Life in the Wild Wild West Texas Oilfield

As Geoforce’s Sales Manager for West Texas, I’ve had the amazing privilege of working with some of the hardest working, straightest shooting people in the oil patch. And while I don’t have oil in my veins like my colleague Siera Hanson, I did grow up in the cotton fields of West Texas and have been proud of the incredible growth through the years of the Permian Basin.

Each day, the Permian Basin produces over 1 million barrels of oil and nearly 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas. In order to produce at this rate, there are literally thousands of moving parts that must all be doing their jobs to make this oil producing machine work. Within this “well-oiled” machine, Geoforce proudly provides a number of different services to help our customers manage all of their moving parts. Obviously no one company’s experience is the same, but in the oil patch, there are many common issues and battles everyone shares.

One major problem is the difficulty of moving material from point A to point B and ensuring that it was delivered in the timeframe required and that the driver is claiming. Using the Geoforce Service Verification module, minute to minute breadcrumb data is available with detailed information regarding each start and stop made. This total transparency allows not only the company whom the driver is working for to be clear about what transpired throughout the day, but third party contractors as well. These third party contractors are holding themselves accountable and picking up valuable business because of this application. Because of data fed into Geoforce either by the RRC, Drilling Info or a company’s own GIS department, locations are reversed geocoded to show valuable location context and information. Maps of the drivers’ routes can be printed out and then stapled to service tickets, ensuring pickup and deliveries happened. Our customers are saving thousands of dollars every month because of this ability.

You will also often hear customers say, “We don’t think our equipment has been stolen, we just don’t have a clue where it is.” From a business perspective this makes management cringe. Because of the vastness of the Permian Basin, an item can be left on location or moved to another without permission, causing extreme ripple effects, where companies spend countless man hours driving around looking for that equipment. Using our powered and non-powered equipment GPS tracking devices, companies are able to know where all of their assets are sitting at any given point. This is important not only from an accountability perspective but from a rental management and billing verification standpoint. Using the Geoforce system, customers are able to keep up with the rigorous demands needed to produce oil and gas at the volumes we are seeing today. Geoforce is proud to be a part of the Permian Basin oil machine!