Statoil: Technology question cuts off Arctic drilling campaign

Statoil is Norwegian state oil company. It stopped drilling in the Barents Sea in the Arctic region. Right after the court gave away the temporary warrant in a technology dispute with a small Norwegian firm.

What did exactly happen?

Norwegian company Neo Drill said the technology which Stat Oil was using is based on its patent. It is the patented Conductor Anchor Node technology which it has been developing since 2000.

Later the Stavanger court has put a ban on Statoil’s use of this Cap-X drilling technology.

Statoil started drilling in the Barents Sea this year. During the last week it had to stop the operations. Meanwhile it was trying to make sure that it can transfer the business to an alternative plan, if this work failed.

Statoil started to deeply explore Norwegian cost this year. Putting focus on the Barents Sea.

”According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate the area could hold two-thirds of all undiscovered resources off the Norwegian coast.” (Reuters)

“We are taking steps to comply with the decision. We are currently securing the (Blaamann) well and that will take a few days to complete.” Eskil Eriksen said.

He said it was not clear when is the possible period Statoil could restart drilling at Blaamann. But he also explained that the company was expecting to finish its work in the Barrents Sea by the end of this year.

“We will mobilize the alternative technology in time to continue the drilling, and we will complete the Barents Sea campaign as planned.”

The Technology

Speaking about its further plans, Statoil sources said it aims to use Cap-X technology for all the five wells in the Barents Sea. Observing the Korpfjell border area, in border with Russia, it also plans to use the same technology.

When in 2013 Statoil presented its technology for the first time, it said that technology development started to help develop explorations in the Barents Sea.

However, Neo Drill noted that the presented Cap-X technology has the main parts which remind of their CAN technology. And the important fact is that Statoil really had the access to CAN, as Neo Drill’s partner. It is so since 2001, and later it had the 30% stake in this business.

“Statoil has thereby had full access to sensitive technical information related to the CAN-technology in Neo Drill.”

Back in 2016, Statoil denied using Neo Drill’s technology. But, earlier during the years, it had asked Neo Drill for a CAN license. It did not succeed to take a license because the two companies were not able to agree on the terms.

When asked to comment, Statoil did not want to explain themselves. Referring to the ongoing court process. But their source said that the current court’s decision is based on the “wrong information”.

Statoil is going to speak on Wednesday, at the Stavanger court.