Energistics

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Energistics is a global, non-profit, industry consortium that facilitates a worldwide community for the development, adoption and maintenance of collaborative, open data and technology standards for the energy industry. These standards are specifically for oil and gas exploration and production (also known as "upstream" oil and gas).

Since January 1, 2022,  Energistics has been an affiliate of The Open Group®^[1], a global consortium that enables the achievement of business objectives through technology standards and open source software platforms by fostering a culture of collaboration, inclusivity, and mutual respect among its diverse group of 900+ memberships.

As the Energistics Consortium continues to evolve, its members updated its mission statement in 2025.

Energistics Mission:

·      Be the driving force for data interoperability and standardization in the global energy industry

·      Empower the industry to unlock the full potential of data by defining, developing, and promoting standards that facilitate secure, compliant, seamless, and performant data transfer and integration

·      Foster collaboration and adoption to drive innovation, efficiency, and informed decision-making, ensuring the industry's continual evolution

The open standards deliver business value to the upstream oil and natural gas industry by enhancing business process efficiencies throughout the exploration and production life cycle. The Energistics Consortium, a membership-driven, voluntary consensus standards development organization, supports the upstream oil and natural gas companies through the development, support, publication, and promotion of standards addressing data management for wells, earth models/reservoirs, and production business processes.

The Energistics domain data transfer standards include XML and JSON schemas for domain-specific data types for the upstream oil and gas industry. Some of the main Energistics standards are:

·      WITSML®, for data used in drilling, completions, and intervention workflows

·      PRODML™, for optimizing producing oil and gas wells with a focus on data from the reservoir-wellbore boundary to the custody transfer point

·     RESQML™, for data used in the reservoir life cycle, from initial structural interpretation and modeling to reservoir characterization, static and dynamic simulation, and production monitoring

·      Energistics Transfer Protocol, an API designed especially for upstream oil and gas and the Energistics data standards, for moving and operating on data, including real-time streaming

·      Practical Well Log Standard (PWLS), includes a reference list of property kind names used by the industry, lists of companies’ logging tools, and companies’ log mnemonics

·     Unit of Measure Standard (UoM), provides a standard list of units of measure used in the industry and data needed to consistently convert between various units; used by Energistics standards and the OSDU® Data Platform

Regions are a means of building local Energistics communities around the world, with local activities and events. There are eight regions: Africa, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America, South Asia, and Western Europe.

Originally formed in 1990 as the Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation (POSC)^[2], the consortium was established by five founding sponsor oil companies: BP, Chevron, Elf (since merged into Total Energies), Mobil (since merged into ExxonMobil), and Texaco (since merged into Chevron).

In 2004, the organization changed the meaning of POSC ^[3] to better align with its work, to Petrotechnical Open Standards Consortium. In 2006, the organization rebranded itself as Energistics Consortium, Inc.

In 2021, the decision was made to bring Energistics under the management of The Open Group, based on the  increased synergies between Energistics and The Open Group OSDU® Forum.^[4]

On January 1, 2022, after 31 years as a standalone consortium, Energistics became an affiliate of The Open Group®, the standards organization that includes, among others, the OSDU® Forum addressing upstream data management, The Open Process Automation™ Forum addressing  downstream refining, and the Open Footprint® Forum for carbon accounting.

In 2025, the Energistics Consortium celebrates its 35^th anniversary. 

• Energistics Website
• PRODML Standards Website
• WITSML Standards Website
• archival POSC Standards Website