In its 2010 Annual Review, Saudi Aramco announced the roll-out of a ‘state-of-the-art’ land management system (LMS), a component of its SAP-based front-end business enterprise system. The LMS adds geographic ‘intelligence’ to thousands of Aramco’s land records through an embedded, ESRI-based geographic information system. The system covers around a tenth of Saudi Arabia’s land mass, primarily in Eastern and Central provinces with a network of more than 5,000 km of utility and pipeline rights-of-way. Corporate expansion has resulted in the company’s land reservations increasing nearly three-fold since 1980, with considerable future growth expected from new oil and gas discoveries.
The new system replaces previous ‘fragmented,’ stand-alone systems with multiple interfaces that required high maintenance and training overhead that required staff to master several databases and systems. The LMS has automated some 17 separate land-related business processes. Authorized users are now able to perform all land management- related activities through SAP, including land use permits, well approvals, land requests and encroachments.
The system also provides remote land use monitoring with a built-in change detection solution that uses satellite imagery. This combines with on-site inspection to monitor unauthorized land utilizations. Aramco claims the new SAP LMS as a ‘world-class solution to large scale land management.’ Download Aramco’s annual review from www.oilit.com/links/1106_21.
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