A couple of years back, the then Public Petroleum Data Model (PPDM) Association was almost in liquidation. A change of management and serious money from Chevron and ConocoPhillips halted the decline. The new Professional Petroleum Data Management Association is back in financial health and the board notes that ‘there is no longer an overlap with Energistics’ activity.’
CEO Trudy Curtis proposed a new workgroup on data quality and business rules. The project will assess the importance of different types of rules and make recommendations as to how rules should be collected, validated, published, and retrieved. The idea is to develop a web based application along with a ‘starter set’ of rules for well header information management and a practical solution that is easy to understand and deploy. Funding of around $150,000 is sought for the two phase project.
Integrashare’s Gus Nodwell advocated a toolset for the creation and administration of a PPDM database. The idea is to build a graphical user interface (GUI) front end for administrators. This could be a web application or an API. Nodwell invited vendors and PPDM to work together on a cost effective toolset that would be of help to all.
Paul Haines of Noah Consulting noted the fact that a decreasing oil price was creating resistance for master data management projects. This can be mitigated by clearly articulating the value of MDM to achieve business buy-in and by managing MDM project scope and process ‘focus.’ Haines cited his work on Marathon’s MDM presented at last year’s PNEC as a particularly successful project with business buy-in, focus and a proof of concept deployment prior to at-scale implementation. Looking forward, the economic downturn will impact projects, but Haines believes that careful ‘re-balancing’ of scope, use of in-house resources will help as will stretching out program spend though 2009.
For anyone who doubts the usefulness of a PPDM-based MDM solution, Laredo Energy CIO Steve Jaques offered a convincing analysis of Laredo’s GIS-based data management solution. Laredo uses a PPDM 3.8 well master data store to coordinate data across a range of public and in-house data sources. ESRI GIS adds mapping to which Laredo has added iOps, an end user application blending land and well data and documentation. Jaques warns that smaller companies deploying PPDM need to be aware that tools are limited—and invites interested parties to join up with Laredo’s iOps initiative.
An interesting comment in the Q&A noted shifting ethics in the new generation of knowledge workers who are not ‘detail-oriented’ and are going to ‘kill the E&P industry!’ ‘Detail takes too much time and effort.’ Fortunately, there are plenty of contractors who are willing to spend the time and effort required. Anyone for outsourcing?
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