Shell Services Company Introduces VerisStream (December 1996)

Following their implementation of IBM's PetroBank in Houston (see August PDM) Shell Service Co. (SSC) are going public with VeriStream, a data management service designed to 'help exploration and production companies enhance productivity of their technical staffs'.

VeriStream services include consulting, systems implementation and storage and retrieval of seismic and well data via PetroBank. In a bleaker than usual vision of the status quo, SSC's Lorin Brass estimates that E&P personnel spend up to 70% of their time "trying to locate, verify and reformat information for interpretation and analysis" - VeriStream services are targeted at reducing this wasted time. While data can be physically located on the SSC PetroBank, VeriStream also acts as an information broker, offering a GIS front end to data stored with third parties. A point and click interface can allow for pre-visualization of seismics and other data, while the actual transaction may be off-line. Vendor-neutral consulting, transcription data loading and delivery services complete the VeriStream offer.

privatized

VeriStream complements existing external services offered by SSC extending from Business Process Consulting, Oil and gas Financial Services, Manufacturing Management Systems and General Financial Services. These extend from E&P right through to the downstream sector. SSC has over 1,700 employees and an annual turnover in excess of $300 million. SSC claim their years of in-house service provision for Shell place them in a favorable position to help energy companies and other to "rediscover their core business" and describe VeriStream as a "radical" solution, alluding to other novel types of business partnerships that would not have been considered a decade ago. This "privatization" of a hitherto dedicated service provider is an interesting alternative to the "restructuring" approach adopted by other major oil co.'s. For more information on SSC and VeriStream, contact Jim Wortham, (1) 713 241 6453.

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