HOUSTON, TX--(Marketwired - Jan 13, 2015) - Energistics, the upstream oil and gas open standards consortium, has announced that the Wellsite Information Transfer Standard Markup Language (WITSML) V1.4.1 is licensed for business with four of their member organizations certified on the latest release of the drilling data exchange standard.

With WITSML V1.4.1, Energistics has a new behavior-based, automated software Testing Tool and Certification program that replaces all previous certification programs and eliminates the variable nature of former programs by bringing consistency and objectivity to the testing process. This new program is expected to deliver the ease of use and reliable results needed to drive certification, ultimately improving the interoperability and data reliability provided by WITSML.

The four companies that are the first to become WITSML V1.4.1 certified are: Baker Hughes, Geologix, Petrolink and Weatherford.

"We are very excited to have these four companies become certified," said Jay Hollingsworth, Chief Technology Officer at Energistics. "This validates the value that the oil and gas industry finds with the latest version of our flagship drilling data exchange standard and we expect to see more and more companies becoming certified."

Weatherford Petroleum Consulting Vice President Matt Vanderfeen said, "The WITSML V1.4.1 software and certification program is instrumental to our Real-Time Drilling Optimization program and supports our commitment to delivering the most reliable and accurate information to our clients regardless of location or source of data."

Celestine Vettical, vice president, Intelligent Energy Products & Technology at Baker Hughes, noted, "The WITSML V1.4.1 standard is a key element for driving the digital oilfield. This certification program provides the basis to help our platform easily integrate various devices, data and application services to access real-time or playback drilling data, run real-time analytics, and provide alarm management across our customer's drilling operations globally."

WellSTORE™, our data conversion and delivery store technology is based on WITSML," said Edward Clements, who spearheads WITSML development at Geologix Ltd. "WITSML allows us to deliver continuous access by expert systems such as G&G and Drilling applications to mudLog data from geologists and service company data."

"Petrolink is extremely happy with the Energistics certification program. This allows users of Energistics standards to have confidence that their technical solutions are able to cooperate within their corporate data infrastructures. At Petrolink we find this valuable because we pride ourselves on our ability to work with anyone's data but provide consistent solutions. Certification allows all service providers and software vendors to be partners in ensuring the interoperability of data that our technology and our clients require," said David Johnson, Vice President, Research & Innovation at Petrolink.

For information, please visit the Energistics WITSML V1.4.1 Certification web site.

Energistics is a global, not-for-profit, membership organization that serves as the facilitator, custodian and advocate for the development and adoption of technical open data exchange standards in the upstream oil and gas industry. Uniquely designed to unite upstream industry professionals in a neutral and collaborative facilitation environment, Energistics membership consists of integrated, independent and national oil companies, oilfield service companies, software vendors, system integrators, regulatory agencies and the global standards user community. For more information visit our website at www.energistics.org.