State agency staffs believe that XML is an ideal format for sharing data with oil and gas industry operators for three reasons: its low cost in comparison with the cost of traditional (X-12) electronic data interchange (EDI), the wide-scale availability of XML development tools, and the ability to add immediate client- and server-side data validations not possible with ASCII data transfers.
For all XML-based Web applications, a "schema," or standard set of syntax and formatting requirements, is needed as a means of first-round data validation. The Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the oil and gas industry through the state regulatory agencies, and a consortium of state agencies are using the XML tags in the eReport schema as a database-neutral means of exchanging production and injection reporting and location data between agencies and industry over the Internet.
Over the past 2 years, the GWPC has coordinated the development of the eReport schema for oil and gas production, disposition, and location data. The schema development effort has been extensive, encompassing Technical Advisory Group meetings, workshops, state agency conferences, and pilot studies funded through grants from DOE and the participating states. e-Business reporting initiatives that use this schema are now being launched in Utah, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New York, and Nebraska, and are being planned in Montana, Alaska, and Mississippi.
The schema, which is now in version 3.5, is located at http://virtuales.com/xml/eReport3_5.xsd. Schema tag documentation can be found at http://virtuales.com/xml/schemaVer3_5Doc/ereport3_5.html.
Since the schema is designed to be database-neutral, users’ database tables can remain unchanged. So, although each state agency will continue to have its own requirements for electronic data submittals, everyone can use the XML tags in the eReport schema to exchange data with industry operators and agents.
The American Petroleum Institute’s REGS Committee and members of both the Minerals Management Service (MMS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have placed the GWPC’s eReport schema data elements into process for acceptance into the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX).
Advantages of using the eReport schema …