European Firms to Implement XML Standards for Well Data.

POSC, an international member consortium focused on leveraging eBusiness and Internet technology for the energy industry, has announced that a number of key players from the European oil industry have agreed to collaborate on implementing standards using XML for exchanging basic well data over the Internet.

A meeting was held in Aberdeen, Scotland, supported by senior representatives from BP, Shell, Esso, Conoco, Schlumberger. Halliburton, Paradigm, CDA, DTI and POSC. They agreed to collaborate in a project to develop and implement within three months an XML standard for well data in the North Sea.

"This is a challenging target but if successful should pave the way for a number of similar projects across a wide range of business processes," Paul Maton, European director of POSC, said "This is, on the face of it, a simple thing but the frustration across the oil industry of not being able to easily and unambiguously identify wells hides a consequential large cost. The global oil industry, from oil and service companies to data vendors, needs standards in these areas to realize the full potential of eBusiness."

Supporting the initiative Malcolm Fleming, CEO of CDA, said, "This initiative fits neatly into CDA's key targets. A key objective of CDA is to be recognized as the definitive source for basic well data on the North Sea and we fully support this standard as a key component of that goal."

Welcoming this initiative Stewart Robinson, director of IT and Data services at the DTI Oil and Gas Directorate, stressed, "This is not an attempt to railroad the industry to adopt UK standards. The close-knit nature of the UK oil community and the desire of the UK government to fully exploit the resources of the UKCS make the UK an ideal test bed for these emerging standards. We are working with POSC to globalize the solution and I am in contact with many other interested governments around the world."

A major challenge in the oil industry is the process of dealing with governments; obtaining consents, reporting activity and delivering information. The web is becoming a basic tool worldwide in the oil industry for data exchange amongst companies but the lack of standards is seen as a major problem.

POSC have identified the need to establish easy to use web standards between oil companies and governments worldwide as a key challenge for the next few years. The business processes that have been identified that would benefit from global standards for web delivery are as follows:

* Allocation of licences for acreage

* Transfer of assets 

* Well and drilling consents

* Well operations notifications

* Environmental consents