The Second Revolution
Continued...

With information supplied by this new global GIS network, a financier can better understand the economic, social, political, or environmental reasons that justify spending money re-routing a pipeline or a government official can show constituents why an oil exploration should or should not be allowed. New technologies and the global g.net architecture provide a new paradigm for linking and distributing information.

The development of data models is the final component necessary for an integrated GIS solution for the petroleum industry. Data models are practical templates for implementing GIS projects for specific industries and applications. Esri is working with users and partners in designing the essential, not the comprehensive, data model for the industry, which will be based loosely on the Public Petroleum Data Model (PPDM). This data model will be published and shared to help users and partners to deploy, extend, and customize ArcGIS using standard geodatabase capabilities whenever possible.

The petroleum industry is one of Esri's oldest markets. With 10 of the largest oil companies as users, Esri enjoys a preeminent position in this market. The Esri Petroleum User Group (PUG), started in 1991, is a self-administered, self-financed special interest group that serves the common interests of Esri's petroleum industry clients and has nearly 3,500 members worldwide.

GIS is used by 90 percent of upstream exploration departments across asset teams worldwide. The Enterprise Spatial Data Warehouse implemented by Royal Dutch/Shell exemplifies how Exploration and Production (E&P) applications can be integrated from the server to the Web using metadata as a library card catalog metaphor for locating data. Likewise Chevron-Texaco Corp. has coordinated upstream and downstream applications worldwide for almost a decade. Indigopool.com, a Schlumberger company that provides secure online acquisitions and divestiture services, shows how companies such as Schlumberger and Landmark, a Halliburton company, can further incorporate the three-dimensional/time aspect of E&P into Web delivery systems.

Esri neither builds nor sells specific petroleum database solutions but encourages third party implementations of Esri technology based on Pipeline and Petroleum and Land Parcel standards including both underlying physical database capability and applications interface. This approach lets the commercial marketplace regulate the pace of application development and the cost is shared through the user community. Through a very active development program and a close working partnership with the leading industry players, Esri is providing software tools and architecture that closely fits the industry's business needs.