BP head: utilize majors’ expertise
Peacock stresses strong technical ties between IOCs and governments
Posted: 14 April 2008
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The looming energy shortage faced by the booming GCC-economies could be addressed through full cooperation between resource-owning countries and international oil companies, according to a top BP executive.
President for BP Middle East and South Asia, Steve Peacock stressed on utilising the majors’ global expertise in developing difficult hydrocarbons to somewhat make a balance to the increasing GCC demands over regional gas supply.
“The trends we see in the Middle East are similar to other parts of the world - there are plenty of hydrocarbons, but they are becoming more difficult and more costly to extract, and unprecedented growth in demand means that supply is struggling to keep pace in some areas, especially for gas,” he said.
“This rate of demand growth and shortage of gas for power generation, desalination and industrial feedstock is putting some national growth plans at risk,” he told an energy conference in Qatar.
Peacock highlighted the role of international oil companies, like BP, who have significant global know-how in achieving ‘extraordinary recovery’ from existing oil and gas fields in developing ‘difficult gas’ and in tackling carbon emissions.
“The challenge of closing the GCC energy gap presents an opportunity for governments and industry to work together in partnership. We can take best practices and processes developed from around the world and bring them to bear on specific national issues, in a way that is beneficial to all,” added Peacock.
BP was recently chosen by the government of Oman to develop the Sultanate’s largest undeveloped tight gas field in Khazzan/Makarem.
“BP is the largest tight gas producer in the world,” said Peacock. The company currently operates over 1000 tight gas wells in Wyoming, the largest development according to the company’s region head.
“While new technology implemented in Canada over the past four years has increased production rates 100 fold and reserves per well 8 fold, we are now bringing this global expertise and proven technological capability to develop the Omani fields.”
BP is also pioneering the development of methods for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CCS) in combination with enhanced oil recovery. “Removing carbon dioxide from produced natural gas and reinjecting it into oil reservoirs results in the double benefit of reducing pollution and maximising recovery from producing fields,” Peacock explained.
“We are currently working via our Hydrogen Energy joint venture with Rio Tinto, with Abu Dhabi's Masdar alternative energy initiative to explore the potential of a hydrogen-fired power plant in combination with CCS to produce clean electricity while boosting output from Abu Dhabi’s oil fields.”
The world’s first industrial scale carbon capture project is being lead by BP at In Salah in Algeria, where the removal of carbon dioxide from extracted natural gas currently amounts to taking 200,000 cars off the road. The carbon dioxide is reinjected into a sandstone reservoir where it is permanently stored. |
