The Client
This independent Houston-based company is engaged in the acquisition, development, exploration, and operation of oil and natural gas properties, with a focus on the onshore and inland-water areas of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. It operates approximately 3,000 wells in four defined geographical areas.
The Problem
As with every oil and gas company, the client’s business is supported by a number of “systems of record”: ERP, GIS, engineering, marketing, accounting, leasing, production, etc. Consolidating information associated with a specific field, rig, or well is problematic as the data is located in various systems of record, in different formats, in different degrees of granularity.
The client’s CEO, frustrated that he couldn’t get his hands on the all of information he needed to understand the company’s positions, envisioned a map-based software tool – what he called a “spatial dashboard” – that would aggregate the multiple types of information related to wells and other assets inside a specific geographical area. The tool would serve as a single information source for the CEO, as well as for staff at other levels, to access multiple types of information about assets – rigs, wells, and leases – within a defined operating field. Specific asset types and their status would be defined visually as distinct icons of different sizes, shapes and colors, each indicating different business conditions: productivity, category, performance, etc. The tool would not replace specific systems of record or generate new data, but rather bring together layers of data from these source systems as well as competitive data purchased from third-party providers such as Tobin and geo-centric data such as geologic formations, points of interest (including roadways, pipelines, waterways, etc.), roads, weather, and topographical imagery. More importantly, the composite data layers would be contextualized via a common, intuitive, and easy-to-understand user experience – that is, a digital map.
The Solution
The client’s IT director teamed with Stonebridge’s Oil & Gas Solutions Practice to bring the CEO’s vision of a spatial dashboard to life. Stonebridge first developed a proof of concept of the application using a subset of data from one of the client’s four areas of interest. Based on the response of the client’s executive team to the working prototype, Stonebridge then developed the production spatial dashboard.
The application, which includes more than 35 data layers and continues to grow, runs on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 platform. Within the SharePoint environment, the application integrates a series of .NET web parts built on IDV Solutions’ Visual Fusion 3.0 visual mashup software and configured web parts inherent to SharePoint. In addition, the application’s “base map” of spatial data is provided through Microsoft Virtual Earth. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is combined with advanced charting capabilities to define and deploy Web-based reports of static well performance and header data.
Stonebridge integrated the following components to develop the spatial dashboard application:
- Map Web Part – This web part provides the spatial interface to display the information layers on top of the Virtual Earth base map.
- Layer Control Web Part – This web part allows selection and de-selection of various information layers on top of the base map.
- Well-Depth Slider Control – This control allows the user to select a depth value range (in feet), dynamically filtering the wells on the map in the process. It is tied to a “well depth” attribute stored in the designated well header database.
- Competitive Operator Filter Control – This control allows the user to select the company name associated as the operator of non-client wells. This control is tied to the “operator name” attribute stored in the designated competitor wells database. It is associated with the “Competitor Wells” layer.
- Well Performance Reports – The reports show various key performance indicators for one or more wells selected in the map web part. They are developed in Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services and deployed in configurable SharePoint web parts. Each performance indicator is represented by two report renderings: a graphical chart and a tabular display. Each report includes “Export to Excel” and “Export to PDF” functions for the data displayed. The reports include:
- Monthly Production History
- Daily Production History
- Well Test History
- Search – Enables search by keyword lookup based on the name (or part of the name) of one or more wells and then provides direct navigation to that location.
The Benefits
The client’s spatial dashboard allows its employees to access data from multiple source systems in a centralized tool. Benefits include:
- Delivery of this spatial application within the same familiar intranet platform (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007) in wide use across the enterprise.
- Presentation of relevant business data from familiar systems in an easy-to-use interface.
- Seamless integration between data sets from different sources, departments, and disciplines.
- Flexible foundation to quickly add new application layers based on newly available data from acquired properties, business partners, or commercial data providers with minimal development effort.
- Improved visibility into the activities of competitive entities in key areas of interest.
- Increased leverage of data sets purchased by the client from third-parties.
- Increased leverage of data created and managed by the client’s GeoComputing, Facilities, and other GIS-centric functions to a broader audience.