Published by the DTI Oil & Gas Directorate for the reservoir engineering and IOR community in the UK.
Send comments on this issue and contributions for next issue to iornewsletter@senergyltd.com by 15 August 2002.

Foreword

Simon Toole

Simon Toole, Director, OG Licensing, Exploration and Development Branch, welcomes readers to the new IOR Newsletter.

This is the first issue of the IOR Newsletter, and there will be many more to come. It is intended as a means for the reservoir engineering community in the UK to interact more effectively, particularly in the area of IOR. It is important that we use all the available resources for IOR research, from the industry, academia and government in the most efficient manner. This will be key to our overall goal of maximising economic recovery of hydrocarbons from the UKCS, and will help to establish the UK as a Centre of Excellence for the technology.

The domestic oil and gas industry is presently facing one of its biggest challenges so far, which is the survival at its present scale through persistent low and somewhat volatile oil prices. One of the consequences of this is a drastic reduction in the level of R&D activity. It is critical that technology innovation continues, both in the universities and in the industry, through collaborative work, that will share costs and leverage of resources.

Oil and gas provide 85 percent of the nation's energy production. The UK is still a net exporter of both oil and gas, but this is not going to last much longer. Our forecasts show that around the year 2005 we are likely to be a net importer of gas, and a net importer of oil soon after. As such the impact of IOR activity will be very important.

The UKCS is very much a mature hydrocarbon province (excepting of course the northwest Atlantic margin areas), and the key to its longevity lies in maximising the production from the established areas, by locating difficult-to-find reserves and bringing in smaller satellite finds making maximum use of the existing infrastructure.

As the major integrated companies focus their activities more and more towards newer areas elsewhere in the world, the role of the independent producers is becoming vital to the UKCS. We have had independents that specialise in taking on ageing fields with the view to extending field life and reserves, and their success stories are well known. Now we would like to see even more specialised operators who will work the smaller discoveries and prospects. In response to these changing trends the government is looking to make the licensing regime more flexible and to make the vast bank of data that has been gathered over the years more accessible.

The fine objectives we have cannot be achieved without extensive innovative technology. The Oil and Gas Directorate of the DTI and the Research Councils (EPSRC, NERC) would like to help continue the development of these technologies through focused programmes to ensure that they are available to the industry in a timely manner.

As this is the first issue of the newsletter it is very much of a trial. We would appreciate your comments, questions and ideas (if any) for its improvement (iornewsletter@senergyltd.com). We currently intend to publish the second issue, in May 2002.

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