Joint Technology Development Between Statoil and Schlumberger-A Success Story
Authors: Finsrud Geir , Egeli Thorleif , Talstad Sjur 
Published: October 2008

The cooperation agreement between Statoil, the then National Oil Company of Norway and Schlumberger was born in 2000 based on the recognition from both companies of the fact that working together they could achieve better, faster technology development.

Both companies recognized and agreed to some key elements to make the agreement a success, including the creation of a Steering Committee made up of Senior Management from both companies, the development of an open-ended umbrella Technology Agreement that outlines the general spirit of the initiative without entering into the details of which technology will be developed splitting the costs of the development on a 50%-50% basis and also, the agreement on the IP ownership. while Statoil provides the ideas, based on the technical gaps or challenges that they find in their day to day operations, Schlumberger provides solutions through dedicated engineering and technical resources in the Research and Development centers in order to develop the technologies that are later on implemented in Statoil operations. The presentation will also enter into details on the projects that have been developed so far and the key success factors for each of them. It will also outline key benefits for both Statoil and Schlumberger and the lessons learnt by the two companies so the cooperation agreement can be replicated between similar organizations.

Background

In 1999, in a period of big changes in the world oil industry, both Schlumberger and Statoil recognized that the area of technology provided an ideal opportunity to develop a closer working relationship outside of daily operations. A dialogue was established to review and agree on areas of cooperation. In May 2000 an agreement was signed by the CEO's of Schlumberger and Statoil. Both companies have since worked hard to understand where joint technology development can benefit both companies and where such development can be focused on value creation, maximum return on investmentsand where development could be focused towards specific assets for early introduction and implementation.

It was early established that this close working relationship between the two companies benefited both companies intellectually and financially through focused development and fast deployment. This strategy created good exchange and shared experience of technology introduced and fast adjustment could be made for optimum utilization. As a part of the preparation it was initially agreed to limit the number of projects ongoing at any time to be sure of high focus and adequate control. An active Steering committee is important to secure the above focus and this committee is deciding on conclusion of projects and the intake of new projects into the cooperation.

Structure of Cooperation

To create a successful structure of cooperation we have experienced that the following set up has shown to function very well:Strong steering committee with regular meetingsDedicated project leader at product centreDedicated project responsible in StatoilLocal project owner at local Schlumberger office

Fig 1 The Tech Coop structure (available in full paper)

The success criteria's

The benefits of this cooperation has shown to be multiple and below are highlighted some of the most important contributors.