PDM attended the POSC member meeting and AGM in London last month. The board is considering a federating standards body - the Open Energy Exchange, and is actively seeking support from peer organizations. Other presentations described the benefits of web portals, objects and data mining.

At the POSC AGM and member meeting held in London last month, chairman John Hanten described how POSC, along with the rest of the business, has suffered from the downturn. Mergers and Acquisitions have eroded the user base and reduced discretionary funding. Furthermore, the proliferation of new standards initiatives (see last month’s PDM) has led to a degree of standards ‘fatigue’.

The POSC board has initiated a series of preliminary meetings with other standards bodies - both in the public and vendor domains - and is seeking drivers for convergence. As a very preliminary concept, POSC has put forward the Open Energy Exchange (O2E), whose geometry remains to be defined. The new organization is intended to federate and coordinate the various initiatives, but not necessarily to seek to merge data models.

Mark Armentrout (Arco) claimed that contrary to popular belief, e-business "ebiz" is actually under-hyped. In particular, the Oil industry is a technological laggard. The action is not in the consumer arena, but in business to business (B2B). Arco, especially with the logistical challenge of North Slope operations, has been an early adopter of ebiz technologies. Wireless Ethernet on rigs in Alaska allow for real-time remote surveillance – notably of critical coiled-tubing operations. Arco are great users of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and are active in PIDEX. Drilling and Construction are also high impact areas.

Portal technology and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are providing "in your face" data delivery according to Enterprise Oil’s Tim Bird. A long-term collaboration with Landmark led to the development of Open Explorer which has seen further customization within Enterprise. The focus has shifted from the data, to its delivery to end-users. Internet portal technology is the key in supporting fully digital workflows. Multiple data sources are synthesized into a single GIS-based point of access for QC’d digital data.

The Enterprise EPDS – E&P Data Management System was developed for mature areas - such as the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea from Enterprise’s EOCENE legacy system. There is no single Master Data Store. Both data loading and linking strategies are tailored to local requirements. If applications need data, it is loaded, otherwise a link to the primary data source is made. Currently EPDS can link & browse 28 sources in UK. This is not an "out of the box" solution. Bird claims that the best commercial solution provides 80% - the framework. The remaining 20% comes from in-house added - value effort. Components of the system include ArcView, Landmark’s Open Explorer, Knowledge reference System and OpenJournal - described as the real "killer app." Microsoft Access is used for data capture and cleanup and is said to be "very powerful". Bird advocates spending 1-2 % of data cost per annum to manage it properly. But it is the ubiquitous availability of data that the Portal offers that has convinced the users.

Thore Ungeland (Statoil) thinks that the industry has never really understood the benefits to accrue from integration across the frontier of subsurface and facilities. The requirement for better communication between these domains has increased in recent years as what used to be a surface facility is increasingly moving downhole. The disconnect in this area is probably more serious than the more attention-getting financial to technical gap.