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About the PPDM Association

Bringing world-wide industry experts together in a round table approach to engineer a business driven data model, the Professional Petroleum Data Management Association ensures that the model will meet today and tomorrow's needs. With existing computing infrastructure and data, this model becomes the foundation positioning companies to move aggressively towards the future, embracing new technologies and business strategies.

Formed in 1989 and incorporated in 1991 as a not-for-profit association, its membership of 100+ organizations - Canadian, International and US, include a broad range of petroleum companies, government agencies, software application and data vendors, and service companies.

Managed by volunteers, the low membership fee encourages a large number of companies involved in the oil and gas business to participate in the model definition. Working experts in each of the business topics are invited to participate in an open process to create the integrated modules of the standard model. Each member is encouraged to be an active participant in PPDM's evolution and votes on the business acceptability of each model.

Effective information technology is an important success factor in the oil and gas sector. Applied modeling technology not only reduces costs, but positions companies to become more productive, efficient and competitive. Today PPDM's members realize new business opportunities through multi-disciplinary information sharing. PPDM combined with appropriate hardware, software and data provides other benefits:

  • eliminates the need to develop, evolve and maintain internal data models and custom software

  • reduce take-up time for new software applications,

  • lower systems costs to update and maintain duplicate information,

  • improves the quality, quantity and timeliness of information,

  • effective business processes through clarification of data ownership,

  • reduces risk through improved reliability with clear, concise data definitions,

  • minimize data transfer between software applications or multiple databases.

The long term vision is a model that embraces the major upstream E&P business subjects; encompassing exploration, development, production, gathering and marketing, plus related management and administration functions. The model will be extended as directed by membership. Each topic and level of detail within a topic will be driven by its business value.

Having a standard model for the petroleum industry accepted and actively employed by many diverse parties is a formidable challenge. The magnitude of this challenge is beyond the capability and affordable risk of any one company or government agency. Commitment, positive support and teamwork among the stake holders is fundamental to achieving this goal. PPDM plays a crucial role in bringing petroleum experts together to successfully build and validate a powerful business driven model.