International Industrial Informatics and Computer Engineering Conference (IIICEC 2015)

Design on the platform system of well-site information center based on

WITSML
Qi Zhong1, a, Hong Du2, b,*
1
College of Electronic and Information, Yangtze University, Jingzhou 434023,Hubei,China
2
College of Electronic and Information, Yangtze University, Jingzhou 434023,Hubei,China
a
email: 297733888@qq.com, b email: duhmail@126.com

Keywords: WITS; WITSML; POSC; Drilling Engineering; Well Site Information Center

Abstract. In the drilling site some petroleum technology service companies need to work together
in order to complete the whole drilling task, and sometimes they also need technical support from
base technical experts, so it is necessary to realize data exchange and data share between the well
site and the base. This paper introduces the WITS and WITSML protocol standard, then discusses
the system structure, the composition of well site information center platform and data flow, finally
introduces the data processing and applications of information center system. The solution
described by the paper has been applied in the actual system. It is proved that the solution can solve
the problem of system integration in well site, make multiple service companies more smooth
collaborative work, and ensure the safety of drilling engineering.

Introduction
Modern oil and gas drilling process is a highly complicated, professional and dangerous project.
Therefore, drilling project is experiencing a significant revolution: In the 1980s, companies like
Amoco, Mobil, Tennceo and superior began transmitting drilling/logging data remotely and
establishing an oilfield data center. In the 1990s, Halliburton Company stared constructing a
solution center for exploring and developing real-time oil deposit remotely. At the start of this
century, BP developed exploration operation of Gulf of Mexico and set up a visual center of
decision and command, and some Chinese companies like Shenkai, Jpsoft also began transmitting
drilling/logging data remotely so that drilling experts can examine the situation of drilling directly
through network on the oil base.
With the constant improvement of computer and network technology, the information processing
and drilling process monitoring of the drilling well-site can make the well site and the oil base keep
communication through network. At the same time, it can make a real-time collection of relevant
data for experts on the reservoir, drilling project, geology, and well logging of the base to observe
the scene, make corresponding decision and direct the operation of drilling engineers on site, thus
carrying out the research of information system of the drilling well site to form a comprehensive
platform which integrates various professional systems. The acquisition, transmission, storage,
demonstration and release of information become the need of data processing and analysis of
modern drilling well site[1].

The Standard Protocols for Exchanging Data of Well site

During the process of well site operations, there are various kinds of equipments which work
cooperatively and complete drilling engineering together. In the exploration of the standardization
of well site data, WITS (Well site Information Transfer Specification) was put forward to achieve
frequent data exchange in the oil exploration and development in the 1980s. WITS is a data wireline
communication technology, which can transmit a variety of well site data from one computer
system to another, thus forming an industry standard in data sharing and remote monitoring on oil
drilling.
The predecessor of Energistics was formed in October 1990 by five founding sponsor oil

© 2015. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 139

companies: BP, Chevron, Elf, Mobil, and Texaco under the name Petrotechnical Open Software
Corporation (POSC-Petrotechnical Open Standards Consortium), and later nearly hundreds of oil
and gas companies, service companies and information technology companies including IBM、
SUN、ORACLE、HP、Schlumberger joined them, and worked out a set of industry standards for
oil exploration and development application software-SIP ( Open System Software Integration
Platform). POSC defines a set of complete open system standards including OS service,
communication service, user interaction services, and so on, it provides standards for oil exploration
and softeware integration platform development, and petroleum upstream industries adopt POSC
integration platform standards by software as WellLogML, LogGraphicsML, ProductionML, XML
Components and Objects [1].
With the extensive application of the Internet, WITS data exchange shows a lot of deficiencies. It
conducts data transmission point to point, and adopts binary system and ASCII format, but
W3C(World Wide Web Consortium) takes XML as the standard of information exchange, which is
easy to encode information and is convenient to transmit data among application softwares.
Therefore, in October 2000, BP and Statoil and some major service companies initiated and
proposed WITSML(Well site Information Transfer Standard Markup Language). WITSML
standard evolved from WITS, integrated modern data representative standard XML( Extensible
Markup Language）and the Internet standards (W3C，SOAP，XML，WSDL) and established a
unified XML format standard achieving effective transmission of drilling data between the well site
and the oil base. It could be simply understood as WITSML=WITS+XML [2].
WITSML standard contains two parts in independent versions: WITSML Data Schema and
WITSML API [2] [3]. WITSML Data Schema is used to define the content of an XML document
including a series of independent and interconnected data object schema. WITSML stipulate 25
standard data records and other 74 user defined records which covers relevant data of drilling and
formation evaluation like regular drilling data, surface well-logging, exploration, logging during
drilling, communication, drilling machine, drilling fluid system, and directional drilling system. （2）
WITSML API defines high-level protocol of data exchanging dynamic program between computer
system based on W3C Web communication standard which contains two types of interfaces: Store
Interface and Publish Interface.

The Architecture of Well site Information Platform

In recent years, the concept “digital oilfield” has already formed. Part of the foundation of digital
oilfield is a series of operations aimed at well-site data, for example, collection, conversion,
transmission, storage and application. In order to achieve optimizing exploration and development
of oil and gas, it is necessary to optimize hardware and software, which is the embodiment of
information center platform of well site. The platform provides seamless linking for different
equipments which internal data format are imcompatible, and carries out information sharing and
exchange of equipments or software between the well site service companies or service company
and the oil company in oil base[4].
Firstly, well site information system acquires all kinds of project signal from sensors fixed on the
drilling rig, the data acquisition modules transfers the data to acquisition computer by CAN bus, the
professional software calculates into physical parameters from the data, and stores it into real-time
database in the well site. The other applications uses the data to monitor and alarm the drilling. At
the same time , the data is transmitted to oil base global database for permanently storage.
Oil field information center converges thousands of well site terminal information for
transmision, processing and storage. Oilfield base set up a unified professional center of production
management, command and decision, and the relevant managerial or technical personnel can
publish data which use these global databases by web or professional software to provide
omnidirectional production coordination, technical support and guidance, accident disposal and
important command decision-making for each drilling well site of the entire oil field.
In the system, collected well site data are various. The data might derive from comprehensive

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logging instruments, logging while drilling or measurements-while-drilling tools, drilling
parameters instrument and geosteering equipment. Then, formats of data are also various. There are
three ways for data integration: (1) receiving standard WITS and WITSML protocol data, (2)
analysing network packages of transport format formulated by some company, (3) extracting data
from the tables of real-time database. Moreover, the network environment of transmitting data is
various as well. The transmission modes might be mobile communication network, wireless
communication network (radio station, wireless bridge), satellite communication or VPN of Internet.
Therefore, the well site information center is a complete system of integrating acquisition,
transmission, storage, processing and application. The system structure of the well site information
center is shown in Figure 1.

Data Processing
The appearing of WITSML provides a good petroleum industry standard between the well site
and the oil base, which enables the service company of the well site and the application software
system of the base to achieve seamless connection without considering the sources of data, thus
forming an integrated information platform system between the well site and the oil base[4]. Its data
flow diagram is seen in Figure 2.
Firstly, WITSML can receive from different data which might be obtained from multiple
software suppliers, or from all kinds of data of the well site, such as geo-steering, measuring while
drilling , well logging during drilling, formation pressure prediction and oil testing. With the
development of new technologies, more and more data are collected, stored temporarily, used in the
well site or sent back to the site information center. through communication channels. The
collection methods has turned from simple local data integration into the information platform
between the well sites and the oil base that supports local collection, storage, using as well as
off-site data collection and integrating.
Secondly, WITSML can convert all types of data into a unified WITSML format by oil data
conversion standard. The conversion standardize the data of the drilling well, and XML Data
Schema records drilling data, formation evaluation data and irregular data in a dependent and
interconnected date object set, which could be transmitted in XML document. After conversion, the
extensive well site data all take WITSML XML document as standard data format, which
significantly improves development efficiency of data applications at later stages, and saves costs.
Thirdly, WITSML data loading technique, by connecting to WITSML server with WISML
application interface, loads local data (trajectory data, MWD/LWD data etc) into global project
database of the oil base, accomplishes data transference and entire storage, and provides such
functions as data storage, data access of client applications and data publishing.
Fourthly, technicians effectively utilize the data of project database to develop all kinds of web
applications that comply with the data exchange capacity of WITSML format, and use XML
technique to define data format and apply SOAP protocol that conforms to W3C standard to
exchange data, which enables geologists and engineers of the base to manipulate familiar
application interface to detect and analyze data in real time, and remotely monitor on-site
equipments to achieve application of well site data by network.

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 卫星

传感
器信
号线
卫星通
传输服务器 数据库服务器 数据采集计算机
信公司 现场局域网

蜂窝移动网 录井监督 地层压力预测 地质导向

钻井平台

传感
器信
号线

Internet
传输服务器 数据库服务器 视频监控 数据采集计算机

移动通 现场局域网

信公司
录井监督 地层压力预测 地质导向
钻井平台
油田公司 数据中心

Internet有线网络
油田内网 传感
器信
号线

传输服务器 数据库服务器 数据采集计算机

现场局域网

录井监督 地层压力预测 地质导向

钻井平台
油田分公司 生产指挥决策中心

Figure 1 Architecture of the Well site Information Center Figure 2 WITSML Data Flow Diagram

Application of drilling engineering

Such a well site information center is associated with the expert system of the base and the
system of decision and support. The use of conclusions or plans of the expert system and the system
of decision and support makes the on-site operation possible[5]. Under this circumstance, one
function of the well site information center is the performance of base operations which send the
data (state) of well site to the base, visualize WITSML data through some application softwares and
provide data to the third party system for real-time analysis , or provide experienced experts or
decision and support system on the base to make judgements and solutions so as to control well-site
softwares or equipments to adjust wellsite drilling construction.

Conclusion
WITSML has already become the international standard of data exchange for oil drilling
engineering now. We constructs the drilling information center platform by kinds of communication
network using WITSML protocol standard , it connects well sites and the oil base. We believe that
with the increase of WITSML system softwares, the application of WITSML would extend
constantly, and guarantee the real-time processing of field data and the comprehensive application
of base data, thus promoting the development of digital oil field, saving costs and increasing
efficiency.

References
[1] Study on POSC Technical Report，http://doc.mbalib.com/view/71b536ee8d4a
[2] http://www.witsml.org/
[3] http://www.energistics.org/witsml-standard
[4]M.A Kirkman,SPE,BP;M.E.Symmonds,SPE,Schlumberger…,Wellsite Information Transfer
Standard Markup Language（WITSML）an Update.
[5]Zhongfei Ren ， Baorong Zhong, WITSML standard and its application ， Computer
application in petroleum industry [J]，2012(1) 9-11.

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