Landmark Graphics Corp, a wholly-owned business unit of Halliburton, announced it has opened an Asset Management Center in Abu Dhabi at the Center of Excellence for Applied Research and Training to enable production optimization initiatives for the Middle East region. Due to the specific and demanding needs of Middle East reservoirs, Landmark is designating the Abu Dhabi center as a global Center of Excellence for Reservoir Performance. "I am delighted to announce our first investment into a center of excellence to support reservoir management in the Middle East," said Peter Bernard, president of Landmark. "Through the center, Landmark will apply new technologies coupled with consulting expertise to meet the specific challenges of enhancing recovery from the region's reservoirs, vital to meeting the world's ever increasing demand for oil." Within the center, Landmark's consultants will use a project-based approach to provide local solutions to unique challenges faced by local companies. In addition, the center will facilitate knowledge management and knowledge transfer to oil companies throughout the region and enable regional oil companies to test and evaluate Landmark's latest technologies for improved reservoir management and decision management, as well as to participate actively in defining requirements for future technology development. "The center will not only reduce cycle time in reservoir simulation projects by leveraging parallel and Grid computing, but also improve reservoir understanding through multi-scenario modeling and analysis," said Jonathan Lewis, regional vice president of Landmark. "Working with our customers, we will be able to provide comprehensive risk analysis using a decision management system to translate technical uncertainty into quantitative economic risk and yield enhanced and faster processing of results through the use of parallel computing and new streamlined tools." This new center is the most recent product of Landmark's alliance with IBM and Intel to transform the E&P value chain. "As a long-term partner of both Landmark and Intel, we are committed to providing leading-edge solutions to our energy clients. The Abu Dhabi center will showcase IBM's especially developed Linux cluster and Grid technology -- an innovative solution that helps companies lower production costs while maximizing recovery," said Mark Enzweiler, IBM general manager of the Chemicals and Petroleum Industry. "Landmark's new asset management center builds on the work of Intel, IBM and Landmark at the Intel Energy Competency Center in Abu Dhabi that was established at the Center of Excellence for applied Research and Training (CERT) in 2002," said Dick Bland, worldwide energy industry director for Intel. "The optimization of Landmark reservoir applications for Intel Itanium 2 processor and Intel Xeon processor-based platforms from IBM will enable customers to take full advantage of the asset management centers capabilities immediately. Coming soon, the asset management center will feature the latest systems from IBM including Intel Xeon processors with Intel Extended memory 64 Technology to enable the industry to meet increasing reservoir simulation demands." The new center will be led by John Killough, senior research fellow at Landmark, and a world-renowned figure in reservoir simulation and modeling. Killough is at the forefront of the company's developments in the area of Grid computing and the integration of modeling of subsurface geology with surface networks, a challenge of specific interest to companies in Abu Dhabi and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. The Landmark Center of Excellence will have access to the latest high performance Intel Xeon processor-based IBM Blade Linux cluster and desktop computing technology, located in the adjoining Intel Energy Competency Center. The consulting services will leverage a range of Landmark and third-party technologies, including the new DecisionSpace Nexus reservoir simulator, the suite of DecisionSpace Reservoir and Decision Management tools, ProMAX/SeisSpace seismic processing software, and VIP simulation, among other visualization and analysis tools.