Aker Solutions, Baker Hughes in Early Field Design Pact

Aker Solutions and Baker Hughes agreed to cooperate on early-phase studies to help customers improve the overall economics and value of oil and gas field developments.

Aker Solutions’ Front End Spectrum unit and Baker Hughes’ Reservoir Development Services group will provide customers with development concept studies that address the entire value chain – from reservoir understanding and well design to subsea and topsides facilities, including flow assurance and risk management. Each company has expertise from the full spectrum of field development. Initial customer studies are already under way, Aker Solutions wrote.

“Our ability to maximize value is greatest when we can enter a project early at the appraisal and feasibility stages and evaluate the potential of a field’s total development instead of parts of it,” said Henning Østvig, head of Front End Spectrum at Aker Solutions. “This greatly increases our success in finding solutions that improve the overall economics and value of a development by optimizing capital expenditure and production.”

“While we always want to find the best solutions for our customers, the current market environment gives us an added sense of urgency,” said Scott Reeves, president of Reservoir Development Services at Baker Hughes. “No tool is more powerful than an early, integrated approach to field design. This helps ensure that all parts of a project are designed to work together throughout the life of the field.”

The new agreement comes after Aker Solutions and Baker Hughes in 2014 formed the Subsea Production Alliance to develop solutions that will boost output, increase recovery rates and reduce costs at subsea fields. The alliance uses Aker Solutions’ capabilities in subsea production and processing and Baker Hughes’ expertise in well completions and artificial-lift technology to deliver integrated in-well and subsea systems solutions. The importance of cooperating during the early phase of a project was recognized quickly in the alliance.