Speaking at the first EU meeting of the Professional Petroleum Data Managers’ (PPDM) Association user group meet last month (more from this meet in last month’s Oil IT Journal), Claude Martin described how Total was promoting its data management activity and building a ‘professional’ data management organization via its affiliates’ geosciences data management program, ‘Gadama’. Total is essentially a Schlumberger shop. Data managers use ProSource and end users DecisionPoint. Total’s data landscape includes LogDB, Finder, eSearch. An Avocet-based production data management system connects to the Gadama infrastructure through Finder. Following a three year pilot in Indonesia, Gadama was rolled out to Nigeria and Angola. After a ‘pause for evaluation,’ deployment in most all of Total’s major affiliates followed.
Gadama comprises some 3,000 pages of best practice documentation. Affiliates now have a single entry point to multiple repositories that share taxonomies and definitions. Metrics show that despite escalating activity, growth in the data management community has been modest and productivity has risen significantly.
Martin stated that Total is ‘very happy with Schlumberger. Finder is a good database which provides the bricks—but you still need to build the house.’ Martin wondered if such a project would be possible with PPDM noting that ‘even with Schlumberger’s toolset, integration and deployment is not easy.’ Even now it takes over six weeks for an affiliate to install the system.
But the future is open as Schlumberger is migrating its Finder user base to the new Seabed database. Mappings will change, and adopters like Total will have to rewrite 30-40% of ProSource views and add new licenses. ‘When your provider changes policy you have to follow them.’
Gadama has brought Total better understanding of how to run a data management organization. Most of the métier (business) re-engineering has been realized. A possible alternative to a Seabed port would be ‘to develop our own corporate database.’ Is PPDM is a potential solution? Total’s decision will be likely be made this year. More from ppdm.org.
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