Spotfire Dashboard Demo of a Shale Type Ternary Diagram, Well Map, and Source Wells by Formation
Since rock type will have a bearing on completion and drilling practices, you definitely want to know the results of wells with similar rock types. Normally, geologists, petrophysicists, and reservoir engineers who need to find data from wells and formations by rock type to perform evaluations have to plot out data in Excel, but making selections off of an Excel chart is impossible, and filtering table data can often end up being hit-or-miss. Instead, you could create a ternary diagram in TIBCO Spotfire paired with a geographic map of the location of the wells to perform formation evaluations. The Spotfire dashboard demo here provides interactive functionality with a well map and ternary diagram.
Click the video to play the demo:
As you can see, there will be a direct bearing on what to pay for land in a shale oil or shale gas play when you monitor how the lithology of a formation is changing by moving your area of interest.
To purchase a version of this Spotfire dashboard tailored to your own data, give us a call at 1-888-343-KNOW or send me a note using the form to the right.
Bad Oil and Gas Software: Key Concerns
Oil and gas software is an essential component for businesses in the energy industry. It allows them respond to problems more quickly, review historical data more easily and send reports to managers automatically.
Oil and gas software also allows enables the implementation of a formal process for tracking production as opposed to the collection of spreadsheets that has traditionally been used in this industry.
However, poor oil and gas software can also create problems, which may be classified into the areas of assets, production and revenue. Read More
Lease Compliance and Custom Software: Eliminating the Single Point of Failure
Onshore Drilling and Lease Compliance
Does your company participate in onshore drilling? If so, you would probably agree that lease compliance is an ongoing issue. Onshore wells are smaller, so you have more of them, with the accompanying lease provisions that your company may or may not have a system for tracking.
Energy Software Could Make a Difference for Chesapeake Suit
The Houston Business Journal posted an article yesterday about Barnett Shale owners suing Chesapeake Energy over mineral rights. The dispute involves 4000 acres of land, and “the complaint says Chesapeake allegedly violated lease agreements by underpaying on royalty payments from gas produced on the plaintiffs’ land in Tarrant and Johnson counties.”
Lean Concepts in Oil and Gas: Using Data to Refine Processes
As we’ve discussed in a previous post, hydraulic fracturing has become a repeatable process that more and more resembles a factory assembly line. The challenge, however, is to find ways to use data or oil and gas software to optimize these plays and make them profitable. As I was preparing for a presentation on complex shale lease provisions, it occurred to me that shale operations, being more closely related to manufacturing than, say, offshore operations, might benefit from applying Lean concepts.
Nathaniel Richards presents “Avoiding Lease Jeopardy in Shale Plays” to Energy Businesses at HAPL Workshop
At this week’s Houston Association of Professional Landmen Technical Workshop, Entrance President and CEO Nathaniel Richards will share insights from his energy software consulting practice with Houston’s active Landmen community. With over ten years of experience developing strategies for the oil and gas industry, Richards will help Landmen avoid losing leases due to decentralized information technology strategies.
With energy software development experience ranging from oil and gas business intelligence to process automation, Richards is an expert at connecting the field to the workplace. “By centralizing information, energy businesses can respond to market dynamics faster and reduce the risk of losing a lease,” says Richards.
Entrance Launches Lunch and Learn Series
In addition to providing awesome custom software development and SharePoint consulting services, Entrance has made it a goal to share our knowledge with customers so they can learn from our experience. As a result, for 2013, we have launched a new lunch and learn series to further this purpose. Each month we will cover a topic of interest, starting with a fifteen minute informational presentation and followed with a peer-to-peer discussion about the issues they are seeing in their day-to-day work and how to fix them.
So far we have covered Data Trends for 2013 and complex shale lease provisions; both with great success. In March, we will be discussing the business drivers for software modernization on March 6th and a part two of complex shale lease provisions on March 13th as the first event was very crowded.
Visit our events page for the full list and details of upcoming events.
Oil and Gas Software the Key to Optimizing Industry Growth
I’ve discussed in a previous post the impact that the oil and gas industry has on jobs in the United States. I took note this past week of an article in the Oil and Gas Financial Journal regarding the testimony of Daniel Yergin (author of The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World) to the US House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power. His statements regarding the oil and gas industry’s contributions to the economy are worth highlighting:
- Oil and gas production currently supports 1.7 million jobs, with growth to 3 million by 2020.
- Even in areas where there is no activity, long supply chains mean jobs are created everywhere. For example, in New York, where shale gas development is banned, at least 44,000 jobs have been created by the industry.
Managing regulatory compliance and risk
I wrote a few weeks ago about environmental regulations and how the difficulty of keeping up with these regulations can shut down business. Another article I read recently, called “Dealing with Regulatory Risk,” from the Oil and Gas Financial Journal, discussed the issue of regulation of fracing and LNG exports. The author, Don Stowers’ big point was that while regulation of these things serves a purpose and is important, over-regulating will have the effect of slowing down the economy and stalling job creation for the energy sector. Stowers also asked several important questions:
- What is the legitimate role of government in regulating business?
- Should federal, state or local officials do the regulating?
- When does government regulation go too far, and who decides it?
- When happens when excessive government regulation stifles business development and job creation?
Environmental Compliance increasingly expensive for oil and gas companies
Regulations make or break for some area’s key industry
TIPRO recently published an article in their Fall/Winter edition of Upstream Texas discussing environmental regulations in the United States. In particular, the author discussed how the landscape for government regulation is only getting more difficult. Regulatory compliance drains the US economy of $1.75 trillion a year, and according to the Heritage Foundation, ” the cost of complying with regulations enacted during Obama’s first three years in office exceeds by five times the cost associated with new rules promulgated during the first three years of George W. Bush’s presidency.”
Lease Terms Driving Activity in the Eagle Ford
Operators in the Eagle Ford have had a rig count of over 250 rigs for more than a year, drilling faster and faster. But where is the pressure for that pace coming from?
As shale activities turn from wildcatting to manufacturing-style drilling projects, both pace and scale of operations are increasing. Many operators are accountable for improved drilling times as a main success indicator, so that even though some operators “scaled back the number of rigs be utilized, they’re still drilling the same number of wells” according to R.T. Dukes of EagleFordShale.com. The transition in type of operations also means that where those who first jumped in for a strategic land position are no longer able to keep up the pace, companies more experienced in creating repeatable success are buying in and creating additional rigs. “Approximately 270 rigs have been running in the region for almost 12 months,” says R.T. Dukes.
Oil and Gas Compliance Solutions – Creating a Plan
For the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about compliance in Energy. A growing area of concern in the industry, compliance crosses many areas of an oil and gas company – the constant set of changing requirements around safety, tax, land, legal, environmental and other compliance can feel overwhelming. Luckily, while every compliance scenario is different, there’s a way to answer common concerns with a compliance management information framework.
Ready to start thinking about systematic compliance solutions?
Steps for Managing Compliance During a Merger or Acquisition
When a company is facing M&A, the necessity of merging two IT systems can sometimes raise some interesting issues surrounding compliance. As you examine the data, you may discover gaps in the information you are tracking. The stakes for non-compliance are high, so don’t leave this risk to chance!
To begin evaluating whether you have this issue covered, first understand whether your current system for tracking leases and regulations is adequate:
How Oil and Gas Compliance Issues Start
If your company has issues managing compliance, the good news is you’re not alone. In oil and gas, there are many causes for the consternation around compliance. Here are a few common causes lurking behind compliance issues.
Information Siloes
Compliance, no matter whether it be regulatory, safety, tax or any other type, almost always requires information from across your organization. While most companies in the oil and gas industry are usually great at gathering information, it tends to be segmented by department, and not easily available to those who might need it for secondary purposes (like compliance!). In the software consulting world we blame that gap between information in one department and the people who need it in another on siloes of information. Luckily information siloes are a very solvable problem as technology-supported business collaboration becomes more and more advanced.
Compliance as an Opportunity
Last week I wrote about what makes compliance a dirty word in Oil and Gas, as well as the drivers behind its current urgency in the industry. As we dive deeper into compliance, what’s interesting is that everyone agrees on the goals behind compliance – protecting our safety, the environment, royalty owner interests etc. In fact, the real issue seems to be in the implementation.
While implementing a compliance plan can seem daunting, I believe joining the conversation and planning for compliance creates specific opportunities for Oil and Gas companies:
Compliance is scary. Why?
Compliance is a big word. For the next couple weeks we’ll be posting a series on compliance as a solvable information problem in Oil and Gas.
Everything from safety, tax, engineering, contracts, to the environment requires a focus on compliance in the Oil and Gas industry. The field is complex, varied, ever-changing and yet usually forgotten until there’s a problem. When we think about compliance, we automatically think about the risk of noncompliance, because usually by the time it’s under consideration, it’s too late. And so it’s a pseudo-taboo. At Entrance, we know this is a solvable problem. Let’s dig a little deeper to find out why it’s got such a bad taste.
Business Collaboration for Tax Compliance After Royalty Unbundling
Here at PDI, we just heard from Dennis Cameron of WPX Energy and Pam Williams of Shell, who spoke on the impact of federal unbundling on royalty compliance. As of April of 2012, unbundling audits have increased exponentially and remaining compliant with the changing set of rules has become time-consuming and nye impossible, because many of the pieces of documentation are not kept in locations available to those creating compliance reports. This leaves compliance experts “gathering data from documents, contracts, and even email” according to Williams. She has even personally “called down people in the field to ask for information about equipment costs, compressor discharge pressures, etc” in order to gather the information she needed to even begin tracking unbundled tax compliance. We’ve talked a lot about chasing down information from various parts of the company, the gap between field and office, and even briding the emerging generation gap as experts retire, and unbundling has all of the common characteristics of a scenario where business collaboration can make all the difference.
Lease Compliance a Sticking Point for Chesapeake Energy
Fuel Fix reported this week that there has been an uptick in natural gas prices the past few weeks- 20% to be exact. But companies involved in Shale drilling aren’t out of the woods yet, as prices are still down 18% compared to this time last year. We mentioned the legal struggles and reporting issues that Chesapeake Energy has been facing a few weeks ago. More recent reports say they are currently trying to plug a $14 billion cash flow deficit. According to Reuters, “as Chesapeake fights to regain its footing, it is looking to execute the last stage in its land strategy: filling out its vast holdings, and then developing or selling them. Where Chesapeake doesn’t intend to drill, it intends to sell, according to company presentations.”
Eagle Ford Shale Energy Boom to Impact Law Offices Next
When we saw this news item we were excited to see the impact that shale has had on the local economies in South Texas. Noteworthy, however, is that law offices are listed among the next industries to feel the Eagle Ford boom due to all of the documentation that goes along with oil and gas operations. Entrance is actively helping operators in the Eagle Ford manage contractual compliance systematically in the hopes of preventing litigation. We’re able to use the information they already have to create proactive notifications that allow the company to act on potential contractual breaches before they occur.
Nate Richards Speaks on Lease Compliance at Shale Conference
Nate Richards, President of Entrance, presented a case study on lease compliance at the conference, “Managing Regulatory and Legal Issues in Shale Plays” in Houston, Texas. Nate shared the innovative solution implemented for one shale E&P client. He explained how the platform allows proactive notification about lease compliance and is protecting key assets in multiple domestic shale plays from potential lease jeopardy by improving administration of common shale lease language. The case study included an explanation of industry drivers that are causing a new set of pressures on compliance.Read More