Published by the DTI Oil & Gas Directorate for the reservoir engineering and IOR community in the UK.
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DTI Oil and Gas Industry Development Branch (OGID) (http://www2.dti.gov.uk/ogsc/index.htm)

John Foote

Introduction - Oil and Gas Industry Development (OGID) is part of the Oil and Gas Directorate of the DTI. We work to assist UK companies to achieve best performance in the supply of goods and services to the petroleum exploration and production sector and the contractors to the petrochemical industries, predominantly on the UKCS. OGID's services include support for technology development and general innovation activities. OGID also provides advice to Ministers on industrial policy issues relevant to the UK supplies industry.

OGID provides the Secretariat for PILOT - the successor to the Oil and Gas Industry Task Force - whose primary purpose is to ensure that the collaborative partnerships established between the oil and gas industry, producers, suppliers, workforce and the Government are successful and deliver results to improve UK oil and gas competitiveness. Specifically, OGID is closely involved and provides support for the initiatives established by the Task Force - LOGIC and the Industry Technology Facilitator (ITF).

Innovation & Technology - OGID has in the past provided access to financial support, usually in the form of a grant of 25% of the eligible project costs, for research and development by SMEs that supply goods and services to the oil and gas industry. More recently OGID has concentrated on providing financial support through LINK programmes which are operated in collaboration with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) or the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Projects in this programme must be intimate collaborations of a university and a company. Over the last few years, OGID has been involved in projects of relevance to the IOR community. Projects within the DTI/NERC LINK Hydrocarbon Reservoir programme (see http://www.tmx.co.uk/link/projects.htm for information) and the LINK Ocean Margins programme (see http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/thematics/oceanmargins/ ) may be of interest. EPSRC and OGID have also collaborated on a LINK Oil & Gas Extraction programme which contains some projects of relevance (see http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/epsrcgrants/portfolio.asp using 'Oil & Gas Extraction')

OGID promotes the crucial role that new technology can play in sustaining production from the UKCS and supports with staff involvement and some funding of projects the work of the Industry Technology Facilitator (see http://www.oil-itf.com).

Industry Sponsorship - Another aspect of OGID's work is to improve the competitiveness of the oil and gas supplies & contracting sectors through a range of initiatives in which DTI and sections of the industry collaborate, e.g. LOGIC, NE England Offshore Suppliers Network, UK Geoscience network & the East of England Energy Group. In particular, DTI through OGID provides support for LOGIC to take initiatives on supply chain and e-commerce issues. LOGIC is currently running a study into the impact of e-commerce developments in the oil and gas industry funded by DTI.

PILOT - Pilot is the successor to the Oil and Gas Industry Task Force formed in 1998. Since its report in 1999 a programme of activities has been followed. During 2001, building on the Undeveloped Discoveries Initiative, PILOT created the Progressing Partnership Workgroup (PPWG), split into two subgroups. The Operators PPWG was tasked with examining relationships between operators, to identify all barriers to commercial development of the UKCS. In parallel, the Contractors Group was asked to qualify any supply chain factors that could impact negatively on UKCS development. As you may appreciate, this initiative is tackling some very difficult issues. The progress made by these groups on issues including resource flight and licence trading has not been easy, but the importance of their work cannot be understated and its success is paramount if the UK oil & gas community is to achieve PILOT's 2010 vision. PILOT and LOGIC are also pursuing the conclusions of the Brownfield Project which identified the potential for an additional recovery of 3.5 billion barrels from the UKCS. It recommended workshops on 'Identifying the Target' (4D seismic, reservoir modelling), 'Getting to the Target' (Enhanced drilling techniques) and Producing (Enhanced EOR techniques) to be held, starting in Q4/2001.

The PILOT website has further details - http://www.pilottaskforce.co.uk/

Enquiries regarding OGID to John Foote, Assistant Director (mailto:John.Foote@dti.gsi.gov.uk)

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