February 2011 - Digging Deeper

Greetings!  Happy Groundhog Day! Did you hear the news? Punxsutawney Phil has predicted an early spring! Sounds great, doesn't it? But I can't say that we'll start planning our garden around this prediction. We'll wait to hear what the local weatherman says first. Relying on myths rather than "real" data to forecast outcomes will always cost us more in the long run. At WhiteStar, we are not hobbyists. We are serious explorer's with a mission to offer 'real' products that empower our clients to map to the greatest of their ability so they don't have to base their crucial business decisions on chance. The WhiteStar Team Geospatial Wisdom: Benefit from our Experience Digging Deeper into Your Data Explorationists have a tendency to take critical exploration data at face value. Of course, you want your well locations to show up in the right place on your map. What measurable confidence do you have that this location is indeed correct? An exploration project will probably not get very far if a critical pipeline doesn't show up or you're missing a well or two on your map. There are many other aspects of your data you might not have thought about if you collect your data in a non-rigorous, haphazard way. You may have experienced using raw data from the Internet only to discover a confusing variety of formats, coordinate systems, undefined accuracies, and missing or invalid attributes. If your AOI is big enough, merging data sets together from a variety of different sources also becomes a problem not only the first time you do it but each time you attempt to update. The trick is to solve these problems quickly and then move on to your analysis. Continue reading... Explore to the Core: Digging Deeper Webinars Coming Soon Robert White and Mike Schiewe will be recording five-minute webinars around the theme, "Did you know WhiteStar data can...?" These webinars are designed to give you tips on how to dig deeper into the WhiteStar Exploration Cube and will show you exactly how to drill down into WhiteStar data layers to extract valuable information and spot trends. And all in the time it takes to enjoy that mug of coffee! Expect to see the first of many webinettes on our website later this month. Synergy: Getting to Know Kent Knutson We are pleased to welcome Kent Knutson as the new WhiteStar National Account Manager. Joining our team last fall, Kent has begun introducing himself to many of you at conferences and personal meetings. He is based here in Lakewood, Colorado, but will be making regular visits to Houston. He brings an impressive background to WhiteStar including past positions at McGraw Hill Platt's Division, Global Energy Decisions, and FT Energy. Kent earned a Master's in Geography from University of Denver and holds an MBA from Regis University. He is also a veteran of the United States Peace Corp.! Please contact Kent at kknutson@whitestar.com or on his mobile at 720-235-7501.

Ask the Expert Robert White is a 3rd generation geologist with over 20 years of Geospatial Wisdom. Question: You've often made the point that free data usually costs more in the long run. Which free Internet data sets, in your experience, provide the least added value to oil and gas mapping projects? Answer: The ones that cause the most trouble are the free/unmaintained land grid data sets of any sort. They don't edge-match evenly township-to-township or across river boundaries and state lines. Sometimes the data are incomplete, and often more than one version is floating around on the Internet making it extremely difficult to know you have the latest. Also, your project will not fit on any industry standard base. Get more answers!