Autumn 1995 (3.3) Page 46 Statoil in Azerbaijan by Jon Nic. Vold, Exec. VP of Statoil In Azerbaijan, Statoil has formed a joint alliance with British Petroleum (BP) which means that personnel from both companies work together as one large team. The BP and Statoil Alliance, with nearly 26% of the Profit Sharing Agreement, presently leads the Consortium and Terry Adams, who comes from this Alliance team, serve as AIOC's President for the first five years. Our Alliance with BP began in 1990. We felt it was advantageous to team up with them in countries where both our companies were already working-West Africa, (Nigeria); offshore Asia (Vietnam) and the CIS which primarily means Azerbaijan. In Norway, Statoil, which is a government owned company, produces 1.4 million barrels per day. That makes us a very large company in Norway, but on a global scale, it's considered relatively small. However, we bring to the Alliance team considerable technical skills with focus on long-term wells and subsea production. Some analysts thought that the North Sea would soon be reaching its peak, but the industry has a tremendous capacity for dynamic adjustment and new technology. Instead of tailing off, we are realizing an increase both in Norway as well as in the UK, especially the Shetlands. In our latest forecast, we are not anticipating any decline in production until, perhaps 2005, and even then the decline is likely to be very gradual. Who knows? By then, we may be surprised again at the ability to extricate far beyond our forecasts. The industry is always looking ways to be involved in very important producing areas. Azerbaijan appears to be very promising. There are a lot of people here in Azerbaijan who are highly qualified and who have a great understanding of geology and reservoir management. The people that deal with us are highly qualified and have a strong technical and economic awareness. What we bring to the project from the West is work practices and applications experience in cost control and environmental control. From Azerbaijan International (3.3) Autumn 1995. © Azerbaijan International 1995. All rights reserved. Back to Index AI 3.3 (Autumn 1995) AI Home Page | Magazine Choice | Topics | Store | Contact us