Refining Deep E&P Experience to Change the Future of Data Management

The Information Store was born out of an industry-wide effort in upstream E&P to improve the way that petroleum data was managed. In the late 1980s, a number of petroleum companies recognized the need for better data management practices. In a collective effort to solve their information management problems, they formed POSC, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to standardize a data model for the upstream oil and gas industry.

The initiative eventually attracted 200 member companies, many of which loaned their brightest employees to the effort. While this group eventually built a data model, it proved cumbersome for practical use. However, those working on the problem developed the insight that rather than forcing existing data into a standardized model, it was possible to easily give companies access to their information from wherever it was stored. This approach is the basis for The Information Store's PetroTrek^® technology.

In 1994 a group of former participants from the industry-standards initiative, consisting of geologists, geophysicists, engineers and computer scientists, formed The Information Store. They not only shared a common background that was rich in petroleum industry experiences, but they had the technical know-how to implement practical and pragmatic software solutions based on accessing data wherever it resides.

The company started as a consulting firm that solved data access problems for E&P industry customers. As a consequence of the consulting, The Information Store developed a powerful suite of Internet-based solutions, including the PetroTrek^® Asset Management Solution (AMS), which have dramatically boosted productivity while enhancing efficiency and reducing costs for E&P companies.

In 2000, The Information Store entered into a joint venture with EDS, Raytheon and ChevronTexaco forming a separate company called UpstreamInfo to provide data management services over the Web using PetroTrek^®. Unfortunately, at that time petroleum companies were not ready to embrace the concept of outsourcing their data management, especially over the Internet. Even though the service concept never materialized, a number of companies recognized the power of PetroTrek and the value of The Information Store's approach to asset management.

Since that time, The Information Store has seen great acceptance within the industry, including Chevron, BP, Shell Oil and Pemex, among others. As an example, in 2001, ChevronTexaco adopted AMS to address key internal data management challenges posed by the Chevron/Texaco merger and to share information with partners. Chevron now employs The Information Store's technology in three major business units domestically and internationally.

The Information Store is committed to continuously upgrading and enhancing its software solutions to meet customers' evolving needs. As a result, The Information Store now possesses some of the most advanced web-based data-access and data-sharing technology available in the industry.