CDA CEO defends record

CDA CEO Malcom Fleming took issue with several points raised in last month’s editorial. He argues that CDA’s achievements were underplayed, and defends the new ‘DEAL’.

I refer to your article ".com vs. .gov" in the July issue of the Petroleum Data Manager. Your story regrettably includes many inaccuracies, for example:

• You are grossly over-simplifying the business case and are under-playing CDA’s achievements by stating that "CDA has failed in its main mission of cost-saving by eliminating in-house storage". I would welcome the opportunity to develop the CDA case further with you.
• The idea of extending the CDA model to the seismic domain was not "quietly dropped". Very early on CDA recognized that it would not be sensible to take the same approach to seismic data as it had with the well data. This was a deliberate and well-advertised decision based partly upon the projected costs of such an undertaking, but more importantly, it reflected CDA’s wish to preserve competition in seismic trace data storage/services market. A CDA seismic data repository would have stifled competition.
• The "virtual" data store you mention has been part of CDA’s mainstream strategic plan for more than three years. In no sense did e-commerce "come to the rescue" as you claim.
• The reason behind the so-called "transmogrification" of DEAL to the Digital Energy Atlas & Library had nothing whatsoever to do with the success or otherwise of LIFT. It was simply a recognition that the DEAL concept had outgrown the one originally envisaged and, with the addition of functionality required by CDA participants, was no longer "the Data Environment Associated with LIFT".
• You misunderstand completely how DEAL is being funded. It is not being funded by the OGITF, nor is it being funded by the DTI or even UKOOA. It is being funded by CDA participants. We do intend to defray some of our costs by levying a subscription charge for a minority of non-CDA DEAL users but these charges will not be significant.

I really wish that you had spoken to CDA before publishing this article. I am available to expand upon any of the above points but I cannot of course claim to represent Pilot, the DTI or UKOOA.

Malcolm Fleming,
Chief Executive,
CDA.

This article originally appeared in Oil IT Journal 2000 Issue # 8.

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