDM web site. Even though there is no cost associated with the User Group meetings, we encourage you to sign up early as space is limited.

Perth Data Management Conference: September 2nd and 3rd
We have finalized a venue and dates for this event now and a very interesting agenda is taking shape with only a couple of time slots to be filled. We have sponsorship commitments from Petrosys, Fugro and CGGVeritas in addition to our Platinum event series sponsors, geoLOGIC.

Fall AGM and Conference: October 27th and 28th
The venue and dates for the Fall AGM and conference have been finalized. Workgroup meetings are being planned. We are in the process of making a call for papers and sponsorship so please contact us if you can help out with either.

For the latest details on all of these events, please go the PPDM web site

Work Group Updates

What is a Well?
The revised version of the ‘What is a Well?’ Phase I interactive tool is now available through the PPDM web site. This includes updated diagrams and text to reflect the changes to the baseline definitions in addition to comparison analysis for the state of Oklahoma.
Phase II of ‘What is a Well?’ has been launched; activities will continue over the summer months.

Business Rules
We are working to gain industry support and funding for the Business Rules workgroup, and have a number of interested parties in place. Contact us for more information or visit the Business Rules workgroup webpage.

Geochemistry
The Geochemistry workgroup has a draft model proposal in place. This is currently being integrated with the existing PPDM 3.8 data model, and will form the first new subject area in PPDM 3.9. For more information about the workgroup and its progress, visit the Geochemistry workgroup webpage.

PPDM Implementation Case Study

Petrosys
Waving the Green Flag: Ready, Set, Go

When it comes to making the decision to integrate public petroleum data management (PPDM) in to a company’s operations, one concern crops up, again and again. “Many companies are put off by the ‘getting started’ time,” says Scott Tidemann, general manager of Petrosys. “They can’t afford not knowing where to start, and how long it will take.”

Petrosys, based in Australia, services over 200 petroleum-related organizations around the world from their offices in Adelaide, Houston, Calgary, Glasgow and Kuala Lumpur. The company offers a number of mapping modules that can take a wide range of data bases and create visual representations in map form to aid exploration companies in their search for oil and gas. “We are growing rapidly,” says Tidemann. “We’ve been at it over 20 years, and we’ve had significant growth in the last 24 months.”

One of the big reasons for their growth is the inclusion of the public petroleum data management standard into their system. “We’ve been contributing to PPDM for a long time,” says Tidemann. “Of the over 200 organizations on our client list, the number of sites actually making use of being integrated to PPDM database is over one-third. We’re the best mapping and modeling system there is, but being able to communicate with the industry standard is an important part of why people choose to use Petrosys. It works with lots of data sources, including their own corporate system. They have the control of picking systems and repositories, working with open and closed systems. Their data assets are completely under their control.”

Petrosys has two main segments of customers. The first consists of petroleum companies that have chosen to use PPDM for the central repository of their well and seismic knowledge. A typical example is a small Australian exploration company that recently came to Petrosys seeking help. “They had made a big purchase of well and seismic data, and needed to act on it quickly. Fortunately, the personnel were from large organizations and had lots of experience - they understood the challenges. They chose to work with a standard data model and an experienced partner. Through Petrosys, they were able to implement a PPDM repository, and load and manage data to map and model the information in order to develop their assets.”

Petrosys’s other main customer segment comprises government organizations that are regulated to manage public information and resource extraction in the oil and gas sector. “They have a pretty big task, having to collect data at regulatory-prescribed frequencies and to encourage the development of the publicly owned assets for their region,” says Tidemann. “And, in doing so, they have to demonstrate to the public that they are complying with their regulations and mandate.” Working in a standard form obviously helps them to discharge their responsibilities effectively, says Tidemann. “By choosing to implement a PPDM repository, they can better distribute information to organizations that want to invest in the region.”

A third, growing segment of their business is National Oil companies, or NOCs. Most major petroleum regions fall under the auspices of NOCs, including the Middle East, the Former Soviet Union, and West Africa. “NOCs have both a public interest as well as the responsibility to develop a public asset,” says Tidemann. “So they get additional value from both forms when they adopt standards.”

Fortunately, there are now a number of vendors, consultants and the PPDM organization to help give both large and small organizations the comfort of knowing how best to help manage the process. “When you work with industry standards and an experienced partner, you save time, increase the quality of modeling, and increase your own confidence,” says Tidemann. “That allows you to make better decisions.”