Ever wondered why the overall return on investment (ROI) from E&P is around 7% while individual prospects may have a 15% threshold? The answer, according to Landmark, lies in an overlooked facet of current ROI calculation - the failure to take account of the coupling of parameters used in risk analysis. Landmark’s contribution has been developed around work done in the 1950’s by Nobel prizewinning investment theorist Harry Markowitz, now widely used by fund managers.
efficient frontier
Markowitz efficient frontier techniques are applied to exploration portfolio risk analysis in the T2B initiative. Another component comes from the labors of the standards body formerly known as COM for Energy. BizTech for Energy promises tight linkage from geotechnical applications such as Landmark’s StressCheck, to warehouse and inventory information held in ERP packages such as SAP R3.
e-commerce
This work has been presented before by Landmark (PDM Vol. 4 N° 2) but is now extended mySAP.com portal to the e-commerce arena. The third component of T2B is a revamp and re-release of the Teras portfolio management suite.
OLAP
Teras now deploys Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) techniques and data cubes to offer rapid what-if evaluation of various strategy options. The T2B initiative is the consecration of Bob Peebler’s I2 Enterprise philosophy - originally sketched-out in 1996.
Amerada Hess now is to acquire the full range of GeoQuest’s E&P software in a three-year deal.
Laidlaw
Amerada’s President “WSH” Laidlaw said "This agreement will provide Amerada Hess staff with a globally consistent and integrated platform for exploration, exploitation and production, thereby increasing our flexibility in the sharing of resources across the corporation." A migration project including data type conversion and user training was completed in less than three months.
workflow
The deal includes all GeoQuest’s commercial geological, geophysical, petrophysical, reservoir simulation, drilling and production applications in its worldwide operations. GeoQuest is also to provide workflow consulting. Amerada Hess is the third company in the last five months to convert globally to GeoQuest software.
Last year, at the height of the Microsoft trial, investigators were surprised that much of the company’s financial records were stored not on a ‘digital nervous system,’ but on paper notes. The rather large numbers on these ‘post-its’ were presumably then copied into a dusty ledger and dispatched by diligence. Discussing this affair with an accountant friend, he was not at all surprised.
real-time
If you are making as much money as Microsoft, it is really quite immaterial whether your gains are recorded in some fancy real-time system, or whether they are scrawled down by hand. So if the tales are true, Microsoft’s push into the digital economy has a large component of ‘do what I say, not what I do.’ As long as a company’s activity is on a roll, it is much better to spend resources on marketing and development than to optimize a process like accounting which does not generate any revenue.
live or die
There are of course areas where e-commerce has already has a major impact. These are organizations like supermarkets and chain stores where a) their process is highly amenable to automation and b) they live and die by reducing margin . The companies in these categories are watching the e-commerce ‘revolution’ with some amusement. What they see is the rest of the world playing catch-up with their own EDI-based solutions, in use for a decade or so (the first EDI standard dates from 1987). Now exactly what e-commerce has to offer above and beyond EDI has never been very clear. The main differentiator maybe that it is sold by a new lot of consultants.
a commodity?
Which brings me to my point. When the consultants blithely map the lessons learned in commodity-based e-commerce to oil and gas, how applicable is it really? Are we a commodity, and into pinching every penny than can be pinched? Or are we making so much money that our margins are secondary? The answer depends on when you ask the question. The determining factor is of course the oil price - which is sometimes forgotten by those trying to make a ‘business logic’ point. Fluctuating oil prices and the concomitant investor sentiment mean that the upstream is sometimes a Microsoft-like business with ‘money no object’ and other times a desperate poor boy, stuck in loss making projects worse than the old coal mines or steel mills.
silk suits
We go from the silk suits of the investment banker to the overalls often the coal face (or the jeans of the dole queue?) as the industry cycles in and out. Now I am not saying that the cost cutting in the industry has not had its benefits. But today, the issue for the vendors and users of IT software is under investment. The G2R study reported on page 12 suggests that investment in upstream IT is of the order of $ 8 billion. Contrast this with an estimated 1 $ billion spend on upstream (non accounting) software and you can see that a lot of the spend is going into ERA/ERP solutions. These systems are all at the low margin end of the business.
Office Automation
As the oil price nudges up to $30 there is a case to be made for, if not big spending, at least a review of where the IT bucks are going. Areas at least as worthy of investment in e-commerce include knowledge management (see our report on the SMi Data Management conference on the opposite page) and even support staff training in office automation. Or again, making sure that everyone knows how to get the most out of your company intranet.
cynical?
Now the latter may involve little more investment than a free web browser, which if I was cynical, I would suggest is why we do not hear much from E&P vendors about horizontal knowledge management tools. There is more money to be made in purveying a portal based e-commerce ‘solution’ than in showing users how to get more mileage out of Microsoft Access or Netscape Navigator!
A theme of the 4th Annual SMi Data Management conference held this month in London was the extension of traditional data management into the areas of document and knowledge management. Some of the new offerings in this field represent ground-up development with E&P domain-specific functions and bespoke document management and knowledge work tools. Other vendors are deploying more or less horizontal technologies coupled with domain specific developments.
legacy
It is interesting that many of these duplicate and may ultimately replace domain-specific legacy software from the vendor’s own stables. Why the sudden interest in horizontal tools? It is probably the distribution and sharing aspect of the new breed of knowledge management software that is the key. After all, Documentum has been around for a decade or so and has had zero impact on the upstream. But expose a document repository to users over the web and add in a search engine and what do you have? Excited end-users that’s what!
hublet
Tools that are currently being deployed in various E&P projects include the Fulcrum search engine (in Landmark’s Knowledge Reference System extensions to Open Explorer). Cold Fusion and the Verity knowledge management tool have been deployed in GeoQuest’s Knowledge Hub – using the cutely named ‘hublet’ technology. Spectrum have extended the Open Text LiveLink document and knowledge management products to include a link to GeoQuest’s Finder.
infrastress
Mark Forsyth from SGI described how E&P visualization can stress system infrastructures to the limit. Volume visualization requires pixel fill rates approaching 10 k pixels per second, leading SGI’s chief scientist John Mashey to coin the term ‘infrastress’ to describe the resulting network loading. SGI’s studies forecast infrastress maxing out over the next couple of years, in the interim, system and network administrators will have a hard time keeping up with demand.
Open GL
One observer pointed out that though high end hardware was doing a good job the same could not be said of software – for example the high performance Open GL API is not yet implemented in the major vendor suites. Forsyth fended this one by pointing the questioner in the direction of Magic Earth – SGI’s showcase for Visualization Technology.
Unified Front End
The UK’s industry-funded shared data repository Common Data Access is to be taken over by the UK Offshore Operators Association (UKOOA). COO Malcolm Fleming outlined the plans for convergence with the web-based data portals LIFT and DEAL which are all to be accessible from a unified front end at a future date.
Information Management
Bruce Rodney (Exprodat) picked up the knowledge management theme and compared the ‘old way’ of back populating the corporate database with the results of an interpretation with a new style of data management. Rodney advocated the use of lightweight knowledge capture tools such as Landmark’s OpenJournal or Exprodat’s new Knowledge Documentor tool which will capture attributes and provenance of seismic interpretations. Rodney sees the focus of upstream IT shifting from interoperability to interconnectivity with XML as the glue – “Data Management needs to be repositioned as Enterprise Information Management – to catch some of the money which is otherwise going elsewhere.”
Ovation
James Johnson’s presentation of Ovation’s HFS-based data storage system sparked off an interesting debate as to how much data should be kept in-house. The consensus was the less the better.
Paradigm Geophysical has signed with a middle east major national oil company to supply $ 1.2 million worth of seismic processing software and support. Paradigm’s Focus seismic processing suite was selected after an extended comparative evaluation process and is to be used in what is claimed as one of the world’s largest seismic processing environments. Paradigm’s Mark Walker stated “The ever increasing volumes of data acquired in seismic exploration mandated an efficient solution for this ambitious project.
cost effective
Processing speed, cost effectiveness and the advanced features of the Focus system were key deciding factors as was our customer support.” Paradigm is expanding its Bahrain office to cater for the new workload. The client is a long-time user of Paradigm products—notably the Echos suite for depth imaging and AVO analysis.
It’s all very well having a website, but how do you persuade the surfers to visit? Schlumberger thinks it has the answer in its new RealTime news service which combines daily news coverage of the five industries in which the company operates with simplified access to over 10,000 pages of technical and business information about Schlumberger. Schlumberger chairman Euan Baird claims “Realtime will be the fastest, most reliable source of news for the industries we serve."
rig-count
Realtime also provides continually updated prices of oil and gas, indicators of utility and semiconductor market activity and major financial indicators including, for example, the M-I drilling rig count – a major barometer of activity for the upstream energy business. Users of the site may also customize the flow of information in Realtime to focus on those businesses and indices of interest to them and incorporate items from other sources.
Statoil, and SAP are to develop an online marketplace for the oil and gas industry based upon SAP’s mySAP.com e-commerce portal. The marketplace will be open to all members of the oil and gas industry. The initial focus will be procurement of equipment and services for upstream and downstream business including maintenance, goods and services, spare parts, equipment, and oilfield services.
substantial
Statoil expects substantial cost savings on its $4 billion procurement budget. SAP’s Dieter Rafalsky says “Now oil and gas companies will be able to embrace the Internet to expand market reach, reduce operational costs and improve customer satisfaction.” The mySAP.com Marketplace for the Oil and Gas Industry is expected to begin operating in the second quarter of 2000.
While others fluster around e-commerce initiatives, it’s ‘core-business as usual’ for the Calgary-based Public Petroleum Data Model Association. Several enhancements to the latest version of the data model have been announced. The new model is now available in Oracle Data Description Language (DDL) – with other vendor DDL’s available on request. ER diagrams, table reports and a summary of changes are supplied in a new Model Report.
Designer 2000
Reference Guides, a sample dataset in Oracle .dmp format and road maps of the model are also available. Finally a quick start option has been propsed with the whole data model delivered in Oracle Designer 2000. Table definitions, domains and ER diagrams are contained in this export file, to get you up and running as fast as possible.
TTI’s new 3D well planning software can be used to plan trajectories for exploration wells, but equally for designing and installing pipelines by horizontal directional drilling. 3D3 allows for "What if" scenarios to speed up the planning process. Pre defined 2D and 3D profiles can be combined to build complex geometries and enable the engineer to develop proposals for all possible well scenarios with minimal effort. Well path optimization is achieved through TTIs torque/drag analysis.
dogleg
Other functions include survey computations, "project ahead" from survey station to target, formation or well plan and the software produces a table of planned path surveys including required dogleg and tool-face to help the field engineer correctly orient directional drilling equipment. A user-friendly Visual Basic spreadsheet interface with 2D and 3D graphics allows for selection of units of measure system with automatic conversion and recalculation. 3D3 boasts complete Excel integration for data storage and reporting. More from vsumma@ttoolboxes.com.
Landmark has been awarded the Support Center Practices (SCP) Certification by Services Strategies Corporation for the second consecutive year. Landmark received SCP Certification after an audit of its North American support centers. SCP certification quantifies the effectiveness of customer support centers based on a set of performance standards and represents best practices in the support industry. Landmark’s president Bob Peebler said "Landmark’s Customer Support staff is committed to providing uncompromising customer satisfaction.
improvement
We strive to deliver exceptional service and support around the world with a strong commitment to our customers and we are dedicated to finding ways to continuously improve services." Landmark bettered its 1998 score in Customer Relationship Management, Performance Metrics, Training Programs and People Programs. The SCP certification program establishes the service quality benchmark for IT services support centers and help desks. More on SCP certification from www.supportgate.com �
In Part 1 we started working with scripts, including variables and command line arguments, by building an example called listfiles. We continue to improve it below after a different example.
using all arguments
Remember that arguments given to a script can be reference via $1, $2 and so on. In the same way as ls *.dat lists all .dat files together, $* means "all arguments". For example, consider this script called lsort:
ls -l | sort -n +4
There are three parts to this command:
- A long listing (ls –l)
- The vertical line “|“ is a "pipe" (shift-backslash on my keyboard) which sends the output from the command before as input for the following one.
- A numeric sort on the fifth field (think of +4 as "ignore the first four fields for sort purposes") which happens to be file size in the listing. (This can vary between systems and will be the fourth field if group is omitted.)
So it generates a list of files in the current directory sorted by size. This is all very good but what if you only want to list certain files or want to list files from a number of different directories? Try this version:
ls -l $* | sort -n +4
If we run
lsort /disk*/projects/myproj/*.sgy
all the files that match are passed to the ls command which is exactly what we want. It gets better. If we run
lsort -a
the listing command becomes
ls -l -a
In other words a list all files in the current directory. (You would normally write this as ls -la but it works the same with separate arguments.) Of course, you can combine both ls arguments and multiple files (e.g. lsort -a *.dat) - just remember to specify the ls arguments before any filenames.
looping through arguments
Going back to filelist now, we can add functionality to loop through any number of different file types given as arguments:
#!/bin/sh PROJ=$1 shift for FTYPE in $* do ls -l /disk*/projects/$PROJ/*.$FTYPE /nobackup*/projects/$PROJ/*.$FTYPE done
- The first argument is always the project name so shift deletes it (after it has been captured in PROJ), stores the second in $1, the third in $2, and so on.
- For each element in the specified list, in this case $* (which means "all (shifted) command line arguments") the for loop sets the variable FTYPE to the element and executes the commands between do and done.
- You can run as many commands as you like within the do loop - this example only has a single listing.
- The result is a list for each filetype specified (e.g. filelist myproj sgy txt log lists .sgy files, then .txt files and finally .log files).
We could write a script to loop through a single filetype for many projects (all arguments except the last are projects) or, indeed, many filetypes in many projects (we would have to parse for a special argument which specified where the list of projects ended and that of filetypes began). These modifications are beyond the scope of this article but are included on the website.
filename arguments
We can use arguments to apply a script to a data file, perhaps saving the output in another file. Say we have a number of files containing many logs for many wells and we want another set of files containing only those lines specifying well and log names. The file logs1.dat may look something like this (entirely fictitious example):
Well: 12/34-5a Log: DT Depth Value 1000 123 1010 234 1020 345 ... Log: POR Depth Value 1000 26.7 1010 13.7 ... Well: 12/34-5b ...
We can generate our list in a new file with a script called listlogs:
egrep ‘(Well|Log)’ logs1.dat >logs1.names
the output file looking like this:
Well: 12/34-5a Log: DT Log: POR Well: 12/34-5b ...
egrep is "extended grep", one of its extensions being the ability to search for alternative strings, listed within quoted parentheses and separated by pipes (in this case "Well" or "Log").
But we can improve it to avoid having to edit it for the next file:
egrep ‘(Well|Log)’ $1 >$2
which we run as
listlogs logs2.dat logs2.names.
In this case, however, it is probably better not to hardwire the output redirection into $2 but instead to leave it off altogether:
grep Well $1
We run this as listlogs logs2.dat > logs2.names which follows the normal pattern for sending a command’s output into a file. This also permits us to write the results directly to the screen by omitting the output redirection (e.g. listlogs logs2.dat).
nested scripts
There is nothing to stop us running scripts from within other ones. Rather than manually run listlogs for every input file we could write another script to loop through all of them in turn:
#!/bin/sh for FILE in $* do listlogs $FILE >$FILE.names done
This is run as something like listall logs*.dat and get a series of output files with the same name as the input plus a ".names" suffix (e.g. logs5.dat gives logs5.dat.names).
If we wanted to write all the output into a single file we could use the output append operator ">>" within the loop:
do listlogs $FILE >>all.names
If we didn't use the append operator we would end up with only the last input file’s output saved since listlogs is run, and the output file written to, separately for each iteration of the for loop. Don't forget to empty all.names first if it already exists from a previous run and you don't want to keep that output. We could automatically over-write it but that’s a bit dangerous unless we backup the existing one first for which mv all.names all.names.old can be added before the for line. This will generate an error from mv if all.names doesn't exist but we can put up with that. The website includes an example of working around this more cleanly.
Editor’s notes
~ Indicates the command continues on the next line. Do not type the ~.
Our lawyers insist that we disclaim any responsibility for the use of the code snippets provided here and on the oilIT.com website. All code is provided ‘as is’ and no guarantee for fitness for purpose is implied either by The Data Room or by Geocon. Make sure you back up any critical files before running any script on them.
The new internet-enabled iDims software allows the remote drilling location to be hooked into the corporate intranet. Incoming data from the rig site provides drilling morning reports, summary reports, while engineers at the rig can access historical data stored in head office and other locations. Landmark claims that Dims for Windows (DFW) is ‘the established standard for gathering and disseminating drilling and well service operations data’.
cut-down
But not all asset team professionals require a full DFW system. iDims provides the cut-down functionality required and uses firewall security to manage access to current electronic well data. Landmark’s John Willis adds "iDims provides ‘live’ reporting whereby users can request and view reports by going directly against their company’s DFW database. iDims allows any user with a Web browser to access corporate information from any location." �
Calgary based Veritas GeoServices is to archive and manage seismic data for Union Pacific Resources Inc. (UPRI). The long-term service agreement includes archiving multi-format data types to leading-edge storage media and technology. Seismic data will be stored using RODE encapsulation and will undergo ‘stringent quality control procedures.’
Seisland Manager
This digital archival of seismic data will allow UPRI to utilize Seisland Manager as their data management application including the retrieval of archived data stored on site at Veritas via a high-speed direct fiber network connection.
cost conscious
Veritas’ VP of Geomatics and Data Management Barry Bergos said "We specialize in providing instant, reliable and cost-conscious data management and access, with a comprehensive suite of archival and storage technologies. With fully customized 24-hour instant access to proprietary on-line data, UPRI will be in a position to fully leverage its critical data assets without the requirement of additional hardware or software." �
A group of senior energy industry executives has formed eNersection.com, an on-line, web-based service that will allow exploration and production companies to purchase products and services over the Internet. eNersection boasts an impressive management line-up with - Zeke Zeringue as President and CEO and other industry worthies on the board such as Rich Pattarozzi, Claire Farley and Chad Deaton.
$130 billion
eNersection, according to Zeringue, is aiming at “reducing transaction costs and improve the flow of technical information for a global industry that spends in excess of $130 billion a year on equipment and services”. The eNersection technology will integrate proprietary systems already in place and will enhance traditional industry buyer-seller relationships.
Enabling technology for eNersection is to be provided by Atlanta-based OnDisplay Inc. – whose CenterStage e-business software is used at e-commerce sites such as W.W. Grainger, Travelocity.com, and MicroWarehouse. �
The Internet Property Exchange (IPX) was announced at the recent North American Prospect Exposition in Houston. The IPX deploys PetrisX web-based services to facilitate asset management, property valuations and transactions to be achieved through business to business (B2B) e-commerce. By incorporating industry standard financial evaluation tools into the site, PetrisX opens up property dealing to the investment community.
dynamic
Each property offered on the site includes a dynamic review of the deal, flow assumptions and a template suitable for integration into the investor’s financial package. Seismic, well log data, production history, land, lease, legal, environmental, pipeline, cultural, and financial data can all be uploaded by a seller to a central server. Interested buyers can then download the information they wish to view, either browsing through minimal data sets on many prospects, or drilling into the depths of the data to evaluate a given property. Various levels of security enable sellers to restrict access to all or parts of their data.
SAIC
Partner in the IPX is San Diego–based Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). SAIC, in another partnership with VerticalNet, provides similar B2B services to the automobile industry through the Automotive Network eXchange- (www.anxo.com). You can check out the Internet Petroleum eXchange on www.petrisX.com
The latest version of PrismTech’s E&P framework, OpenSpirit 2000i is currently being tested by the sponsor companies. Enhancements in the new release include an interpretation server with ‘basic’ earth model, horizons properties and faults for SeisWorks, IESX, and Charisma. A seismic server is also available for the same products which can be extended to support other datastores. The new well server adds time-date stamps and support for array tools.
drilling
A Drilling Data Module set to ‘improve drilling workflow’ is also being added to the framework. This will use distributed object technology to enable multi-vendor plug-and-play in the drilling domain. The OpenSpirit 2000i Drilling Data Module will be previewed at this year’s SPE Annual Technical Meeting and Exhibition in Dallas, TX in October 2000.
PrismTech has also announce the launch of the OpenSpirit 2000i User Group (OSUG). The OpenSpirit 2000i User Group which replaces the OpenSpirit Special Interest Group (over 50 member companies) as of March 1 2000.
free membership
The new OSUG is a forum for users to communicate and share their experiences with the product, to get preview information about future product introductions, and to provide feedback to PrismTech about future directions for the product. Membership of the OpenSpirit 2000i User Group is free. The OSUG will also organize technical workshops in both Europe and the USA .
RSN
OSUG members will also have the opportunity to join the OpenSpirit 2000i beta release programme. PrismTech is shipping an alpha release of OpenSpirit 2000i to its sponsor partners this month and expects a beta release to be shipped in March. More from www.prismtechnologies.com.
Petris Technology Inc. is offering software and services for well database clean-up. Petris’ WINDS-Data Auditor performs well data query, auditing and correction from a web browser. Petris can also supply ‘experienced, knowledgeable professionals’ to organize and staff such operations. Petris Technology will be using the WINDS-Data Auditor in New Orleans to help the Mineral Management Service clean up inaccurate or missing data problems that may exist in the Technical Information Management System (TIMS) well database and associated well data (e.g. directional surveys, velocity surveys) from operations in the Gulf of Mexico Region.
dirty
Specialists will use WINDS-Data Auditor to compare a copy of a "dirty" database against various data sources to confirm, change, or replace erroneous information. The software keeps track of who made a change and why, so client reviewers can make corrections to their database. �
Jean-Paul Marbeau joins PrismTech as Business Development Manager for Europe Africa & Middle East (EAME). Marbeau was previously in charge of Sales and Marketing for Petrosystems, CGG’s software division where he had close ties with the OpenSpirit program.
start-up
e-Commerce start-up eNersection.com has named Tom Lopus as vice president and director of client operations. Lopus was most recently U.S. operations manager for TotalFina. His responsibilities with eNersection.com will include oil and gas operator and service provider interaction with a primary focus on product development and enhancement.
new business group
Paradigm Geophysical has appointed Larry Lenig as President of Paradigm’s US Operations, replacing Steve Goldsberry who has moved to head the newly formed Product Business Group. Lenig was previously President and CEO of Grant Geophysical where he was instrumental in restructuring the company. Another Paradigm nomination is John Dinning who joins as V P Client Solutions in the US Operations.
Subsurface Computer Modeling Inc. (SCM) has repackaged its Z-Map based applications into the "SCM Suite". The SCM Suite is a collection of tools that work in conjunction with Z-Map Plus/ZCL and allow user for instance to build a geometrically and geologically correct framework for complex faulted projects. A structurally correct framework is a prerequisite for input to modeling packages including RMS, Stratamodel, GoCad to which the product is integrated.
compression
The package also includes routines for model visualization, compression of Z-Map files and helper applications for base mapping including pie chart displays, volumetric computations and time to depth conversion. Training and on-line documentation for the SCM Suite is available on the new web based training portal
Colorado-based RC2 has acquired Heinemann Oil Technology (HOT) Engineering of Leoben, Austria. RC2 CEO Udo Araktingi said "The HOT fluid-flow simulator is a sophisticated tool which generates dynamic models honoring the precision and accuracy of geologic and other models produced by the our own reservoir modeling software."
PEBI
HOT supplies third generation fluid-flow simulators and is best known for its proprietary Perpendicular Bisection (PEBI) gridding scheme. RC2 provides reservoir characterization software and consulting services using geological, geophysical and engineering data to build reservoir models for simulation. RC2 applies geostatisticial techniques to seismic inversion, depth migration and reservoir modeling and has offices in Houston, London, Aberdeen, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.
new release
In the new 2.0 release, ResMod has been retooled to address performance, stability, and consistency. All modules now have HTML documentation and computation speed has been increased up to 100 times. Other enhancements are added to grid definition, workflows and a new link to StrataModel 5.0 now works at the fault block level. The HOT acquisition was backed by RC2 shareholders and venture capitalists First Reserve and Altira.
Terrasciences and Petroleum Software Technologies have signed an agreement that will allow PST’s NNLAP and Rt-Mod software to directly access Terrasciences well file data.
neural net
NNLAP uses a neural-net to analyze well logs for rock typing and to synthesize and edit logs and core properties in wells with missing data. NNLAP claims advantages over traditional linear regression and deterministic methods in solving non-linear problems.
resitivity
Rt-Mod is an inversion-modeling package for a wide variety of resistivity tools including Russian BKZ logs, Chinese logs, 6FF40 induction logs, ES logs and Schlumberger’s AIT tool. Terrasciences will also be marketing the PST software.
Edcon has 30 years experience gravity surveying and interpretation, with offices in the U.S., Canada, South America and the Netherlands. 1998 revenues were US $2.9 million. Photo Gravity has been performing land and seafloor gravity and magnetic surveys for 40 years and generated approximately US$ 1 million in revenue in 1999.
consolidation
General Manager Bob Lo said "These acquisitions are part of a strategy of industry consolidation which is making Scintrex market leader in geophysical instrumentation and services in the oil and gas sector.” Scintrex will make immediate savings by combining the operations of Edcon’s Denver operations and that of Micro g, and reducing overhead and operating expenses in these two operations.
portal
Scintrex, founded 50 years ago, was acquired by Ontario-based IDS in 1998. IDS is develops, and manufactures sensor technology and communication systems. IDS’ also manages the eCommerce web portal
Paradigm Technologies Inc. (PTI) and JD Edwards (JDE) are teaming to integrate and market a new accountancy and Enterprise Resource Allocation (ERA) package. The new software will integrate PTI’s Excalibur Energy Management system with JDE’s OneWorld package. Target areas for the new development effort are joint-interest-billing, AFE, and reporting in both domestic and international contexts. PTI president Brian Searles said “The partnership with J.D. Edwards will elevate Paradigm’s premier upstream product offering into the major international and domestic upstream markets.
international
Paradigm can now offer a platform independent, enterprise-wide solution that melds our expertise with OneWorld to provide a fully multi-currency, multi-lingual upstream product that will bring benefits to both independent and major oil and gas producers throughout the world.”
Marketing of the new solution to the small and mid size US market will be performed by PTS while JDE will handle larger domestic accounts. International sales will be through JDE’s UK base. Arthur Andersen is helping out with product design and will be a preferred implementation partner for the joint solution in the international market.
e-commerce
JDE group VP William Goodison adds “We're not only committed to facilitating collaboration between oil and gas suppliers and customers but also to providing the only enterprise software solution that enables our customers to put their ideas into action quickly in the e-business environment.” PTI, founded in 1979, develops and markets integrated financial and operational software solutions for over 300 oil and gas companies, and employs 100 people in its Dallas, Denver, and Houston offices.
|
Dates |
Location |
Organizer |
Title |
Contact |
Email/URL |
phone |
| 4-6 April | Paris | GeoQuest | GeoQuest User Forum | Kim Robert | krobert@montrouge.geoquest.slb.com |
+331 47 46 4321 |
|
11-12 April |
Oslo |
POSC/PCA |
e-Business and Standards in E&P |
Paul Maton |
+ 44 208 334 0802 |
|
|
16-19 April |
New Orleans |
AAPG |
Annual Conference |
Convention |
+1 800 364 2274 |
|
|
18-19 April |
Brussels |
Landmark |
European Forum |
Venues Etc. |
+44 1276 456 405 |
|
|
15-17 May |
Houston |
PNEC/Geoshare |
4th International Data Integration Conference |
Phil Crouse |
+1 214 841 0044 |
|
|
17 May |
Houston |
Geoshare User Group |
AGM |
Phil Crouse |
+1 214 841 0044 |
|
|
18-19 May |
Houston |
PPDM |
Spring Member Meeting |
Carol Paulin |
+1 403 660-7817 |