Effective Uses of Information Systems

American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc. This paper was prepared for the 43rd Annual Fall Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in Houston, Tex., Sept. 29-Oct. 2, 1968. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made. provided agreement to give proper credit is made. Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines. This paper presents a user's view of some applications and pitfalls of an operational information system. This system was initiated in 1960 by the Gas Supply Division of an interstate gas pipeline company to calculate and maintain dedicated gas reserves by well. This basic file included identification data, dedicated lease interest as well as reservoir parameters. From this small beginning, the data parameters. From this small beginning, the data file concept has mushroomed and now includes six separate files with data from contract information and price of gas to well test scheduling. As these files were developed, many programs were written to utilize the data stored programs were written to utilize the data stored in them. Two of these programs are discussed in some detail. These are an individual well by well, availability project to determine total contracted supply with respect to market requirements. The second project is a macroscopic management oriented tool to investigate alternative supply operation plans depending on varying market requirements and purchase contract negotiations and timing. This program has a number of levels of output. In addition to programs, a number of retrieval routines are run on request to provide up-to-date information on the most important data items. Immediate plans require program development in order to tie the large detailed computerized data base into management information requirements. Future plans are to make the information systems available to all potential users in the company such as the Gas Control function. Remote access devices will use massive data banks to permit operating control from widely scattered field stations through a central executive control system. An information system has been developed and applied to important engineering and management problems. problems.