Statoil has singled out four business critical technologies as key to achieving the company’s growth ambitions.
Also, the semi-state company is jacking-up its R&D (research and development) investment budget by 27% to around £250million (2.8billion NOK) and starting to plan Norway’s biggest centre for increased oil recovery (IOR) technology.
Statoil’s new technology strategy builds on ambitions to boost production from 1.9million barrels oil equivalents per day in 2010 to 2.5million boepd in 2020.
The four priority technology areas are:
Seismic imaging and interpretation – will contribute to making further discoveries and boost the recovery rate by 2020.
Reservoir characterisation and recovery – to maximise value. This is expected to contribute to producing a further 1.5billion boe by 2020.
Efficient well construction – to drill more cost-efficient wells: 30% shorter time on well construction and 15% cost reduction by 2020.
Realise subsea compression by 2015 and complete a “subsea factory” by 2020 – to accelerate and boost output.
“We have identified four commercially critical technology areas where Statoil has a competitive advantage and where we have a long history of making the impossible possible,” said Margareth Øvrum, executive vice president for technology, projects and drilling.
“We have set ambitious targets for how technology will help us make further discoveries, boost recovery from existing fields, reduce costs and bring about operational improvements in health, environment and safety.”