Statoil keynote address at 2014 SPE EuALF

Ingolf Søreide, Vice President at Statoil and head of the Mariner Field Development project, will present the keynote address at this year’s European Artificial Lift Forum (EuALF), focusing on Statoil’s approach to heavy oil production worldwide.

The 2014 EuALF has been organised by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Aberdeen and takes place in Aberdeen this week {17-18 June}. Oil and gas professionals from around the globe will come together to discuss developments and the latest techniques being used in artificial lift.

Ahead of this year’s EuALF, Mr Søreide said:

“For the last ten years, Statoil has had a strong global position in heavy oil developments and hand in hand with this comes the need for efficient, practical and reliable artificial lift technology.

“Statoil is investing more than $7billion in the Mariner field and, as part of this, the associated challenges of developing heavy oil deposits have called for a number of key technologies to be used.

“Water alternating gas, advanced horizontal and multilateral wells, fast reservoir model update techniques and electrical submersible pumps are being used extensively in our heavy oil fields worldwide. In keeping with the DECC UKCS initiative, EOR polymer flooding will also play an important part.

“As a technically focused company, Statoil has identified great potential for improved recovery in heavy oil fields. Small technological improvements can lead to large economic impacts across our whole portfolio and, as such, we see great value in collaborative forums such as EuALF.”

The conference programme will see presentations from companies including Apache, BP, Baker Hughes, EnQuest, Fairfield Energy, GE Oil & Gas, Talisman-Sinopec and Schlumberger. The sold-out exhibition will also showcase technologies being used in artificial lift.

Anthony Onukwu, chairman of SPE Aberdeen, said:

“SPE Aberdeen is honoured to have Statoil opening this year’s EuALF and the update on the high profile Mariner Field project will be well received.

“We would encourage those working in artificial lift to attend, as well as those who are interested in enhancing their knowledge in this area.”

A one-day pre-conference training course will also take place today (16 June). The course is ideal for production and reservoir engineers and operations staff involved in artificial lift and will focus on practical design and diagnosis using commercial software.

SPE EuALF 2014 takes place during 17-18 June at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. For more information please visit www.spe-uk.org/aberdeen/events.