Sciencesoft was founded in 1995 by Dr Lindsay Wood and William Wood with the aim of developing PC-based technical analysis software for the worldwide oil and gas industry. In 2001 the company launched S3GRAF, its universal post-processor for reservoir simulators.  S3GRAF contains unique analysis functions for many of the world’s leading reservoir simulators including Eclipse, VIP, Nexus, FrontSim, 3DSL, Tempest-MORE and other in-house proprietary products.  S3GRAF rapidly established itself as a key component in reservoir engineering workflows worldwide and over the last few years S3GRAF has further established itself as a corporate standard in reservoir engineering analysis in over 100 oil and gas companies.

In 2005 S3GRAF-3D, a powerful add-on module for S3GRAF, was launched, giving engineers access to advanced 3D analysis and engineering workflows which were previously only available on high-end standalone 3D products.

In 2004 a major development project was initiated which led to the launch, in 2005, of a new product called S3connect.  One of the key elements of this work was its support by industry, in that it was partly sponsored by three leading oil companies, namely BP, Occidental and Statoil.

In 2008 S3GRAF-HPG (High Performance Grid) was released. This add-on module allows engineers to load gigabytes of data in milliseconds. With the ever increasing simulation grid size and resolution, S3GRAF-HPG gives engineers instant access to their data and screen their results on demand.

S3GRAF, S3GRAF-3D, S3GRAF-HPG and S3connect are collectively marketed as the Sciencesoft Petroleum Productivity Suite.

Company Growth and Awards

In the last five years Sciencesoft has sustained an average annual growth rate of over 50% and this culminated in a record year for sales and profits in 2007.

This excellent rate of business growth was recognised in 2006 when Sciencesoft won the Scottish Enterprise award for the Best Performing Business in Lanarkshire (25 employees or under).  Sciencesoft was subsequently selected as a finalist in the same category at the national Scottish awards.

The growth of Sciencesoft continues through 2008 and the Company expects to recruit several additional staff members during this year.

Research and Development (R&D)

Sciencesoft invests a substantial part of its annual income in R&D. This is helped by the proximity of the company to several renowned universities, including the University of Glasgow and the University of Strathclyde, that provide a local pool of high-quality physical science graduates with skills that closely match those required by Sciencesoft.

In recognition of its commitment to R&D, Sciencesoft was awarded a SMART grant in 2002 to support an R&D project into the use of streamline simulators for history matching of predicted and observed field production. This was successfully completed and the subsequent award of a SPUR grant was received in 2004 to help extend the research into the use of streamline simulation. Both of these grants were funded by the Scottish Executive. Several of the results derived from the use of these grants have been commercialised by the Company. In 2005 Sciencesoft was awarded a SCORE award from the Scottish Executive, which is specifically designed to help fund collaboration between Scottish business and universities. This enabled Glasgow University to fund a one-year post-doctoral research post in the Department of Physics & Astronomy in order to work with Sciencesoft on the project. After the successful completion of the project the researcher was offered a full time position with Sciencesoft.

Sciencesoft continues to work closely with universities and in 2006 S3connect was used in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh to help with research into field production optimization.  The results of this work have been published in 2007.