Archive for May, 2009
SMT Tech Support Habla Espaňol
SMT, purveyor of Windows-based geoscientific interpretation software, now provides primary technical support for its KINGDOM™ product in Spanish for the company’s Latin American customer base. Customers located in Trinidad, Tobago and Brazil will continue to receive support in English and/or Portuguese.
Commenting on the announcement, Rick Pharr, Senior Director of Technical Support, said: “SMT’s offering of support in Spanish is part of the company’s ongoing effort to expand our technical service and support on a global level and provide local language assistance to help customers improve the way they work. Support services for our Spanish-speaking customers is another way in which SMT demonstrates that we are listening to the communities that buy and use our products.”
SMT’s strategic partner in Buenos Aires, Geoinfo SRL, provides the Spanish language support on behalf of SMT, which plans to continue expansion in the South American market. Geoinfo, a top tier SMT partner since 1995, will play an even greater role in this region in the future.
SMT now provides technical support for its global customers in six different languages: English, French, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Spanish. The company’s geoscientific support staff is trained to help clients with all SMT software applications and provides assistance to customers with any problem that may be incurred while using SMT products and services. Technical support for Latin American customers is available through phone, fax or e-mail:
- Spanish – supportlatinamerica@seismicmicro.com
- Portuguese – supportbrazil@seismicmicro.com
- English – support@seismicmicro.com
Knowledge Reservoir Management Buy-Out
On May11, Houston-based Knowledge Reservoir, a geosciences and engineering consulting company, announced the completion of a management buy-out (MBO) of the remaining shares held by Ziebel AS. The MBO represents the purchase by the original founders, Dr. Ivor Ellul and Robert Archer, of the majority stake that Ziebel held after its acquisition of Knowledge Reservoir in May of 2007. Ziebel’s advisor in the transaction was Simmons & Company International.
Dr. Ellul, President and CEO of Knowledge Reservoir, stated: “This is an excellent time to be back at the helm of the company given the ever-increasing need for agility in delivering products and services to our client-base.”
WellEz Launches WellEz On-Demand
“WellEz On-Demand has been designed to offer continuous enhancement of the client experience, while identifying additional sources of value available to clients through WellEz services,” said Charles Jeffery, President and CEO, WellEz. “The WellEz On-Demand program is both immediately responsive and engaging with our clients, leveraging the skills of WellEz technicians who are knowledgeable on oil and gas operations. Since using WellEz.NET does not require purchasing and maintaining software, our clients can invest their time in using the information on their field operations from the WellEz.NET reporting system. Being responsive and proactive increases efficiencies for our clients, and that is our priority.”
Invensys to Establish IT Chair at Kazak University
Invensys Process Systems (IPS) announced it will help establish a new academic Chair of Information Technologies at the Kazakh-British Technical University (KBTU) in Almaty as part of its ongoing strategy to develop and improve engineering skills in Kazakhstan. IPS has invested more than $100,000 (15 million KZT) since 2007 to help improve the curriculum and development of future engineers. “The ability to draw on skilled local graduates is crucial to developing our business in Kazakhstan, particularly with our work on the Kashagan EP Project,” said Nick Pomeroy, IPS Country Manager, Kazakhstan. “Due in part to our commitment, KBTU’s students receive invaluable practical and technical training using the latest technologies within the industrial sector. We look forward to relying on local expertise as we help our clients resolve important industrial issues that have a global impact.” The IPS investment in the new Chair represents $50,000 (7.5 million KZT) per year to KBTU, with plans for the next five years already in place. This follows the opening of a fully equipped, IPS-funded training facility at the university in 2008, which features the latest IPS technologies, including its sophisticated Infusion™ Enterprise Control Systems technology. Professor Iskander Beisembetov, Rector of KBTU, explained: “We are very happy to have such a strong collaboration with IPS because we are both interested in creating the next generation of engineers and managers for this country, this region and for the global marketplace. The IPS Professorship assists both organizations in integrating higher education and industry to successfully develop new programs and training initiatives.” “We have had a presence in Kazakhstan since 1998, and over the years have established a strong connection with KBTU – so much so that IPS technologies now form part of the IT curriculum. This enables us to employ new graduates with an existing knowledge of our technologies straight into our Graduate Deployment Program,” said Stuart Batchelor, IPS President, Europe. “This is a win-win situation: IPS gain access to the top students who are already partly skilled, and the students gain experience by performing intellectually stimulating project work immediately on leaving the university. Graduates from KBTU that have been part of this program have already been deployed in Italy, the UK, Spain and Nigeria. As the projects currently in progress within Kazakhstan come to fruition, the industry will have a pool of highly skilled and experienced Kazakh engineers ready to be deployed in country.” http://www.ips.invensys.com
Pason Systems Implements myDIALS
Colorado-based myDIALS is pioneering a new standard in operational performance that improves visibility into oil rig data acquisition and drilling management. Today myDIALS announced that Pason Systems is using its operational intelligence solution to gain insight into its oilfield instrumentation operations.
Pason is a provider of specialized rental oilfield instrumentation systems for use on land-based drilling and service rigs. Pason’s products and services – including data acquisition, electronic drilling recorder (EDR) devices, wellsite reporting software, remote communications and Internet information management tools – bridge the physical separation between remote wellsites and the office. Pason selected myDIALS as part of an enterprise-wide performance improvement initiative. myDIALS presents information captured about the EDR instruments on customers’ rigs and automatically aggregates disparate metrics – such as average revenue per rig operator or field technician, percentage of optional equipment per rig or region, and equipment utilization – to drive operational efficiency, optimize resource allocation and improve customer service.
“The ability to compare operational data and market share information together, across regions and areas, should enable Pason to make better and more timely business decisions,” said Jeff Izienicki, Operations Manager, Pason Systems. “All the data in the world is useless unless it is easily accessible and presented in a usable manner. We were never able to accomplish that with our internal systems.”
The first phase of implementation involves the senior and regional management team in Pason’s US operation, who will use myDIALS to track rigs, equipment rentals, field staffing levels and marketing opportunities. In the future, Pason expects to expand the use of myDIALS to deliver additional information, including instrument data to end-users at its client oil companies.
“True performance improvement isn’t about getting more data. It’s about visualizing and analyzing the right data,” said Wayne Morris, president and CEO of myDIALS. “Especially in the highly competitive oil and gas industry, companies like Pason are dependent on timely, relevant information to make business decisions with confidence. Whether presenting optimal level of rigs per technician or revenue by region, myDIALS’ intuitive dashboard helps Pason analyze operational data to deliver the best level of service to their customers.”
Delivered via Software as a Service (SaaS), myDIALS is an easy-to-implement, cost-effective solution for monitoring and analyzing priority operational metrics. By presenting real-time key performance indicators (KPIs) in context, myDIALS enables organizations to improve visibility into data and align operations such as EDR deployment and field technician staffing with business performance outcomes including sales and business development.
Getting Award from SPE
PetroComputing Editor Jeanne Perdue will be receiving a Gulf Coast Region Service Award from the Society of Petroleum Engineers on May 21 at the Awards Banquet.
Petris Unveils OneTouch Portal
At the 13th annual PNEC Data Management Conference in Houston, Petris Technology Inc. announced a brand-new integration of its PetrisWINDS Enterprise framework with both Microsoft Office SharePoint and ESRI’s ArcGIS geographical information system (GIS). The new PetrisWINDS OneTouch™ service brings global, multi-disciplinary asset teams together with data from many sources through a Web-based workspace and data environment – “one” place where you can “touch” all your data and collaborate with team members worldwide.
The PetrisWINDS Enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) solution provides the foundation for the OneTouch knowledge portal, where users can conduct business intelligence and analytics on real-time data feeds and communicate with others using social networking tools like instant messaging and wikis. The GIS map capabilities help users visualize federated data from multiple sources using bubble charts and map layers, with the ability to drill down deeper into the data for details.
Since around 69% of E&P companies have already adopted SharePoint and many of these also have ESRI ArcGIS, OneTouch leverages these technology investments by offering an easy-to-use, Web-based solution tailored specifically for oil and gas.
“The ESRI and Microsoft SharePoint platforms offer many out-of-the-box features, many of which exploit and amplify an organization’s existing infrastructure,” said Jim Pritchett, CEO of Petris. “Similarly, Petris has existing capabilities with its integration platform and well-entrenched applications in E&P.”
The OneTouch subscription service includes a hosted E&P Web Part Gallery for customers to access – and contribute – user interface designs and business intelligence routines alongside those developed by Petris. Think of it as the YouTube of oil and gas Web Parts. Petris will provide technical guidelines and portal standards to ensure functionality and interoperability of Web Parts submitted to this searchable, online gallery.
Partnership with Wipro for Deployment
To accelerate the deployment of the OneTouch technology worldwide, Petris has formed a strategic partnership with Wipro Technologies. The goal of the alliance is to pair Petris’ experience in complex E&P data management with Wipro’s global manpower, expertise and technology services. Wipro has more than 25 years of experience in delivering technology services on a global scale. The $5 billion company has 100,000 employees in 54 countries. All six of the largest oil companies are Wipro customers.
Because SharePoint and OneTouch deployments are highly configurable, the Petris-Wipro partnership will help customers build an effective solution for their own workflows, linking their proprietary data stores and applications in a searchable Web browser with excellent collaboration tools.
“We are excited to partner with Petris because of their extensive E&P data management expertise,” said Dayapatra Nevatia, head of Wipro’s Energy business. “Maintaining the effective synergy of data and technology will bring tremendous value to the E&P industry.”
Petris and Wipro will form hybrid teams comprised of one or two Petris employees plus 4-6 Wipro employees, some on location at the customer’s site and some in India to tap the expertise there. Using an “agile” software development technique, a rapid turnaround can take the “80% solution” that is OneTouch out of the box and configure it to customer workflows, data and requirements.
“To do the other 20% on a worldwide basis, we needed a worldwide company like Wipro,” Pritchett told PetroComputing. “SharePoint doesn’t get down to the data level.”
Petris VP John Wearing summed it up nicely: “Together we will be integrating the science end with the business end.”
PetroComputing 