By Gillian King, VP Europe, Russia, CIS & Africa

Published in Oil & Gas Vision, June 2018

Every conference attended, and article read at the moment, highlight the necessity of both collaboration and innovation for the UKCS oil and gas industry to flourish again.  We need to do something new in terms of technology development, flexible commercial terms and working partnerships.

At Tendeka, even over the last few years, our focus has been on research and development and we have never stopped investing in that. As a small oilfield service provider, innovation is essential, and it is what has allowed us to survive – and now thrive.

Our business continues to grow with a large percentage of our contracts within the Norwegian continental shelf and recent contract awards in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. A little surprisingly, however, we find working on home soil more difficult.

This could be in part due to drilling activity across the UKCS dropping from 155 wells (exploration, appraisal and development) in 2015 to just 94 in 2017.

Activity being down has encouraged collaboration in new ways where you see the major service providers investing in field developments and sharing risk with the operators.  With up to 16 new developments expected to be sanctioned this year, this type of partnership will likely increase. It certainly makes sense for the smaller, new entrants in the basin although it makes business tough for small technology providers who do not have the capital to partake in these types of agreements.

Tendeka has initiated discussions with several operators recently on new commercial agreements for our solutions which hopefully will produce a win-win for all. We encourage operators to open their doors to new technology through collaboration with SMEs.

The recent UKCS licensing rounds are promising with the Oil & Gas Authority (OGA) awarding 123 licenses to 61 companies prompting Dr Andy Samuel, Chief Executive at the OGA to announce ‘The UKCS is back!’

We have refocussed a lot of our marketing efforts around our mature field solutions where we have proven our technologies can restore and maximise oil production without the need for complex intervention. One area of interest is in installing Autonomous Inflow Control Device (AICD) technology in existing wells to reduce water cut and gas breakthrough. With 25 case studies to date, overall increases in oil production can be up by 27% and the economics, even in mature fields which attract less spend, work.

Partnering with other unique service providers is something else we are working on to provide a more streamlined and efficient offering for our clients. An agreement signed recently with Interwell is an example of this allowing us to effectively deploy our intervention-based products within the UK.

We look forward to working with our clients and technology partners to increase the competitiveness of the UKCS as a whole.

Tendeka will be sponsoring the SPE Aberdeen Well Late Life and Well Abandonment Conference in Aberdeen on the 27^th and 28^th June this year, with our presentation on day 1.  We hope to see you at the event.