Jeremy Beckman - Editor, Europe
Offshore contractors and service groups in France are working “at full stretch and beyond,” according to Dominique Michel, president of the oil and gas suppliers’ association GEP.
Most of the companies, however, remain alert to new business opportunities. GEP is helping them in various ways, by organizing networking events, participation in trade shows, technical seminars and training sessions, and providing sponsorship for R&D in niche technologies.
Table shows global turnover of French suppliers of oilfield equipment and services (source: GEP).
GEP currently has 160 member companies including operators, manufacturers, general and specialist engineering contractors, service companies, equipment suppliers, and research centers. Membership is not restricted to French-owned companies, although applicants must have some activity in France that “adds value,” says managing director Claude Berbigier.
Cameron, with its factory in Beziers in the south, falls into this category, as do Acergy, Alfa Laval, APL, Halliburton, Saipem, and Schlumberger. “Generally,” Berbigier adds, “we welcome foreign service companies or manufacturers with bases in France, although we would avoid distributors of equipment built overseas.”
Within France, GEP organizes regular events for its members. These include monthly club meetings at headquarters in Paris, with presentations on new technical developments, raising project finance, security, health and safety, and other subjects of general concern.
In October, the association also stages Hydrocarbon Days at the Palais des Congres in Paris, an event co-organized with AFTP. It includes technical presentations split into four plenary sessions, round-table discussions involving leading industry figures, and 12 workshops. More than half the topics are offshore related.
This was initially an exclusively French event, but GEP is aiming to internationalize proceedings, drawing in speakers from the major and national oil companies. At other times of the year, GEP coordinates training sessions where members get the chance to discuss business opportunities overseas with French government trade attaches.
Statistics compiled by the Institut Francais du Petrole (IFP) suggest that France is second only to the US in exports of oil and gas services and equipment. To ease its members’ passage into new markets, GEP has assembled a task force of specialists covering the sectors in China, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and most recently Russia, where Valdimir Jivouchkine is spearheading activity. “He brings very good contacts at ministerial level and with industrial associations in Russia,” says Berbigier.
Based on interest from the membership, GEP organizes four- to five-day missions each year to countries in these regions. They include visits to national oil companies and relevant government departments, and to local trade associations for members interested in establishing joint ventures.
“We also introduce our companies to agents in these countries that can provide advice on local trading rules and regulations,” Berbigier adds, “and facilitate contact with local engineers for recruitment purposes.”
As for more mainstream oil and gas events, GEP coordinates French pavilions at typically six to eight exhibitions and conferences annually. This year’s agenda includes Gastech in Bangkok, Offshore West Africa in Abuja, Neftegaz in Moscow, Libya’s Tripoli Fair, CIPPE in China, DOT in Perth, ONS Stavanger, and OTC Houston. The French stand at OTC will feature 25 companies, seven more than last year’s group. The numbers would have been higher but for restrictions on exhibition space.
GEP still participates in the European Oil & Gas Innovation Forum Eurogif, which was created to further collaboration in new R&D projects. When funds from the European Union’s framework program did not materialize, some counterpart associations pulled out of Eurogif. However, AVA Drilling Fluid & Services, CGG Veritas, Dockwise, Fugro, GE Oil & Gas, Geolog, Schlumberger, and Technip have since replaced them as associate member companies.
One EU program, Waterborne, still grants subsidies for R&D in floating and underwater structures: Doris Engineering’s semisubmersible platform concept Octoplus was one past beneficiary. But in general, governments in Europe remain hostile to hydrocarbons, including the administration in France, which recently withdrew its support for the country’s long-running oil and gas research initiative CEPM.
GEP has moved swiftly to fill the gap, creating a new private-sector funded program called Citeph, which currently has 10 sponsors, including Gaz de France, Total, and eight leading contractors. They have contributed collectively €10 million ($15.7 million) for the first year of the program, which is being distributed to 33 promising R&D projects throughout France identified by the Citeph technical committee.
It is in the sponsors’ interest to encourage and outsource research, Michel explains, due to the pressures imposed by the deluge of new industrial projects. “We have the impression that people do not have enough time to look at the future and develop new technologies in-house. In fact the trend is for projects to proceed faster and faster, which means R&D often has to be done as the project goes along.”
Among the proposals sanctioned for support are a project to develop rugged electronics for use in high temperature wells, and another by Lemma in the Alpes-Maritimes region to develop software tools to model the effect of ice build-up on platforms in arctic environments.
