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Oil data moving online
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February 9, 2000: 4:48 p.m. ET
Chevron, Schlumberger among companies set to sell valuable data on the Net
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Chevron Corp. has signed on to participate in a new online venture that will allow energy companies to buy and sell a wide range of data on oil-producing regions around the world.
The site, to be called Upstreaminfo.com, is still in development. Participants said it would feature information, including seismic, mapping and exploration data, which most energy companies normally try to track internally.
"It's not a complete deal yet ... but this is going to happen," said Nancy Williams, a spokeswoman with consulting and information management company Electronic Data Services (EDS: Research, Estimates), which is spearheading the project.
Although the final details of the project are still being worked out, the Plano, Texas-based EDS confirmed it has received commitments from Chevron (CHV: Research, Estimates), defense contractor Raytheon Corp. (RTN.A: Research, Estimates) and software manufacturer Information Store Inc. to participate in the project.
Chevron, the nation's No. 3 oil company, will serve as the site's "anchor store," acting as both a buyer and seller of information. The San Francisco-based company has not yet established how much of the new site's equity it will own.
Ian Miller, the president of EDS' Energy Industries Group, said the venture is hoping to secure the equity participation of other major energy firms and is in negotiations with "a couple of the majors," but he was unsure if a deal would be finalized before the site's launch, scheduled for the second quarter of this year.
Miller said convincing energy companies to share such information, which up until now has typically been closely held, was not expected to be an obstacle.
"It's going to be infinitely cheaper for these companies to buy this information online rather than go out and find it on their own," he said, noting that the average petroleum engineer now typically spends 60 percent of their time trying to find the information they need rather than evaluating it.
The new site will not be without some indirect competition, however.
Schlumberger (SLB: Research, Estimates), the world's No. 2 provider of oilfield services, last week launched IndigoPool.com. The Web portal is designed primarily to allow oil and gas companies, brokers and regulatory agencies to buy and sell international oil properties and data. It will also feature evaluation tools, consulting services and industry-related news, and some data that overlaps with the Upstreaminfo.com's planned content, such as seismic data. 
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