Love Thy Neighbor StatoiHydro’s Bengt Lie Hansen Seeks to Expand Cooperation with Russia

   Leveraging its NCS experience, the company aims at growing internationally and has activities in 40 countries and production of oil and gas in 10. The main regions for StatoilHydro’s international investments are the USA, Canada, Angola, Nigeria, Libya, Azerbaijan, China, Brazil and Russia. 

 

   Russia is a core focus area for StatoilHydro’s international activities. In fact, former Russian President Vladimir Putin called Norway a “strategic partner” in the development of Arctic energy potential. At  present, the company produces  oil  at  the  Kharyaga  field  in the Yamalo-Nenetsky  autonomic region,  and holds  a 40 percent share in PSA (Production Sharing Agreement)  terms.  StatoilHydro also maintains a 24 percent equity interest in Shtockman Development AG. The company’s downstream activities have increased in Russia through their ownership and operation of a chain of service stations in North-West Russia. 

 

   The oil and gas industry in Norway has historically moved from south to the north – from the North Sea to the Norwegian and Barents Seas. Norway is the second largest gas exporter in the world after Russia, and is among the five largest exporters of the crude oil. 

 

   StatoilHydro’s President in Russia, Bengt Lie Hansen, Reflects on his company’s past, present and future

 

Oil&Gas Eurasia: Does StatoilHydro use proprietary technologies exclusively, or do you purchase innovations from the other companies as well?

Bengt Lie Hansen: We do both. We develop and own a lot of technologies ourselves, and we also use the technologies developed by other companies. For us it’s important to utilize the best technologies available.  We think the best way is combination of competition and cooperation between our own research institutes and external research instituted and suppliers. We are very concerned about developing technologies and a substantial part of technologies we utilize are our own. We have several R&D units in Norway working actively for our operating departments. 

OGE: What can you say about your company’s cooperation with the Murmansk region?

Hansen:  We have excellent cooperation with the Murmansk region. It started in 2002, when President Putin met with Prime Minister Bondevik to discuss the cooperation of two countries in the North. A short time later we initiated a special program for development of Russian supply companies to qualify them for supplying the upcoming oil and gas projects in the Russian Barents Sea. The goal of this program is to advise and guide Russian suppliers on the specifications and qualities necessary to successfully compete for the contracts in the offshore oil and gas industry. 

We surveyed the market and evaluated sixty companies, and twelve are now qualified as suppliers for oil and gas industry on Continental Shelf. For example, this last summer a subsea module for use at the Sigrid oil field in the Norwegian Sea was fabricated at a plant in Murmansk. This module was designed by the Norwegian company, FMC. They placed the order with the Reinertsen shipyard in Murmansk. This type of module can be used in the Stockman project. Reinertsen now meets