Norwegian energy heavyweights Equinor and Aker BP are pooling their expertise and portfolios to accelerate technology development and improve the commercial viability of tight-reservoir discoveries on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, where estimated recovery potential amounts to around 2.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
Equinor and Aker BP are entering into a strategic collaboration on tight reservoirs on the NCS, with the aim of enabling the profitable development of more discoveries and increasing the oil and gas recovery rate through technology development, standardization, and cooperation across multiple projects.
The Norwegian Offshore Directorate has estimated a recovery potential of around 2.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent in mapped tight reservoirs, which is believed to be comparable to the expected recoverable resources in the Johan Sverdrup field. These are reservoirs where oil and gas flow very slowly through the rock.
Kjetil Hove, Equinor’s Executive Vice President for Exploration & Production Norway, emphasized: “By viewing our portfolios in context and developing common solutions, we can reduce costs and develop and qualify technology faster. Together, we can make challenging resources profitable. This benefits all partners and society at large.”
Flow of oil and gas in conventional and tight reservoirs; Source: Equinor
Given that large volumes of oil and gas are found in tight reservoirs on the NCS, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate has encouraged the companies to increase collaboration on technology, standardization, and knowledge sharing.
Equinor emphasizes that many of the approximately 90 discoveries that have yet to receive development approval are in tight reservoirs, while only a limited amount of these resources can be recovered using conventional methods, with many discoveries being too costly to develop using current solutions.
Karl Johnny Hersvik, Chief Executive Officer of Aker BP, underlined: “Scale is key. By considering the opportunities across both portfolios together, we can create basis for activity, faster learning and lower costs. Together, we can develop solutions that can be applied across multiple projects. We are starting the work immediately.”
Aker BP and Equinor’s collaboration covers prospects, discoveries, and projects across the NCS, with the duo contributing relevant opportunities from their own portfolios and identifying where joint technology development, standardization, and knowledge sharing can create the greatest value.
This pact also includes resource maturation and solutions for well stimulation, with the ambition to create a sufficient and predictable level of activity to build a competitive value chain, with the expertise and supplier capacity needed to develop more discoveries in tight reservoirs.
The collaboration will be organized through a joint governance structure and multidisciplinary working groups with participants from both companies. The Norwegian Offshore Directorate estimated in 2019 that mapped tight reservoirs contain 12–13 billion barrels of oil and gas in place. However, the recovery rate is low.
The Norwegian government agency estimates an average recovery rate of 20% (5–40%) for oil and 30% (10–50%) for gas in limestone reservoirs, while the average recovery rate has been estimated at 12% (4–20%) for oil and 25% (18–40%) for gas in sandstone reservoirs.
“The companies will contribute relevant opportunities from their respective portfolios and jointly identify where technology development, standardization and exchange of experience can create the greatest value,” underlined Aker BP.