Hello,

Happy New Year!

Following the popular and successful November Participant meetings, 2008 has got off to a roaring start with the final stages being put in place for our new, improved website; a recruitment drive and the planning of a series of sales marketing visits.

Peter, Mark and I will be in Houston from the 11th to the 22nd February visiting both existing participants and encouraging other Operators to join the studies. If you would like to meet with us please do let me know. On Wednesday 20th February we shall also be holding a free morning seminar on the Reviews and how best to turn the data into performance improvement - more details below.

We are planning visits to Denmark, France, Oman and a few more countries this year.

We continue to work on the RDI - the Rushmore drilling index - with our new arrival, James Mithen, who is about to start his PhD in Mathematics in the Autumn. Our sales team has been temporarily boosted with Mark Rushmore’s presence during his ‘gap year’ following his graduation from Edinburgh University.

We are very excited about the launch of the Abandonment Performance Review which is being sponsored by the Operators constituting the Well Abandonment Working group of UK Oil and Gas (formerly UKOOA).

Finally, a reminder that the deadline for submission of Q4 2007 data is the 15th February and we look forward to receiving Q1 2008 data soon.

Best wishes

Helen Rushmore

We are pleased to welcome a number of new Operators in the Reviews;

• Afren Energy, currently operating in Nigeria, Ghana and expanding, on a global basis in the DPR from 2006 to 2008.
• Altinex Norway for DPR participation in 2007.
• Det Norske Oljeselskap and NOIL Energy in the DPR retrospectively back to 2000 and forwards to 2011.
• DPE Dubai into both the Drilling and Completions Reviews for 2007.
• Fairfield Energy UK in the DPR for 2006 to 2008.
• Petrofac, currently operating in Malaysia and UK, on a global basis in the DPR from 2006 to 2008.
• Tethys Oil Oman in the 2007 DPR.
• Texas American in the DPR with US land wells from 2000 to 2006.

A number of existing participants have renewed or expanded the scope of their participation:

• BP have renewed their global DPR and near global CPR participation from 2008 to 2010.
• Chevron have extended their deepwater GOM participation retrospectively back to 2000.
• Marathon have renewed their global DPR participation from 2008 to 2010 and have contracted for the first time for global CPR participation from 2004 to 2010.
• Nexen has extended their DPR participation to include deepwater GOM retrospectively back to 2000 and forwards to 2009.

The Rushmore Reviews are a key element in the performance management and prospect characterization processes at Nexen. They provide us with a measure of our competitive performance which acts as a platform and driver for continuous improvement. We also use the Rushmore data for scoping economics during evaluation of new basins and projects.
Brad Muir, Vice President, Technical and Operational Services, Nexen, Calgary

For a full list of participants please click here

We are holding a seminar on "Best Practices in the Benchmarking of Drilling and Completions Performance" at the Omni Westside Hotel, 13210 Katy Freeway, on Wednesday 20th February from 8.30am to 12noon.

The program is flexible and can respond to the needs of the people who come along. However, we expect to cover the background to the Reviews, the data and the ways in which Operators analyse the data, for example, to drive performance improvement. This is an opportunity for you or your staff to learn how to derive most benefit from your participation.

There is no cost to attend and while we will not be providing hand-out materials we will have lots of pastries, coffee and tea for you. The seminar is open to both participating and non-participating Operator staff but places are limited so, if you would like to attend, email me to reserve a place as soon as possible please.

This is a great opportunity to put your questions or suggestions to the Directors of the Reviews, and we hope to see you there.

We are very grateful for the useful and thought-provoking presentations made at the annual meetings by BG, BP and Talisman on the ways in which they use the data to help manage performance and also to stimulate performance improvement. As usual we had updates from IDS, Landmark and Peloton on the "Rushmore data extraction" facilities in their products.

Workshop sessions were held on using Rushmore data in, or in place of, probabilistic well planning, the Rushmore Drilling Index (RDI) and the proposed Abandonment Performance Review. For the minutes of this meeting and associated presentations please click here.

Our annual Reception and Dinner was held at Drumtochty Castle where we were entertained not only by Roddy the Piper but also by our participants joining in the fun with a bit of Scottish Dancing plus some variations on this. A great time was had by all, some are pictured above, and once more it was a wonderful opportunity to both network and make friends.

Please click here to access the minutes of the meeting to agree changes to the terms and conditions of participation and the DPR, and click here for changes to the CPR.

One of the most popular sessions at the participants meeting was a demonstration by Bryce Gillespie of Cheval Computing demonstrating how quickly and easily a powerful analysis of Rushmore well data can be made using a PC-based customised MS Access program. One participant has now taken up this tool and others are in the evaluation stage.
For further information please contact Bryce by email info@chevalcomputing.com or go to www.chevalcomputing.com.

The Working Group looking at Well Abandonments for UK Oil & Gas (formerly UKOOA) has asked the participants of the Rushmore Reviews whether interest exists in sharing technical, time and cost data on well abandonments.

The representatives of this Working Group, which comprises staff from BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell, Talisman and Total, have concluded that the sharing of this data will help every Operator who faces future abandonment work to plan and prepare more effectively for it. A number of these Operators have already indicated their intention to participate and they developed a draft data set.

Jules Schoenmakers of Shell gave a presentation - click here to access - at the November participants meeting and received a positive response from many present. The data input workbook and terms and conditions of participation are currently in the process of finalisation. The data to be shared has changed to some degree since this presentation was made.

All current participants will receive an invitation to join the APR within the next month. In the meantime if you have any queries please contact Helen

This years remaining dates for training at our offices in Aberdeen on the submission of data into the DPR and CPR Workbooks are; 15th to 17th April, 24th to 26th June and 23rd to 25th September 2008.

For more details please send Beryl an email or call her on +44 (0)1224 251061.

This training is specifically for those people responsible for inputting the data into the workbooks and although a session is provided on website navigation and the charting facilities it is not a course on how to analyse the data.

Rainer, our roving ‘data detective’ is currently in Nigeria working with Shell and looks likely to be fully engaged over the coming months.

Due to continuing demand we are now looking for a second part-time ‘data detective’ for work in both Aberdeen and overseas. We are also recruiting for data processing, IT, sales and management positions.