Not-for-profit oil and gas technology facilitator ITF has announced it is to open a new office in the Middle East.
The organisation hopes that the new Abu Dhabi base, set to open in April, will attract new members and increase awareness of its global technology funding programme.
The office is being set up as part of ITF's international growth strategy that will also see new bases opening in the US, Australia and Asia-Pacific.
Made up of 25 global oil and gas operators and service companies, ITF drives the development and implementation of new technology within the oil and gas industry.
Ryan McPherson, Abu Dhabi’s new regional manager, said: "ITF already has some valuable member companies from these regions including Aramco Services Company (subsidiary of Saudi Aramco), TAQA, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), Petronas and Woodside. However, in order to meet the global industry's growing technology needs we feel it is vital that we have on the ground representation in these important oil producing regions."
Neil Poxon, managing director of ITF, said: "Establishing a permanent presence in the Middle East will enable us to achieve our ambitions of securing a further £50 million of investment from members to launch 40 joint industry projects per year by 2015, ultimately bringing game-changing technologies into the field."
ITF recently held its first ever Middle East-based technology challenge workshop (TCW) in Kuwait. TCWs are facilitated sessions designed to stimulate debate among expert attendees. The Kuwait TCW focused on the technology challenges around enhanced oil recovery (EOR), with identified challenges including high temperature, high salinity solutions; screening methods; hybrids; EOR chemical database; reservoir management; large scale N2 injection; heavy oil EOR; low cost chemicals; simulation gaps; and smart water.
The information from the TCW will now form the basis for a global ‘call for proposals’ by ITF, which will be distributed among the international technology development and academic communities, inviting the submission of ideas to tackle these issues.
The TCW also discussed the establishment of a Gulf Cooperation Chapter (GCC), which would bring Gulf-based NOCs and IOCs together to work collaboratively on solving technology challenges in the region.
