IHS ENERY Group has acquired MAI Consultants (August 1998)

Information Handling Services Group (IHS), theparent company of PI/Dwights and Petroconsultants has added UK-Based MAI Consultants toits collection of energy data providers.

Described as the world's "leading source" of operating & cost data for E&P, MAI Consultants Limited is to become a new energy information franchise within the IHS group. Based in London, MAI has operations in Scotland, the Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Japan, and Australia. Along with the provision of cost and operating data, MAI provides databases, analysis and modeling tools to assess oil and gas exploration, development and production projects. MAI's portfolio of integrated products supports development planning, cost estimating, and economic analysis by oil and gas companies, service companies, and their consultants. The company has a strong presence in emerging oil and gas markets, such as in the former USSR.

Chris Meyer, president of IHS Group and chairman of IHS Energy Group, explained that -"MAI's business is highly complementary to IHS Energy Group and our fast growing Economics and Policy Analysis Group, also based in London." He is "excited by the potential to develop a whole new information franchise, built around oil and gas economic information and analysis." Meyer also expects IHS Energy to "benefit from MAI's established contacts and success in several increasingly important frontier oil and gas markets, particularly in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan." MAI's managing director and founder, Keith Doherty, is appointed as a member of the Office of CEO of IHS Energy. Reporting to Chris Meyer, Doherty will be responsible for supervising the ongoing development of both MAI and IHS Energy's Economics and Policy Analysis Group. Doherty is "very excited by the potential to push forward new development initiatives with the additional financial, technical, and sales and marketing support of IHS Energy".

MAI’s software makes up the BA$IS suite which providing a "complete integrated solution" for the evaluation of prospects and development of strategy. Components of BA$IS include

AS$ET2000 for use in the optimization of oil and gas assets and to facilitate economic modeling. For example, a model of mixed onshore and offshore assets in a number of different tax regimes, with varying working interest, requiring consolidation to corporate level is conceptually easy to create and allows instant ‘auditability’ of the model.

OPE$T a cost risk analysis system that is said to provide an operator with a "holistic, whole life asset business management package".

Q$RI$Q, MAI’s QUE$TOR2000 oil and gas prospect evaluation system.

MAI claims over 500 users world-wide for their software including oil companies such as Amoco, Arco, BP, Conoco, Exxon, Shell, Mobil, Phillips, and many state oil companies and smaller independents. More info from http://www.mai.co.uk.