Implementing a Pipeline GIS for both Production Gathering and Transmission Pipelines

This journey began in 2004 when an IT Director who was involved in the acquisition of Oxy’s west Texas transmission pipelines came to the only GIS support staff member and said, “We are going to get a ton of maps with this deal, I think you need to make a trip to Midland”. At the same time, our largest production asset had been feeling the growing pains of managing an extensive network of gathering and injection lines.

Historically, Oxy has focused on Exploration and Production. With the acquisition of the transmission pipeline system, we started the search for a GIS that could be implemented across the enterprise and provide a solution to meet the needs of both a transmission pipeline company and the production gathering assets.

This presentation will discuss our approach, the business justification, our implementation of PODS, lessons learned, and the importance of a good relationship between the business customer and IT support staff.

Speaker Biography

Serving for the last 5 years as GIS Architect for Occidental Petroleum’s IT department, Melissa Denney sets the company’s global GIS strategy and leads a team of professionals who implement and support all of Occidental’s GIS applications. Melissa has a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Geography from the University of Oklahoma and has worked in the GIS field for the last 10 years. Prior experience includes GIS consulting for LandWorks, KBHome, and the US Geological Survey.

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