Samson Investment Company is an upstream oil and gas company. Employees have to manage a large volume of data generated from evaluating well prospects, and it was difficult for them to find information in third-party solutions and data silos. Teams approached pre-drill workflows differently, and management had difficulty assessing global operations and coordinating drilling schedules. Samson addressed most of these issues with a knowledge management and collaboration solution based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. With streamlined access to consolidated data, Samson employees no longer spend a significant amount of time looking for information. Staff uses built-in scheduling logic to maximize efficiency to prepare the surface for rig move in and materials acquisition. Field labor costs are reduced by avoiding expedited location preparations.

1. Microsoft Customer Solution
Manufacturing Industry Case Study
Oil and Gas Company Standardizes
Workflows, Saves Millions of Dollars
Overview “We use E&P Net as a single repository for projects to
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Oil and gas efficiently manage the flux in our drilling schedules.
Now the organization can stay abreast of changes and
Customer Profile
Samson Investment Company is a react in as expedient a manner as possible.”
privately held oil and gas exploration and
D.J. Ponville, Executive Vice President, Drilling and Operations,
production company headquartered in
Samson Investment Company
Tulsa, Oklahoma. It operates more than
4,000 wells and employs 1,200 people. Samson Investment Company is an upstream oil and gas
company. Employees have to manage a large volume of data
Business Situation
Samson employees invested significant generated from evaluating well prospects, and it was difficult for
time in accessing information housed in them to find information in third-party solutions and data silos.
data silos, impeding the enterprisewide
collaboration that is required for efficient Teams approached pre-drill workflows differently, and
well development activities. management had difficulty assessing global operations and
Solution coordinating drilling schedules. Samson addressed most of
Samson deployed E&P Net, a portal these issues with a knowledge management and collaboration
solution based on Microsoft
technologies. Staff use it to access solution based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and
consolidated data and follow Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. With streamlined access to
standardized, collaborative activities for
well development and drilling. consolidated data, Samson employees no longer spend a
significant amount of time looking for information. Staff uses
Benefits
 More efficient operations built-in scheduling logic to maximize efficiency to prepare the
 Faster access to information
surface for rig move in and materials acquisition. Field labor
 Reduced costs
 Improved business intelligence costs are reduced by avoiding expedited location preparations.
 Extensible well life cycle platform

2. “With information Situation date on rapidly changing developments in
Samson Investment Company was founded the field.
changing in the in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1971 by Charles
Schusterman. It began operations with 20 “Each asset team maintained its drilling
spreadsheets daily, we employees and 30 wells. Today, it is the opportunities in a spreadsheet that
were constantly juggling largest privately held producer of natural contained information about each
gas in the United States, employing more prospect,” explains Tom Koscelny, Quality
the drilling schedules.” than 1,200 people and operating Control Manager at Samson Investment
approximately 4,000 wells throughout the Company. “A prospect begins when a
Tom Koscelny, Quality Control Manager,
Samson Investment Company country. geologist decides to explore a geographic
area to determine if it‟s viable to acquire oil
Upstream oil and gas companies focus on and gas leases to drill a well. We want to
finding and developing new reserves, with manage the process from conception,
operations that cover exploration to through negotiating leaseholds, through
drilling. Samson attributes its profitable scientific and economic analyses of the
pursuit of natural gas and crude oil to a opportunity, right up to the point when we
highly motivated workforce, an abundance schedule a rig to spud the well.”
of in-house expertise and business acumen,
and the innovative use of technology. Volatile Rig Schedules
It is the asset teams‟ goal to ensure that
High Data Volume rigs are scheduled to drill the most
Fifteen asset management teams at profitable opportunities first and as soon as
Samson work to evaluate prospects, they are ready. The logistics associated with
perform pre-drill activities, and schedule drilling a well are complex. Regulatory
rigs to “spud” or drill, a well. However, the permits have to be obtained. Locations
sheer volume of information generated by have to be physically ready for a rig to
the teams had become a bottleneck in move in, and materials for well construction
efficient operations. While the company have to be ordered and delivered in sync
had invested in sophisticated third-party with rig movements. Significant costs are
petrotechnical and seismic analysis incurred if anything is out of sync. To
solutions that generated large volumes of schedule rigs and avoid cost overruns,
data, it had yet to find the right technology Samson employees require an enterprise
solution for its geologists, geophysicists, view of all the prospects under
land managers, and engineers to take investigation by the 15 asset teams.
control of this information, including However, because each team maintained its
additional documents, maps, surveys, and own spreadsheets and data silos, it was
contracts. difficult to efficiently schedule all the rigs to
work at optimal profitability.
Samson needed an information
management and collaboration solution “With information changing in the
that would be flexible enough to spreadsheets daily, we were constantly
standardize and automate the asset teams‟ juggling the drilling schedules,” says
different workflows, as well as to gather Koscelny. “We would see some promising
and consolidate data from various sources. results come in for one prospect and move
The company also wanted to enable real- that up the schedule, and then the next day
time collaboration to keep everyone up-to- something would change and we would
move another prospect up. We‟ve had 25

3. versions of our drill schedule in different and find the information you need,” says
“We didn‟t want our spreadsheets at a single time.” Phillip Robinson, Land Manager at Samson
business to adapt to the Investment Company. “Some asset teams
To complicate matters, the asset teams had a technical assistant who would help
software; we wanted the worked with other Samson departments to gather the information, but we wanted
acquire leases, ensure environmental more of a self-serve environment for our
software to adapt to our regulatory compliance, and order materials professionals.”
needs. Microsoft for well construction. “One challenge the
industry faces is managing the change Limited Business Intelligence
technologies offered the associated with a dynamic drilling schedule Without a centralized data store and an
that is inevitable given the nature of the enterprise content management solution
flexibility and business,” says D.J. Ponville, Executive Vice complete with standard taxonomy, Samson
interoperability that we President, Drilling and Operations at management had a limited view into the
Samson Investment Company. “While we business. It was difficult to compare
needed.” are fortunate in that we have a dedicated progress status across asset teams and to
workforce that is committed to doing archive pre-drill project information. With
Phillip Robinson, Land Manager, Samson
Investment Company whatever is necessary to adapt to the so much information hidden in personal
changes, this is an area we have long computers or remaining locked inside
targeted for improvement. This is because people‟s heads, the company couldn‟t take
the compressed planning cycles and full advantage of the collective expertise of
potential communication lapses could its professionals.
compromise our ability to execute
effectively and at the very least put undue All business units agreed that the company
pressure on the organization.” needed to find a better way to manage its
pre-drill work processes and inventory of
Productivity Impact prospects to reduce costs and accelerate
When highly compensated professionals drilling time. To accomplish these goals, the
have to spend time searching for data, they company focused on an enterprise
are not being productive. Yet to gather the knowledge management and collaboration
information they needed, Samson solution to build standardization and
professionals could spend up to 20 percent efficiency into each important stage of a
of their time looking for information locked well‟s life cycle.
inside email messages, shared folders, and
hard drives on individual‟s computers. They Solution
had to search through 12 line-of-business Samson Investment Company recognized
applications and third-party products, that a solution built on Microsoft
including finance, drilling, well technologies would interoperate with its
management, land management, existing infrastructure. “We looked at off-
geophysical analysis, risk management, and the-shelf solutions, but none were dynamic
oil and gas economic evaluation software or flexible enough to address our specific
packages. They also had to consider data problems,” says Robinson. “We didn‟t want
from a lease broker system and a land our business to adapt to the software; we
surface cost analysis solution. wanted the software to adapt to our needs.
Microsoft technologies offered the
“Because of the complex nature of the flexibility and interoperability that we
third-party applications, you almost had to needed.”
be a trained expert in the software to go in

4. document repository and currently houses
2,500 documents. E&P Net also uses SQL
Server 2008 R2, including SQL Server 2008
Integration Services to pull data from 12
different line-of-business applications and
SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services for
reporting. E&P Net was built using the
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.
E&P Net showcases the Microsoft
Silverlight 2 browser plug-in—a powerful
development environment for creating
engaging, interactive user experiences for
the web. “To encourage user adoption, we
wanted our knowledge management and
collaboration solution to have an intuitive
graphic user interface,” says Koscelny. “Idea
Integration has expertise working with
Silverlight as an application development
framework, and when they demonstrated
Silverlight in action, we were convinced by
Figure 1. With E&P Net, Samson Samson had deployed an intranet based on its speed, flexibility, and rich functionality.”
staff gained instant access to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
information on all prospecting that a few asset teams used to collaborate E&P Net uses Silverlight for all functionality,
and well development on individual prospects. The company also including interoperating with a GIS map
activities. The browser-based, used Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data interface that relates structured data and
collaborative portal is built on management software to build a data documents to a well‟s geographic location
Microsoft Office SharePoint warehouse. “We had the key components using ArcGIS Server 9.3 from Microsoft
Server technologies and in place, so we needed a partner that could Gold Certified Partner ESRI (Figure 1). “With
delivers a rich, interactive user help us build a solution to extrapolate the E&P Net, we have gained a master system
interface based on Microsoft benefits of our existing IT investments,” of records for all prospecting and well
Silverlight. says Koscelny. “When our GIS [geographic development activities, including geospatial
information system] vendor, ESRI, document management, rig scheduling,
recommended Idea Integration, we invited approval processes, electronic notifications,
them to demonstrate a Microsoft-based and enterprise reporting,” says Koscelny.
solution that they had built for another “All that integrated functionality delivered
company.” through a fast, engaging Silverlight-based
user interface is what gives E&P Net its
Impressed by what Idea Integration had to power.”
offer, Samson began working with the
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in January E&P Net helps to streamline common
2009 to build and deploy a composite workflows. For example, to examine a
application that would streamline all pre- prospect that is going to be drilled, an
drill activities. Samson and Idea Integration employee can open E&P Net and choose
developed E&P Net, a browser-based, from a series of tabs. The map tab uses the
collaborative portal that is built on Office Deep Zoom feature within Silverlight to
SharePoint Server, which acts as a central zoom to a standard scale around the well

5. site. By using the document tab, an environmental, land, accounting, and
employee can view all documents purchasing, use it to support the asset
associated with a particular well or teams as they move rigs into production.”
geographical area. To schedule a rig, an
employee can drag wells to associate them Benefits
with different rigs. The solution uses a As a result of deploying E&P Net, Samson
sophisticated set of business rules to Investment Company has streamlined
import current information about the well operations, simplified data access, reduced
and calculate where it should be in the operating costs, and improved business
overall drilling schedule. intelligence. And because E&P Net is built
on interoperable Microsoft technologies,
The team publicized E&P Net on the Samson has gained an extensible platform
Samson intranet, performed a demo for to cover all stages of a well‟s life cycle.
company engineers, and released a video “Drilling wells is the core function of
that featured screenshots of the graphical, Samson, and since deploying E&P Net to
map-driven user interface to drive interest. manage our well life cycle, we‟ve enhanced
Samson launched the solution in March productivity and efficiency,” says Robinson.
2010. “We use E&P Net as a single
repository for projects to efficiently More Efficient Operations
manage the flux in our drilling schedules. Samson employees can now work more
Now the organization can stay abreast of efficiently through a coordinated,
changes and react in as expedient a automated, and streamlined series of steps.
manner as possible,” says Ponville. “I have These steps promote collaboration among
been surprised by how quickly the Samson departments and greater
organization has implemented the system collaboration means that Samson can move
and view that as a testimony to the need a well into production and start earning
that was present. “ revenue faster.
Adds Robinson, “Having our Chief One of the biggest timesavers for Samson
Operations Officer on board from the start employees is the drilling scheduler that
helped to build awareness of the solution. maintains an up-to-the-minute drilling
He knew our pain points and wanted to schedule based on data gleaned from all
make E&P Net a success.” prospects. Employees use built-in alerts
and electronic notifications within E&P Net
In the six months since Samson deployed to ensure that unforeseen mishaps and
its knowledge management and delays do not affect the forward
collaboration solution, employees have momentum of pre-drill activities. “If we
adopted it almost universally. “The have a permit specification that says we
importance of this solution can be can‟t drill a well because of local wildlife
measured by how many people depend on issues, we can surface that information in
it. Our technical staff uses E&P Net every E&P Net so that everyone knows about it,
day,” says Robinson. “Every member of the and we can make appropriate adjustments
asset team—the land man, the geologist, to our rig schedule,” explains Robinson.
the engineer, the geophysicist, the team “Or, if we have to spud a well before a
manager—all use E&P Net as they collect, critical lease expiry date, the system will
analyze, and share data. Other flash a red light to keep everyone aware of
departments, including marketing, the impending deadline.”

6. “Instead of people With everyone following a normalized Reduced Costs
workflow, employees can transition Staff uses E&P Net to avoid costly mistakes
building reports between asset teams without having to so that Samson can maintain healthy profit
relearn how things are done at each new margins in a volatile business. For example,
manually from location. “We like to tout employee missing a critical date to get a well drilled
spreadsheets every portability within our organization because could cost the company tens of thousands
it‟s a very dynamic work environment, and of dollars in leasehold payments. Relying
week, we are using SQL if people can be productive everywhere, it on built-in alerts in E&P Net, staff can
helps to promote business agility,” says ensure that everything is done on time.
Server Reporting Koscelny. “Now when we hire a
Services to generate professional, they get up-to-speed really Using Microsoft technologies to turn pre-
quickly with E&P Net because everything drilling activities into a standard, routine
enterprise reports that they need to know is in one place.” process eliminates the costs associated
with suddenly shifting wells up to a higher
have been extremely well Using document-versioning capabilities priority position on the drill schedule. “Our
received by the within Office SharePoint Server, employees Executive Vice President for Drilling
can ensure that all documents that are estimated that for every well that we fast
organization.” checked in and out of E&P Net are kept up- tracked, we probably incurred an additional
to-date. “Now everyone can stay on the 20 percent of costs to prepare locations
Phillip Robinson, Land Manager, Samson
Investment Company same page with the most current and acquire materials to make things
information,” says Koscelny. “There‟s no happen at an accelerated rate. That adds
„churn‟ while some people wait for others up to millions of dollars,” says Robinson.
to find what they need and to confirm that “Now we are saving those dollars because
everyone has the latest data so they can act we aren‟t scrambling to accommodate as
upon it.” many last-minute changes. For example, if
a well got moved from number eight to
Faster Access to Information number two in the schedule and
With a single entry point to 12 line-of- procurement wasn‟t notified right away,
business applications, 2,500 stored then we would have to buy the right pipe
documents, and a host of unstructured for that rig at whatever the cost, and the
information, including email messages, money we spent on a different sized pipe
Samson employees are enjoying easy for the rig that got bumped down the
access to the company‟s rich data stores. schedule is not going to be recouped for
This benefit has reduced the time they used some time. The costs associated with these
to spend searching for information. “E&P inefficiencies are now avoided.”
Net has removed a lot of the complexity of
the individual applications and data sources Improved Business Intelligence
by surfacing what our professionals need to Samson employees use Microsoft database
know in an uncomplicated way,” says technologies within E&P Net to analyze
Koscelny. “Now they don‟t have to be copious amounts of data that was
experts in querying individual systems, they previously unattainable for enterprise
can use E&P Net to get the information reporting. The result is better insight into
they need in a way that‟s meaningful to all aspects of pre-drill activities. “Instead of
them.” people building reports manually from
spreadsheets every week, we are using SQL
Server Reporting Services to generate
enterprise reports that have been extremely

7. “We wanted more well received by the organization,” says “We wanted more efficient upstream
Robinson. “Now they just hit a button and operations, but were years away,”
efficient upstream we have up-to-date data in real time.” concludes Robinson. “Microsoft technology
allowed us to jump start the project. With
operations, but were Employees in the drilling, land service, and Microsoft, you get the value without the
years away. Microsoft gas marketing departments are also using learning curve. We now have an extensible
reporting services in E&P Net to track their platform to deliver more value across all
technology allowed us to assets. They can generate reports for team areas of well asset management.”
meetings in seconds, rather than spending
jump start the project. hours manually crunching numbers.
With Microsoft, you get
Not only is the company making better use
the value without the of its information assets, but as more and
more data is entered into the system,
learning curve.” Samson is building a rich source of
Phillip Robinson, Land Manager, Samson historical information that can be used to
Investment Company uncover best practices that can then be
introduced across the organization. “One of
our goals is to show at a granular level
where our cost estimates are accurate and
where they deviate from actual accounts to
help us predict costs more accurately,” says
Koscelny. “The more data we have in the
solution, the better we can look back and
see where we were spending too much
money and fix that going forward.”
Extensible Well Life Cycle Platform
Now that Samson has experienced the
benefits of Microsoft technologies
combined with the technical expertise of an
industry partner like Idea Integration, the
company is eager to expand E&P Net to
cover the entire well life cycle, from
prospect to shut down. Already, the
company is exploring the benefits of
upgrading E&P Net to Silverlight 4 and
SharePoint Server 2010 to expand the
solution to help capture field data once a
well is in production.

8. For More Information Microsoft Solutions for the
For more information about Microsoft Manufacturing Industry
products and services, call the Microsoft Manufacturing enterprises must compete in
Sales Information Center at (800) 426- an increasingly global environment.
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Success depends on finding ever-greater
Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- efficiencies throughout the enterprise,
2495. Customers in the United States and while developing a greater agility to react
Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to local and global market opportunities.
can reach Microsoft text telephone These challenges are best answered with
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. technology from Microsoft and its partners.
Outside the 50 United States and Microsoft-based solutions offer much
Canada, please contact your local needed value to manufacturers who are
Microsoft subsidiary. To access under increasing pressure to generate
information using the World Wide Web, greater returns on the assets that they have
go to: employed. This focus on efficiency scales
www.microsoft.com across all the critical functional areas—from
getting products to market faster, to
For more information about Idea streamlining the supply chain, optimizing
Integration products and services, call the manufacturing operations, and
(904) 360-2700 or visit the website at: generating new revenue streams.
www.idea.com
For more information about Microsoft
For more information about Samson solutions for the manufacturing industry,
Investment Company products and go to:
services, call (918) 591-1791 or visit the www.microsoft.com/resources/manufacturi
website at: ng
www.samson.com
Software and Services Partners
 Microsoft Office  Idea Integration
− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007 Hardware
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio  Servers
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 − Dell Poweredge, 2-4 CPU Intel Xeon
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 processors 2.93 GHz, Memory 4-16
 Technologies gigabytes
− Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5  Desktop
− Microsoft Silverlight 2 − Dell OptiPlex 380, dual processors, 2.6
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 gigahertz, 160 gigabyte hard drive
Integration Services
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting
Services
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published December 2010