Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, Scotland -- ITF, the UK oil and gas industry’s technology facilitator, plans to open a base in the Middle East to attract new members and increase awareness of its global technology funding program.
The new office will be located in Abu Dhabi, and headed by regional manager Ryan McPherson. His task will be to raise awareness of the organization in the Middle East and in the Asia Pacific region, and recruit major operators and service companies as members.
According to McPherson, “ITF already has some valuable member companies from these regions including Aramco Services Co. (a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco), TAQA, Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC), Petronas, and Woodside. However, in order to meet the global industry’s growing technology needs we feel it is vital that we have on the ground representation in these important oil producing regions.”
Recently ITF staged a technology challenge workshop (TCW) in Kuwait, its first ever in the Middle East. Over 40 specialists form operators, services companies, and academic institutes were invited to focus on technology requirements for enhanced oil recovery.
Among the challenges identified by the attendees were high-temperature/high-salinity solutions; screening methods; an EOR chemical database; reservoir management; large-scale N2 injection; heavy oil EOR; and low-cost chemicals.
Results from these discussions will form the basis for a global call for proposals seeking innovative ideas to tackle these technology issues.
The workshop also organized discussions on establishing a Gulf Cooperation Chapter to encourage Gulf-based NOCs and IOCs to collaborate to solve technology challenges in the region.
03/15/2011
