Background

This case study involves one of the largest independent exploration and production companies in the world, with operations spanning the globe.  Their North American business unit operates in Canada, Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, Anadarko basin, Permian basin, and offshore Gulf of Mexico.  Their shale operations are in the Bakken and Eagle Ford.  So, the data managers in the North American business unit had their hands full assembling, managing, and distributing data to appropriate projects.

Challenges

The downturn of the oil market in 2014 forced many companies, including our client, to look for efficiencies from every part of their organization. Part of the cost savings involved a reduction in workforce. In addition, with decreased drilling operations, there was an increased focus on data management and integration.  Now, more than ever, the North American data management team was under the microscope to deliver effective, efficient integration solutions to enable a reduced staff to enhance data management services to the business unit.

Workflows

The TIBCO OpenSpirit® Copy Manager and Copy Rules Manager were leveraged to fulfill a need to transfer geologic and geophysical data bi-directionally between Landmark OpenWorks® and Schlumberger Studio® data stores.  Their strategy was to transfer the preferred attributes from each data source into what would become a BEST source database for subsequent distribution to end-user projects.  This strategy demanded a flexible, customizable, automated data transfer tool to enable attribute-by-attribute decisions, while being robust enough to handle the required datatypes.  Datatypes included Well Header, Directional Surveys, Check-shots, Picks, Log Curves, Horizons (seismic and non-seismic), Faults, 2D and 3D Seismic bulk data.

The combination of Copy Manager – the tool that affects the transfer job, manages the job definitions, and schedules the automated transfer jobs, and Copy Rules Manager – the tool that allows customization of transfers at an attribute level of granularity, provided the power and flexibility at a value that satisfied both end users and management.

Positive Business Outcome

During this time, there were three groups of people to satisfy.  First, the financial administrators, second, the data managers, and last, but not least, the end user geologists and geophysicists consuming the data.

Regarding financial administrators, for their investment in Copy Manager and Copy Rules Manager, the time and effort savings in finding and distributing data between applications, paid for the two license features within seven months, based on estimated man-hour effort when transferring the data manually.  After seven months, they have been essentially “making” money with their use of TIBCO OpenSpirit®.

Data managers were well satisfied that they were able to build a BEST of class data base through easy-to-use, efficient interfaces, and could begin distributing BEST data to working projects.  The automated transfers were critical with reduced staff.

Geologists and geophysicists had confidence that the data was true and correct due to the automated, reproducible, and reliable method of transfer.