Keith Robertson, then a junior at Arvada’s Ralston Valley High School, had two summer job options: lifeguard or creating software for “the idea” of a new oil and gas data management company. “That sounded a lot more interesting than being a lifeguard,” said Robertson, now 24.
The idea is now Broomfield-based PetroDE — which is expected to announce a contract with The Woodlands, Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. on Wednesday.
PetroDE creates a cloud-based computer platform to aggregate, analyze and map the wide range of data oil and gas companies use in choosing and managing development sites.
It was Alan Lindsey, 52, a friend of Robertson’s family and now PetroDE’s CEO, who saw the key problem — if not at first the solution.
Lindsey, a former Shell Oil Co. geoscientist, had been working with private investors trying to acquire acreage in the hot oil and gas shale plays in North Dakota and Pennsylvania.
“It was a struggle to get the data we needed,” Lindsey said. “We ended up losing deals and making deals we shouldn’t have.”
Oil companies use information from a broad array of databases sold by vendors in trying to identify properties in which to invest.
For example, Englewood-based IHS Inc. offers data on the location and production details of 4.6 million U.S. oil and gas wells. Boulder-based Dolan Integration Group provides geochemistry data.
“The question was how could we leverage new technologies to make that data mappable and easily searched?” Lindsey said.
The hunt began in 2010 down in Robertson’s basement.
“I had been doing some random projects, but I was bored,” Robertson. “This was a challenge.”
Financed by family and friends to start, the company got a $2 million cash infusion in 2014 from three so-called family offices — investment companies for individual families.
“The evolution in the U.S. oil and gas industry in the last few years has been incredible. Things have happened so fast it has been hard to keep up,” said Jim Thorson, whose Boulder-based Free Radical Ventures, was one of the investors. “There is a need for a tool like this, and a there is a market.”
Among PetroDE’s early customers was the Denver-based Great Western Oil and Gas Co.
“At first we used it for planning purposes,” said Jason Brand, the company’s geoscience manager. “In Denver and our Windsor office, we could call up the same map and discuss plans.”
Before PetroDE, the company would send a book of maps to Windsor. “We’d have to say over the phone, ‘Now we are turning to Page 52,’ ” Brand said.
New functions also are enabling the company to do “quick regional scouting,” including new activity and production trends, Brand said.
The five-year contract with Anadarko, the sixth-largest U.S. oil company by market value and the largest Colorado oil producer in 2014, is a big step for PetroDE, Lindsey said.
Anadarko declined to comment.
In PetroDE’s work room — festooned with Star Wars posters and a life-sized Stormtrooper — the software engineers have been busy.
“We’ve been writing a lot of code,” Robertson said. “Anadarko was interested in some new functionality.”
Of the 10 software engineers on staff, including Robertson, nine are students or recent graduates of the University of Colorado.
“They are working here full-time, but we work around their schedules,” Lindsey said. “That how we compete with the Googles and Yahoos.”
Robertson says he is shooting to graduate in December with a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in electrical engineering.
But comparing PetroDE and academe, Robertson said, “I learned more doing this than going to college.”
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912, mjaffe@denverpost.com or twitter.com/bymarkjaffe
