Around 80 attended the 9th annual SMi E&P Information and Data Management1 conference in London. In his keynote address, ExxonMobil reported on a PricewaterhouseCoopers’ study that found ongoing dissatisfaction with access to real time data. Comstock compared the large sums spent on ERP implementation with the less well endowed upstream data environment – where the ‘dividend’ of better management of the data asset is potentially much greater. Comstock also warned of the true cost of managing additional storage which is around ten times the cost of hardware. This is particularly important in the face of proliferating copies of the same data across the network. Shell reported on its ‘smart’ wells and fields that are contributing to ‘operational excellence’ at the expense of a degree of data ‘overload’. OMV is embarking on ‘ISIS’ a significant IM project that is currently addressing data quality and standards before addressing the wider issues of data update and decision support. BHP Billiton is leveraging GoogleEarth in its EarthSearch portal on its ‘multi dimensional’ data assets in what is one of the first full scale deployments of Google’s Enterprise Services for oil and gas.
A Schlumberger survey of clients found that the main production data management application is Microsoft Excel, also widely used in the context of business intelligence (Knightsbridge). The problem with Excel is that it is generally used with little or no back-end data management – with unmanaged dada accumulating on users’ C:\ Drives. Landmark presented a new approach to blending structured and unstructured data as a part of its new Information Management and Infrastructure (IM&I) service offering. Troika’s presentation provided an update on SEG tape standards activity and also heralded the move of the European Petroleum Services Group’s (EPSG) coordinate reference system (CRS) data resource to the Oil and Gas Producers Association (OGP). The definitive CRS dataset will soon be available as a web service. Petrolink described the localization of its well site data management package as Pemex’ CADI system – variously presented as a decision support system for Pemex’ operations and as a pre-processor for Pemex’ @DITEP database. The round table discussion ranged widely from data management to knowledge management and the return on investment from such activity. Shell’s Thierry Gregorius proffered an iconoclastic view on the ROI debate, on ‘knowledge management’ in general and on the automation of ‘risk management’.
