Technological innovation is the key to meeting a profitable, sustainable, low carbon energy future.
R&D Outlook
As conventional fossil fuels become ever harder to find, companies are increasingly setting their sights on remote geographical areas, developing unconventional hydrocarbon sources - such as oil sands - and building growth platforms in carbon-free energy sources (renewables). We are no exception.
Innovative offshore field development solutions will largely focus on the exploitation of hydrocarbons in deepwater and Arctic areas, and those containing heavy oil. We foresee an increasing transition from topside to intelligent, remotely-operated, autonomous seabed facilities, coupled with ultra-long, subsea tie-backs and wellstream compression devices.
Furthermore, it will be necessary to develop new drilling concepts, especially in ice-infested areas, and pipelines capable of withstanding ultra-cold and ultra-deepwater conditions. In connection with the development of onshore extra heavy oil value chains, emphasis will be placed on improving recovery methods, water management and carbon capture and storage.
Gas chain technology may offer opportunities for gaining greater access to, and cost-effectively developing, "difficult" unconventional gas resources and for acquiring leading-edge capabilities in selected technologies (for example membrane-based separation).
The realisation of floating LNG facilities for gas fields which cannot be easily or economically exploited otherwise is in the offing. We also wish to develop sustainable carbon capture and storage (CCS) value chains.
Our commitment to environmental stewardship is twofold: meeting our "zero harm to the environment" objective by expanding our toolkit of environmental monitoring and integrated risk-modelling systems, and creating business in new energy sources.
Besides consolidating our present activities in offshore wind power and biofuels, we will further investigate the opportunities presented by geothermal and solar power and the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier.
Technological innovation is the key to meeting a profitable, sustainable, low carbon energy future.
