Planning for our November meetings is now well underway. We have confirmed presentations from Shell UK and Chevron / Unocal and some others in the process of being confirmed. However, we really do need more. Please do consider sharing the uses that you make of the DPR and CPR data with other participants.

I'm also happy to report that the increase in numbers of participating Operators is continuing to grow at record levels with particular success this month in Russia and deepwater Gulf of Mexico. I am currently arranging to travel to Moscow in the next few months with the aim of attracting particularly the local companies to participate.

As many of you will know, we co-operate with Landmark, Peloton and other drilling and completions data software providers to make their products as 'Rushmore Reviews-friendly' as possible. We were delighted to hear therefore from Unocal that Peloton's WellView is now actively helping them save a lot of time in data collection around the world.

We are sad that Mark Pain, our senior Completions data analyst is leaving us this month to pursue a career in sports coaching. Mark has been a key member of the team for some years and we all wish him well for the future. We are delighted this month to welcome Leah Harvey and Fiona Main into our completions team and Neil Murray into out IT team.

We are just finalising a major website up-grade to allow 'multi-year' data selection and have currently published around 700 wells and 100 completions which were drilled and run during 2005.

Finally, the announcement of our Keynote Speaker for the Best Practices meeting, Dr. Robert Camp, has caused quite a buzz amongst the benchmarking specialists. He is sure to give us plenty to think about, not least an independent, external view on where benchmarking could take the drilling and completions industry if we have the will to go there.

Please do let me know if you could make a presentation in November.

Helen.

The Deepwater Group of Anadarko have contracted to participate in the DPR for the first time retrospectively from 2004 and through 2008. This will provide an initial 15 deepwater GOM wells for 2004 and 2005. Chevron have also added deepwater GOM to convert their contract, which runs to 2007, into 'corporate global' status.

These two new GOM participants add to the data being provided for all deepwater GOM wells drilled by; BHP, BP, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Marathon, Pioneer, Total and Unocal.

We are pleased to announce three significant new Russian participants.

Salym Petroleum Development (Shell Group) are a first time participant in the DPR with 24 of the 59 wells they plan to drill this year already published. Khanty Mansiysk Oil Corporation (Marathon Group) have committed to participate up to 2007 and will be providing data on around 77 wells this year.

TNK-BP who have also committed to participate in the DPR until 2007 are expecting to provide data on over 200 wells this year using the 'land well lite' format. These companies join BP Sakhalin, Eni, Polar Lights, Total and Sakhalin Energy who also provide data on wells drilled in Russia.

In response to a demand from participants for help with data collection and data analysis one of the new additions to the Rushmore Reviews team, Rainer Jackisch, has been busy in Kuala Lumpur, The Hague and Stavanger.

Rainer, who is a qualified Drilling Engineer, recently spent two weeks with Petronas Carigali in Malaysia assisting with training of staff in data collation for the studies as well as helping out with retrospective data collection and verification.

Sakhalin Energy in the Netherlands used Rainer to provide 'on-site' benchmarking data analysis services to support the planning and budgeting for a future campaign.

Statoil are currently employing Rainer to help with the verification of their data automation system, which is currently under development, as well as assistance in collation of data.

Once his work is finished at Statoil Rainer is scheduled to travel to Egypt to provide some training to Bapetco staff and also assist in the collection of retrospective data.

If you would like assistance or training in benchmark data collection, data collection automation or analysis please contact Helen Rushmore.

Without Rainer's help data collection was a daunting task, but with him there we were confident that our data submissions would be correct and have very few queries. When we had submitted data ourselves in the past it could take a few months before the data was finalised but with Rainer's help the submission was finalised very quickly.

Shell Egypt and Bapetco Egypt (Shell Group) are both participating for the first time retrospectively in the 2004 DPR.

BP have extended their participation in the Completions Review and their global participation in the DPR through 2005. This will provide data from wells drilled in Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Colombia, Egypt, GOM deepwater, Indonesia, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Trinidad, Turkey, UAE, UK and Venezuela.

EOG Trinidad have extended their participation in the DPR retrospectively to 2001. RWE-Dea UK have renewed their DPR participation to 2007. Roc Oil have extended their global participation in the DPR to 2009. Roc will provide data from Australia, China, New Zealand, UK and other countries.

For a full list of participating operators please click here.

The fourth annual ‘Best Practices in Benchmarking Drilling and Completions’ meeting will be held in the Marcliffe at Pitfodels Hotel, Aberdeen on the 8th and 9th November.

The keynote speaker, Dr. Robert Camp (pictured left), who has been dubbed 'the father of benchmarking' will help us establish what the drilling and completions business might learn from 20 years of performance improvement through benchmarking in the manufacturing and non-oil service sectors.

The annual meeting of the participants of the Drilling Performance Review will then be held on the 10th and the annual meeting of the participants of the Completions Performance Review and Completions Efficiency Review on the 11th at the same venue.

There will be a dinner held at Drumtochty Castle on the evening of the 9th and a champagne reception at the new offices of Rushmore Reviews on the evening of Monday 7th November.