Acquiring and integrating asset data

The record demand for new oil and gas and the growing shortage of critical engineering skills are forcing dramatic changes in our industry. One visible effect is the number of mergers and acquisitions of both businesses and oil and gas assets. These are a necessity for companies to compete in today’s high-stakes global market. 

Putting businesses together requires integration throughout, starting with financial data and cascading through to operational information. It’s much the same for acquired assets; immediate access to the financial history is one of the first projects on the list. The business benefits are recognized and immediate.

What’s true for financial data however is not always true for the technical data used to manage oil and gas assets. Technical files may exist in many formats and multiple applications. The information may be managed using different naming conventions and may even reside in distant physical locations.

Even more challenging, the people who manage this data may use completely different applications. Changing the way they work too quickly will decrease productivity – not something that companies want to happen after all the time and effort they’ve spent to acquire a business asset.

One significant danger in mergers and acquisitions is that some of the combined value that organizations hope to realize is lost when their data management systems fail to mesh, and their experts must compromise their productivity simply to learn how to use yet another software application.

Petris solutions help integration

Merging groups can preserve their intellectual capital and productive momentum by improving the way information is organized, stored and shared. Petris has ways to prevent historical data – part of the value of any new acquisition – from being lost. We have tools that enhance collaboration between subject matter experts, regardless of where in the world they are. And later, as the baton is passed between engineering generations, we can help companies maintain a seamless transition.  

Petris can also provide solutions that will enable existing data to be ported easily and without loss from one application format to another. One national oil company had a situation where one group of experts was familiar with a specific application, while the newly acquired data they needed to analyze was in yet another format.  PetrisWINDS Enterprise was used to transform a copy of the source data into the application format used by the experts. The net result is that the experts had access to all relevant and needed data, in the format they were accustomed to working with, within hours.

How to better meet regulatory reporting requirements

Regulatory reporting is another important job that becomes more complicated when companies merge. Petris software solutions help managers keep up with regulatory demands, maintenance records, and component history and integration standards.

Good data management practices are a key factor to achieving compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and related requirements. Having all relevant data available and accessible contributes to more accurate reserves estimates and production figures.

Managing and integrating data

Most organizations have volumes of stored data and a stockpile of accumulated knowledge in the form of interpretations. The Internet and remote access capability have helped make that information and knowledge more accessible. In most cases, however, very little updated information, or metadata, is being captured.

Petris ensures that none of the new data is overlooked through the use of an integrated metadata catalog.  This approach provides a lightweight ‘Google-style’ search that goes across all known collections of information. Using the search tools within PetrisWINDS Enterprise, data can be searched for using both a text and map-based interface. Data results can be further refined by adding additional terms so that the information that’s needed is identified through a few quick searches. 

Maintaining security in the digital integrated world

Technical data in the E&P world provides invaluable information about potential revenues for a company.  Protection of this data from both unauthorized access and possible corruption is the responsibility of data managers within the enterprise – and a potential nightmare for the company. Individual applications and data stores typically have their own security protection through passwords and restrictions managed individual applications where the data resides.

But when data is integrated, this approach to security doesn’t necessarily provide assurances that data won’t be changed or inadvertently made available to someone who is not authorized to see it.  Issues around security of the data may arise as the data becomes more broadly accessible through integrated data management techniques and solutions. How do you ensure the integrity of your original data sources, yet preserve access for those who need it?

The Petris solution of a lightweight searchable metadata catalog allows authorized users to know what data exists and its parameters. The data itself remains in its native data source. A ‘shopping cart’ model permits a copy of the data to be moved from one application to wherever it’s needed. The original data remains untouched. Adapters specific to the source and target applications are used which ‘convert’ the data from one format to the other, without loss or change.

Once the analyses are complete, the results may be retained in whatever format the user desires, and indexed by PetrisWINDS Enterprise. A user searching afterwards would then see both the original data source as well as the new analysis, along with any other analyses that exist.  This approach maintains data integrity while preserving access rights and licenses to those users who are authorized to actually work with the data.  Companies recognize the benefits of integration without compromising data security – in essence, they get the best of both worlds.