Baker Hughes’ new North Sea vice president for oilfield services (OFS) has made decarbonising operations one of her key priorities.
Marianne Davenport started in the position in April following a spell as the energy services company’s VP for OFS Transformation based in Houston, her “first step into leadership”.
She takes up the new role at crucial juncture for the North Sea, with a growing focus on reducing emissions and transitioning away from fossil fuels.
“The whole industry and the whole word wants to go much faster on the energy transition and Europe is at the forefront of that. There’s a harder push there to bridge the gap between ambition and concrete actions,” Ms Davenport said.
She added: “With me coming into the role, one of the key things in OFS is to decarbonise our current operations. Regardless of which scenario you look at for the future, there is going to be an element of oil and gas.
“Accordingly, we need to look very quickly at what actions we can take at Baker Hughes to reduce our operational emissions. That spans from our own facilities to our supply chain to how we work.”
One avenue that Baker Hughes is exploring to reduce its operational emissions is through the use of remote working offshore.
Ms Davenport said they need to question whether there’s a real need to send people to the North Sea, or if that same work can be carried out another way.
She added: “Norway is streaks ahead in terms of looking at how to do the same things differently. Operators there are looking to take as many people off rigs as they can and to do work remotely.
“At Baker Hughes, there’s been a real push in recent years to change how we operate, to address both decarbonisation and open up our access to specialists.”
Dozens of oil and gas companies have made pledges in recent years to reduce their emissions to net zero, with most aiming for 2050.
Baker Hughes was among the first, promising to cut its scope one and two CO2-equivalent emissions in half by no later than 2030.
But despite efforts ongoing at a company level, Ms Davenport says that, in order for the energy transition to be successful on a global scale, “partnerships” will be vital.
She said: “We can certainly challenge and help but it can only happen if we work together, both with traditional players, new energy customers and governments.
“No one company has all the solutions and this is an unpaved path. Dialogue is important but so is coming together to set out how we can move this forward. We can help in that regard from a technology and project management perspective.”
Beyond decarbonising Baker Hughes’ OFS operations, the company is pursuing opportunities in carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) and hydrogen.
Ms Davenport said: “There’s a lot happening in Europe around both these technologies at the moment.
“The good news is that there’s technology ready today to support their growth – Baker Hughes has CO2 compression active in 17 countries already.
“CCUS is something that we can move on immediately to reduce CO2. The same applies to hydrogen production, transportation and distribution – there’s tech ready now to progress that.”
She added: “We’re looking at using our existing resources but in adjacent markets, like CCUS and hydrogen. But, we’re also looking at the longer term and what the world needs to get to net zero targets.”
On what she personally is going to bring to the role, Ms Davenport said: “I’ve lived and worked in various parts of the world. I’ve seen various approaches to OFS and so I’m coming at it with a range of perspectives.
“There’s learnings that can be brought into Europe and vice versa – that’s a key thing.
“Currently there’s a lot of uncertainty about where markets are going to go and what are going to be the main energy sources of the future.
“It’s important to try and predict that so that we can change skillsets to meet changing needs – there’s a huge personal element to this.”
Recommended for you
