American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2012 - 162

Tech Trends 2012
Parsley used a traditional system, much
like other operators, which included manually entering data from the wellhead.
Reports derived from the information
were aggregated by a staff assistant. Once
data were entered, they were reviewed
for quality control purposes.This traditional
style of reporting in the oil and gas
industry has not changed much in years,
but the executive team knew technology
was improving data integration and began
reviewing options for an affordable and
customizable solution.
Parsley Energy has six pumpers who
visit all of the well sites daily. A year
ago, pumpers were using "grease books,"
or ordinary notebooks to track data at
the wellhead as their main data logs.
Many of the pumpers have extensive experience in the oil and gas industry, which
makes the information they gather very
reliable. However, any time numbers are
gathered by people using pencil and
paper, the reports must be scrutinized to
ensure quality control. Once the pumpers
came back from the field, they entered
their data into an Excel™ spreadsheet
and provided it to a staff assistant.
The assistant then reviewed the information and spent approximately half of
every working day aggregating the numbers and developing reports. The executive
team then reviewed the numbers to look
for trends and changes in production. Finally, the reports were sent to Parsley
Energy's partners for review.
The organization was aware this process
was antiquated. Parsley wanted to keep
up with the best practices in the industry.
Technology was changing the landscape
of wellhead data reporting and the company's management was aware of solutions
available to streamline its processes. However, there were several points to consider.
The greatest concern was the affordability
of any potential solution. Managing change
was the other.
As a midsized organization, many of
the options available were simply out of
reach financially. Its current process was
effective, but it was not efficient, and periods of transition can be challenging.
Parsley's executive team did not want to
disrupt its data gathering and analysis efforts. The goal was to find a solution that
was customizable to corporate needs, one
that didn't require changing the culture
of the organization, and that was adaptable.

The pumpers are seasoned team members. Adding new technology would be a
challenge, and Parsley needed a solution
that kept this in mind. It also wanted a
system that would grow quickly with the
company's expanding operations. The
company routinely needs to modify
pumper routes and assignments based on
its rapid growth, and therefore, needed a
data reporting and management system
that could handle those changes.
SaaS Solution
After reviewing multiple software options, the best solution for meeting both
present and future needs and challenges
for Parsley Energy was software as a
service (SaaS). With SaaS, the company's
information is available online to users
anytime no matter where they are located,
and the data are stored securely in the
cloud. This technology allows pumpers
to enter numbers in the field, which saves
both time and money, and alleviates the
need for manually entering data twice.
Most importantly, the information is
secure and backed up with multiple levels
of redundancy.
Unlike traditional software that requires
a large initial capital outlay, licenses and
training initiatives to deploy, operators
can be up and running on SaaS solutions
at a fraction of the time and cost. SaaS is
designed to be personalized and flexible,
able to adapt to the "look and feel" of the
operator's business, rather than forcing
the producer to conform to the workflows
of traditional software packages. And by
allowing managers to view complete data
in one place, operators can respond quicker
and more effectively to changes and
trends, ultimately equipping them to make
better and more informed decisions.
To leverage the benefits of SaaS technology in capturing, managing and analyzing exploration and production information, Parsley Energy selected NeoFirma's on-demand software to support the
full life cycle of its wells-from drilling
and completion, to production and
workover, to asset divesture. All phases
of data reporting and management, including gathering field data, processing,
presentation and analysis, and archiving
of total business information, are done
securely in an information technologyfree environment using SaaS.
SaaS technology helps clients transform
well information into actionable business

162 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

information and provides executives with
an integrated view of their assets, which
increases the value. Eliminating the need
to manually enter data and streamlining
the reporting process are key selling
points for Parsley Energy.
Operational Benefits
SaaS production and operations solutions provide a secure, intuitive and customizable tool for oil and gas companies
that is available anytime to anyone given
a unique log-in identification. Furthermore,
although Parsley has not yet rolled out
the capability, a drilling module is of interest to the company to allow data access
and track information in one completely
unified solution. Online well files allow
the virtual capture and storage of the
entire history of a well, including full
drilling and completion histories, well
bore schematics, subsequent workover
details, and other information of value.
The software integration began in February 2011. Parsley began the process of
identifying its requirements and determining how it wanted to customize its
data fields. One particular issue of note
was developing a feature to auto-allocate
well production based on frequent testing
for comingled leases. This helps with the
process of determining how profits are
doled out to partners and third-party interest owners.
Integration brought to light that the
operating company's employees had varying levels of comfort with technology.
Yet, the software was intuitive enough
for all those involved in this process to
participate after some brief training.
Parsley provided each pumper a laptop
with a wireless 3G card to allow fast
data communication in the field. They
immediately began entering information
at the pump, which hastened the process
for data entry and made real-time numbers
available immediately.
The staff assistant who had previously
spent nearly 30 hours a month simply
entering data now spends less than half
of that time on data issues, mostly reviewing for quality control purposes. Additionally, management no longer has to
wait for numbers to be aggregated. Decision makers can review the information
on an as-needed basis anytime and anywhere.
Parsley Energy also gained the opportunity to filter reports and review them

American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2012

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