Timely information on the position of a hurricane (see Figure 6) is critical in two respects: it helps to determine when to evacuate crews and ensure their safety, and when to return them to resume drilling and production. These illustrations underscore the importance of the capability to disseminate pertinent data from head office to offshore platforms. Geographic information systems (GIS) help distribute information in a visual fashion that is understood quickly and easily, from the chief executive officer anywhere in the country to the tool-pusher on the platform at risk.
Figure 6: Hurricane isidore before Landfall
This emergency scenario is repeated many times before, during and after the fact and across all scopes of the petroleum industry. The precise mapping of pipelines in response to new guidelines from the US Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) (http://ops.dot.gov) was put in motion well before the events of 11 September 2001. It reflects the public’s right to know where pipelines are laid across the countryside (similar to ‘call before you dig’ in many cities to help prevent accidentally unearthing electric and other lines in city neighbourhoods). The realtime scenario described previously applies to any infrastructure that is exposed to weather, traffic and pollution (refineries plan stand- down days to better prepare for emergencies such as accidental spills). The clean-up after a disaster strike is greatly enhanced if rescue teams know exactly where the visible damage lies, as well as the hidden source of potential danger (such as buried lines and containers that may have been damaged). No sooner was Hurricane Isidore downgraded to a tropical storm than Hurricane Lili gained momentum in the Caribbean to repeat the scenario two weeks later.
How May we Help ?
Thus, industry now demands commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software and data standards, which allow the interoperability of systems and data. For example, the deployment for the US Department of Defense (http://www.nima.mil/ocrn/nima/hot/jmtk.html) mandated COTS for sheer size and complexity. Closer to home, pipeline and petroleum data models were released recently in conjunction with the standards organisations, Pipeline Open Data Standards (PODS) (http://www.pods.org) and Public Petroleum Data Model (PPDM) (http://www.ppdm.org). In both cases, oil company users and developers of software and services set up practical business tools that allow them to work together. The compelling reason for PODS was to present a single data model to US Interstate Natural Gas Association (INGA) (http://www.ingaa. org), which, in turn, represents the pipeline industry to OPS, which regulates pipeline inspection and data dissemination. The compelling reason for PPDM was Canadian users’ desire to exchange non-core asset data and facilitate their joint ventures (called farm-ins and farm-outs in the industry). Both are detailed in ESRI pages for petroleum (http://www.esri.com/petroleum), pipeline (http://www.esri.com/pipeline) and data models (http://www.esri.com/arcgisdatamodels).
Where to go Next ?
Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web browser at Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN) in 1989 to help him exchange documents with research colleagues scattered abroad. That tenet still holds as the Internet facilitates the co-operation of vast groups of people who have a network or telephone link. Although that includes less that 10% of the global population, the impact on our economy and world outlook translates in the way we do business. The Geography Network (http://www.geography network.com) was established to help agencies post their data, which is typically freely available. An e-commerce backbone has now been installed, and the site is mirrored in Arizona, which extends the original idea to help communities share their data however it makes business sense.
Particular to the oil industry is the organisation and maintenance of large data centres across the globe. Efforts in this area have been reduced (both in- house for corporate data and by service companies), in order to achieve economies of scale. However, enterprise systems have recently grown from data management to application service providers and digital marketplaces. Significant transactions are now carried out over secure Internet sites, which helps acquisitions and divestitures. One such example is Schlumberger’s Indigopool (http://www.indigopool.com), which posts opportunities as they arise and allows interested parties to investigate both geographically and by portfolio.
Since everything we touch has a location component, geography drives the analysis. It only makes sense that spatial information be displayed visually, to better help communicate and facilitate the analysis of data. Three-dimensional display and statistical analyses have long been the staple of petroleum data management, but only now are these made available to a broader public through easy-to- use yet powerful desktop interfaces. These range from desktop and notebook computers to hand-held wireless devices that give access to corporate and public servers over the network and Internet. These not only open communications, but also open up access. GIS is reaching the criticality and mass to manage sustainable networks of user communities like never before. Sun Microsystem’s Scott McNeally originally said, “the network is the computer.” Now, with GIS and the Internet, this might perhaps be reframed as, “the computer is the network.” Robust COTS software with integrated spatial analysis is linking users and helping them co-operate in new ways to leverage data into information and share knowledge for sustainable environments across all industries and to society at large. Is our common clientele not the public, who relies on the responsible management of our global infrastructure?
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