Knowledge base system for an equipment market

A method for calculating economical day rates for a group of oil and gas equipment, rigs, and vessels for use in drilling wells in underwater formations comprising:

• determining a mechanical difficulty index for a well based on factors selected from the group comprising well location, well water depth, total drilling depth, maximum well angle, hole size, maximum well displacement, number of casing strings and type of drilling mud;
• determining a drilling performance index based on factors selected from the group comprising stratigraphic well description and drilling performance as a function of described stratigraphy;
• determining a capability index based on identification of oil and gas equipment, rigs, and vessels available for a drilling project, contractor capabilities associated with each of the available oil and gas equipment, rigs, and vessels, and combined contractor and rig performance histories;
• calculating a rig/hole performance index based on the mechanical difficulty index, the drilling performance index, and the contractor capability index;
• calculating a number of days required to complete the drilling project;
• and
• calculating an economic day rate for each of the available oil and gas equipment, rigs, and vessels based on the rig/hole performance index and the number of days required to complete the drilling project.

A computer implemented method for analyzing supply and demand information in an oil and gas equipment, rig, and vessel market comprising:

• providing a relational database for receiving and storing in an electronic storage medium data relevant to supply and data relevant to demand;
• providing a first set of computer readable program code for processing incoming data for storage in the relational database;
• providing a second set of computer readable program code for selectively retrieving data stored in the relational database;
• providing a third set of computer readable program code for performing operations on data stored in the relational database wherein the operations are selected from the group comprising searching for selected data, applying an optimization algorithm to selected data, applying a forecasting algorithm to selected data, and calculating a price based on historical and current data stored in the relational database;
• and
• providing an user interface for selectively invoking operating of each of the first, second, and third sets of computer readable program code.

A method for generating a chart image from data stored in a relational database in response to search criteria entered by a program user comprising:

• providing a search engine in communication with the relational database for receiving the search criteria entered by the program user and for generating search results in response to the entered search criteria;
• creating a session object from each of the search criteria and the search results to generate result objects;
• providing a server-side script for generating a hypertext markup language page having embedded therein image tags, wherein each image tag has embedded therein a “src” component;
• providing an image rendering engine;
• using the “src” component of the embedded image tags created by the server-side script to pull the search criteria from the session object;
• calculating the width and height of the chart image to be produced by the image rendering engine;
• generating an image map from the calculated width and height of the chart image in combination with the search results;
• generating a buffered object for receiving a drawn image;
• drawing rows on the buffered object;
• drawing each of the result objects on the buffered object, wherein each result object becomes a chart element that relates to a discrete event in time;
• compressing the buffered object having the result objects drawn thereon;
• encoding the buffered object as a streamed encoded image;
• and
• sending the streamed encoded image to an Internet browser for display by the Internet browser to the program user.

Computer readable program code for generating a chart image from data stored in a relational database in response to search criteria entered by a program user comprising:

• a search engine in communication with the relational database for receiving the search criteria entered by the program user and for generating search results in response to the entered search criteria;
• means for creating a session object from each of the search criteria and the search results to generate result objects;
• a server-side script for generating a hypertext markup language page having embedded therein image tags, wherein each image tag has embedded therein a “src” component;
• an image rendering engine;
• means for using the “src” component of the embedded image tags created by the server-side script to pull the search criteria from the session object;
• means for calculating the width and height of the chart image to be produced by the image rendering engine;
• means for generating an image map from the calculated width and height of the chart image in combination with the search results;
• means for generating a buffered object for receiving a drawn image;
• means for drawing rows on the buffered object;
• means for drawing each of the result objects on the buffered object, wherein each result object becomes a chart element that relates to a discrete event in time;
• means for compressing the buffered object having the result objects drawn thereon;
• means for encoding the buffered object as a streamed encoded image;
• and
• means for sending the streamed encoded image to an Internet browser for display by the Internet browser to the program user.