Thursday July 8, 12:08 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Schlumberger Acquires Merak -- The Largest Acquisition Ever for its GeoQuest Product Line
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 8, 1999--Schlumberger Oilfield Services, through its GeoQuest product line, announced today that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire Calgary-based Merak, a market leader in petroleum software solutions for economic evaluation, decision and risk analysis, field optimization, and data visualization and mining. The acquisition is scheduled for completion by the end of this month, pending board approval.
''Our customers are looking for solutions to significantly improve the entire decision-making process surrounding their assets,'' says Thierry Pilenko, president of GeoQuest. ''GeoQuest and Merak share the vision to create a step change in this process by providing a new generation of PC-based software technology covering the full spectrum of asset management, from upstream exploration to downstream production.''
To improve upstream decisions, Merak's tools will be integrated into the exploration workflow to deliver a decision-support process not available in today's integrated interpretation architectures.
''Merak's talented personnel and their expertise will play a crucial role in the successful design and implementation of a new risk-analysis process for global asset and decision teams,'' says Pilenko.
Downstream in the asset lifecycle, Merak's Value Management and Field Optimization products substantially extend GeoQuest's production data management and analysis capabilities. Specifically, the integration of GeoQuest's OilField Manager® production data management software and Finder® data management system with Merak's PetroDesk(TM) desktop integration application and FieldView(TM) field data collection and analysis software will offer clients a more complete solution for monitoring and managing producing assets.
With an average annual revenue growth of over 50% for the past three years, Merak is unchallenged as the market leader of products focused on core energy business needs. They have been an innovator with their aggressive use of 32-bit technology including Microsoft's Windows(b) NT(b), COM/OLE components and Web-based products, which fits well with GeoQuest's technology directions.
Merak's Value Management suite, which includes the industry-leading Peep(a) petroleum economic evaluation software and Portfolio(TM) petroleum value and volume management system, helps customers evaluate the worth of current and future assets, and understand the risk associated with the assets.
Field Optimization solutions include FieldView, which is oriented toward automating the collecting and monitoring of important daily field data including production, injection and general well information.
''Merak has become a global leader in upstream energy software by focusing on technological innovation, client service excellence and strategic growth,'' says Andrew Orr, Merak chairman. ''Customers will benefit from the integration of Merak's business support tools with GeoQuest's technical interpretation software, an expanded client services infrastructure and increased development expertise. We see this as a great opportunity for clients and employees alike.''
Core product development and business operations in Calgary will continue, making the Canadian city a key product development center for GeoQuest. Earlier this month, GeoQuest acquired substantially all of the assets of Panther Software Corporation, also based in Calgary. |
