Merak Projects Ltd. was founded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in 1980 as a petroleum software development company. At that time, the oil and gas software market was dominated by mainframe-based applications. When the PC was introduced in the mid-80s, Merak focused its efforts on exploiting the new technology to create faster and less expensive PC-based applications. One of Merak's major efforts was a joint venture project to develop a PC-based economic evaluation application called Peep* (Petroleum Economic Evaluation Program). Launched in 1985, Peep quickly gained a significant share of the North American petroleum economics software market.
By 1991, Merak had created a suite of high-quality DOS applications. In 1992, Merak redeveloped its existing applications for the 16-bit Microsoft Windows environment and released several new programs. A few years later, the company responded to evolving technology trends by redeveloping its products for the new 32-bit Windows 95 environment introduced by Microsoft. The new generation of products, released in 1996, had enhanced functionality, improved data capabilities, and greater flexibility, and the 32-bit technology significantly improved the integration of Merak's products.
From its inception, Merak managed steady growth despite uneven petroleum markets. By the late 1990s, Merak had grown from a three-person enterprise to a company of 250 professionals with clients around the world.
In August of 1999, Merak Projects Ltd. was purchased by Schlumberger Limited and the Merak product line was brought under the umbrella of the Schlumberger Oilfield Services GeoQuest software division. Merak's unique expertise in petroleum economics was a perfect complement to GeoQuest's highly regarded production software solutions.
By fostering relationships with companies strong in complementary services and products, Merak is able to consistently increase and improve its service and expertise offerings to the marketplace. Merak continues to strengthen these key alliances with industry standards like Microsoft, Oracle and SAP through joint marketing, advertising and presentation initiatives.
