A modern drilling rig or offshore platform uses a diverse array of specialist contractors, each of whom need to communicate data to the oil company operating the rig, and to each other. Historically this was done with serial transfer of ascii data, but as the volume of information grows, a new technology is needed. Wellsite information transfer standard markup language (WITSML) is a standard for transmitting technical data between organisations in the petroleum industry. It is being developed by a Energistics facilitated Special Interest Group to develop XML standards for PetroTechnical Data exchange. Groups at which WITSML is targeted include oil companies, service companies, drilling contractors, application vendors and regulatory agencies.
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Purpose
The Drilling and Completions industry needs public domain standards to facilitate the free flow of technical data across networks between oil companies, service companies, drilling contractors, application vendors and regulatory agencies. The WITSML ( Wellsite Information Transfer Standard Markup Language) initiative was started to address this need, and through its success, is now influencing petroleum industry data standards beyond the original scope.
Standards used
WITSML is based on the internet standards (W3C, SOAP, WSDL, and XML), with its own Applications Program Interface (API) and agreed D & C domain specific XML schema definitions. The project was started by a small group of operators and service companies, but is now open to all to contribute to its development through custodianship of the Special Interest Group (SIG) by POSC, and the standard is in the public domain for anyone in the drilling and completions data community to implement free of any licencing charges. The “right time” seamless flow of drilling and completions data between data producers and data consumers to speed and enhance decision-making in the drilling and completions domain.
Versions
WITSML Version 1.2 was released in Q1 of 2003. It is the current stable version. Version 1.3.0 was released in Q1 of 2005 as the current active version. This has been superseded by Version 1.3.1, release in December 2005.
WITS and WITSML
WITS was a pre cursor of WITSML based on serial data exchange on a "Point to Point" basis.
PRODML
PRODML is an oil and gas production optimization initiative that started work in August 2005 funded by five oil companies: BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Statoil.
WITSML production: distributed temperature survey
This is an initiative of the POSC Integrated Operations (Production) Special Interest Group addressing data transfer standards for Distributed Temperature Surveys (Fibre Optic Temperature Sensors). BP initiatied this effort in 2004 and subsequently supported its facilitation by POSC as an Integrated Operations SIG (project) work group. A WITSML compatible solution was developed, reviewed, and incorporated into the WITSML 1.3.1 release in December 2005.
