Equinor ASA and Aker BP ASA have entered into a strategic collaboration on tight reservoirs on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). Through technology development, standardization, and greater scale, the companies aim to enable development of more discoveries and increase oil and gas recovery.

The collaboration covers prospects, discoveries, and projects across the NCS, with the companies agreeing to contribute relevant opportunities from their respective portfolios and jointly identify where technology development, standardization, and exchange of experience can create the greatest value.

The collaboration also includes resource maturation and well stimulation solutions. The ambition is to establish a sufficient and predictable activity level to support a competitive value chain, with the expertise and supplier capacity required to develop more tight reservoir discoveries.

The collaboration will be governed through a joint steering structure and multidisciplinary working groups comprising representatives from both companies.

Regional opportunities

Large volumes of oil and gas remain in tight reservoirs on the NCS, with the Norwegian Offshore Directorate estimating a recoverable resource potential of about 2.8 billion boe in mapped tight reservoirs, comparable in size to the expected recoverable resources of Johan Sverdrup field. Many of the nearly 90 discoveries that have yet to receive a development decision are located in such reservoirs.

Tight reservoirs have low permeability, meaning that oil and gas flow very slowly through the rock. Using conventional methods, only a limited share of the resources can be recovered, and many discoveries are too costly to develop on a standalone basis.

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate has therefore encouraged companies to work together.