ITF’s GCC Members Agree for Technology JIP Roadmap

The Industry Technology Facilitator’s (ITF) Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members have, for the first time, agreed to take forward three technology challenges with the aim of defining a call for proposals for collaborative joint industry projects (JIPs) later this year.

ITF’s GCC Members’ Summit was hosted by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) earlier this month at its Nation Towers Offices.

Representatives from ADNOC, Kuwait Oil Company and Petroleum Development Oman supported the meeting which provided a platform for the companies to engage in discussion to find common topics of interest, identify collaborative opportunities to their technology challenges and gain market intelligence.

The agenda was split into two main parts: discussion and commitment to support ongoing GCC roadmap activity and a review of current and future ITF themes and proposal activity.

The roadmap session sought to find harmony with respect to six priority roadmap challenges provided by each GCC member prior to the meeting. Three common themes were selected - mature fields, hybrid EOR and fluid front/injection water monitoring and management challenges. The three GCC members will now work with ITF’s subsurface team to define initial problem statements related to the three challenges.

This will support the definition of related calls for proposals - an invitation to the technology development community to put forward solutions - which will occur between now and October. It is expected that calls will result in the launch of a number of JIPs, with up to 100% funding from the ITF membership.

The second part of the summit agenda allowed the Gulf members to be kept informed of ITF’s ongoing global proposals, which include: EOR in Carbonates, Production Monitoring for Highly Heterogeneous Reservoirs, Downhole Oil-Water Separation, Triaxial Borehole Gravity and Positioning and Fullwave Gamechanger Phase 2.

Dr Patrick O’Brien, CEO of ITF said: “Our GCC members are showing significant appetite for developing new technologies. ITF has done a great deal of work with our Middle East members in building trust and promoting and spearheading collaborative activity in the region.

“Member companies in the region are now collectively sharing ideas for the first time and we hope to launch a call for proposals, based on these common themes, later in the year.”