Offshore staff
OSLO, Norway – A new initiative should make it easier to test new techniques for boosting oil recovery from fields offshore Norway.
Force Agreement for Pilot Consortium Projects regulates distribution of costs and data exchange. According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), it can be used by every company with a production license.
The average recovery rate from Norwegian fields is 46%, according to NPD. Methods that could lift recovery further would result in more income for the government, as well as oil companies.
Some of the remaining oil can be drained using water or gas injection, but around is immobile oil stuck in pores in the reservoir. Extraction requires use of chemicals or carbon dioxide (CO2). Over the years, lab tests of various enabling techniques have been performed, but it has been difficult to test these methods in practice.
NPD’s Eva Halland is project manager of Force, a collaborative forum for oil companies and Norwegian authorities concerning development and testing of new technology on the Norwegian shelf.
A Force working group comprising representatives from Shell, Statoil, ConocoPhillips, Petoro, Exxon Mobil, Total, and the Norwegian Oil Industry Association, has examined legal and financial issues relating to collaborative testing methods for improved recovery.
According to Halland, costs for testing in one field can be substantial. The new agreement should lower financial obstacles, while also underlining the benefits of sharing information on technological innovations.
“It costs money to test technology. Instead of everyone running their own pilots, they can now do it together,” said Halland. “We hope this agreement can be an important breakthrough in testing more of the laboratory results out in the field.”
8/22/2012
