Presentation at the Intermec annual customer conference regarding CNR's implementation of hand held computers for field data collection

1. Managing Gas Well Operations
Jack L. Shaffer, Jr
Manager, Network Services

2. Columbia Natural Resources is the
exploration and production unit of the
Columbia Energy Group and is one of the
largest producers of natural gas and oil in the
Appalachian Basin. Headquartered in
Charleston, W.Va., CNR has holdings that
include 801 billion cubic feet equivalent of
reserves, 7,225 production wells and more than
4,500 miles of natural gas gathering pipelines.

3. Columbia Energy Group, headquartered in Herndon, VA,
is one of the nation’s leading energy companies, with
assets of more than $6 billion. Its operating companies are
engaged in all phases of the natural gas business plus
marketing, energy management services, propane sales,
and electric power generation, sales and trading. Columbia
companies, directly or indirectly, serve 7 million natural
gas customers -- 12 percent of the nation's total -- in 15
states and the District of Columbia.

4. 1999
Operating
Area

6. Business Operations
• Wells
– Landowners
– Leases
– Royalties
• Revenues
– Measure Production
– Calculate Sales

7. Business Operations
• Well Care
– Well Tender
• Information Flow
– Well Tender
• Operations Book
• Well Operations Form
– Supply Management

8. Business Objectives
• Lower operations cost
• Elimination of duplicative work
& reduce paperwork
• Capture information more
quickly and accurately
• Simplify the process

9. Why Mobile Computing?
• Single entry of information
• Entry of information at the
source
• CNR Embraces technology
• Allows the “opening” of
information

10. Re-engineering the process
• Well Tending Before • Well Tending After
– Well tender writes gauge – Well tender keys the
information in book. gauge information into a
– Well tender copies hand held computer.
information from book to – Information is validated
form. by the hand held
– Supply management computer.
keypunches the gauge – Gauge information is
information into our automatically loaded into
produced gas system. the produced gas system.
Verifies information.

11. Information Technology Objectives
• Durability
• Flexibility
• Standard/Non-proprietary architecture
– Not an esoteric component
– Must be maintainable with existing
knowledge base
• No or Minimal increase in staffing

12. Technology Architecture
• Client/Server
– Unix
– Oracle
– Powerbuiler & Visual Basic
– Win 95/98/NT
– Inprise Entera Middleware
• Network
– Ethernet LAN
– Frame Relay WAN

13. Development Staff
• Small
• Very Talented
• Excellent knowledge base
– Visual Basic
– Networking

14. Why Intermec / Norand Mobile Systems?
• Excellent hardware
– Rugged
– Good support
– Established
• Open systems
– TCP/IP
– Windows
– 6920 communications
– Xcellenet

15. Why Intermec / Norand Mobile Systems?
• Development staff
– Technically sound
– Intimate with the product
– “Kick-Start” the project

16. Selected Products
• Hardware
– Pen*Key 6360
– 85mb Sandisk storage cards
– 6300 vehicle docks
– 6300 multi-docks
– Trimble GPS
• Software
– Windows 3.1
– Nor*Ware 6920 Communications Server
– Xcellenet RemoteWare Server

17. Selected Products
• Development tools
– 6360
• Visual Basic 4.0 (16bit)
• Access 2.0
– Back Office
• Microsoft Backoffice
– NT
– Internet Information Server (FTP Server)
• Unix scripts
• Cobol
• Oracle RDBMS

18. CNR Network Architecture

19. CNR Network Architecture

20. CNR Network Architecture

21. Future Plans
• Capture additional paper
information
– Timesheets
– Mileage Reports
• Implement suggestions
• Integrated Mapping
• Expand GPS utilization

22. Lessons Learned
• Know your objectives!
• Project team must include
EVERY affected department
• Limit your scope
– Focus
– Don’t try to do everything
• Expect the best

23. Lessons Learned
• Hands On / Personal training a
must
– Resistance to change
– Fear of computers
• Information overload
• Logistics are key
– Physical location
– Coordination between players

24. Lessons Learned
• Continued support is vital
– Phone / Help desk
– On site
• Communication is very
important
• Don’t forget backoffice
operations!

25. Questions?