WORLD WELL NUMBERING STANDARD TO BE DEVELOPED

An industry subcommittee has formulated a proposal for a worldwide well number standard and has issued a request for quote to develop the proposal.

The American Association of Petroleum Geologists database standards subcommittee reviewed comments on the standard Aug. 6 in Houston (OGJ, Apr. 13, p. 94).

The subcommittee reached consensus that a worldwide well number standard be proposed, that the number should provide a minimum amount of data, and that one vendor should assign the numbers.

BACKGROUND

The U.S. Department of Labor has reported that the petroleum industry has lost about 432,000 jobs in the last 10 years, about 50% of its work force.

The remaining workers have to be more productive in order for their companies to compete. In order to accomplish this, a more powerful integrated computer system will have to be used.

More and more, such systems achieve these goals by being standards compliant whether they be communications, open systems, models, or data standards.

Electronic data interchange (EDI), which involves the computer to computer exchange of data using standards, is a good example of this. About 12,000 firms use EDI in the U.S. and 3,000-5,000 in Europe with a growth rate of 70%/year. Europe is expected to pass the U.S. in the near future.

This explosive growth is fueled by industry fundamentals: the need to cut costs, higher data quality (25% of one computer's hard copy output is another computer's input), and productivity.

EDI provides a competitive advantage today, but tomorrow it will be a competitive necessity as some companies are now requiring EDI compliance for anyone doing business with them. Production and drilling data are currently being exchanged using EDI.

SUBCOMMITTEE ACTION

Marc Lador presented the Petroconsultants well numbering method, which consists of a four byte site/vendor code followed by an eight byte unique, computer assigned number with no intelligence in it.

It was agreed that just the eight byte portion is required for the worldwide number standard. It was also agreed that administration of the number would be the critical factor, not the design of the number.

The following proposal was developed:

A serially assigned worldwide well number would be assigned (probably eight bytes after the Petro consultant's number).
A method to assign the numbers would be developed.
Minimum data requirements would be necessary for local well numbers that originate in countries that do not have organizations in place to resolve well numbering conflicts.
Countries like the U.S. have responsible data vendors and state and federal agencies already resolving such conflicts with much more data available for this purpose than the required six data elements.
Countries without such organizations would have to supply the following data elements in order to get a worldwide well number:
Operator
Well name (property and well number)
Date (yyyymmdd) any one of the following
Permit
Spud
Completion
Total depth (either of the following)
Proposed
Actual
Operation flag (sidetrack, re-entry, workover, etc.)
Political entity (either of the following)
Original country
State
Identification of the request-or of the number
System time/date stamp
System for data distribution
Standard format
Standard media
Frequency
Accessibility
Unrestricted access by customers
No restriction as to who can be a customer
Well number assignment & distribution-vendors to recover costs for service plus reasonable profit.
An advisory committee to coordinate this proposal and oversee its development. The AAPG Geological Computing Committee, formerly the Computer Applications Committee, will assume this function.
The AAPG/GCC will be responsible for the functioning of the system.
Authority and ownership issues are to be discussed with the AAPG executive committee
Reconciliation tables
Parent/child for associating the worldwide well number original hole with its sidetracks (includes horizontal holes), workovers, reentries, deepenings.
Cross reference to required minimum data elements for locally assigned well numbers.

The subcommittee agreed to publish a request for quote to develop the proposal for the worldwide number standard outlined in this article.

Anyone desiring more information should contact Pete A. Brennan, Texaco Inc. E&P Technology, 3901 Briarpark, Houston, Tex. 77042 U.S.A. Ph. 713/954-6031, Fax 954-6113.