Stewarding a collaborative effort in a changing environment

IHS teams measure changes in well performance to provide insights into well geology, completions, and operations. While completions technologies evolve and new equations and papers are published we try to drive as much change as possible every day.

Although things continue to change, some concerns remain the same. Our customers are still trying to determine the best approach to defining the geology, perfecting a completion, and mastering the operations of their wells. IHS Energy continues to help by measuring well performance to enable customers to assess the success, or lack thereof, of changes in strategy.

As a less restricted global market struggles to settle into a new price regime, capital costs have been reduced, meaning fewer wells will be drilled. Industry knowledge that was once acquired through direct experience may now require an indirect approach.

The IHS Community of Best Practice is an ongoing program that stewards a collaborative environment devoted to extracting maximum knowledge from well performance analysis. Participation starts within a specific play, with operators providing data, and IHS providing unbiased expert analysis. Together, we create and sustain a strong foundation of knowledge for unconventional assets based on well performance data.

Each Community represents an unconventional play and contains detailed analyses performed by the experienced IHS engineering team. When your organization joins the Community you gain immediate value: including access to materials contributed to the Community and interpreted data in a structured format. The IHS workflow is documented as it evolves to apply a consistent methodology, thereby ensuring a meaningful well-to-well comparison. In addition, you will have access to the engineers who conduct our analyses to guide your organization through absorbing Community content. Community onboarding provides deeper insight into how we've grown a consistent, complete, and correct foundation from which to advance our knowledge of the play.

And still things continue to change.

Fortunately, as new members join, the Community of Best Practice evolves. The Community provides information on new wells, and existing wells are updated with new production data. And while the Community grows, it remains your forum to influence an agenda of advanced research through a deeply talented, broadly educated, comfortably integrated, and vastly experienced team of high performing experts.

Integrity is paramount. We've always placed science first and peer review is a cornerstone of scientific progress. The Community of Best Practice creates a collaborative environment where the best talent shares the best data to drive better results.

• Current Communities: Eagle Ford, Bakken/Three Forks
• Communities in Progress: Montney, Duvernay, Vaca Muerta and Utica,
• Prospective Communities: Permian, Marcellus Granite Wash, Utica, Horn River, Haynesville, Niobrara and Cooper Basin

Kirk Graham, Business Development Executive at IHS Energy
Posted August 27, 2015

This article was published by S&P Global Commodity Insights and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.