Integrated Operations - Incentives

Incentives

Common to most companies is that IO leads to cost savings as fewer people are stationed offshore and an increased efficiency. Lower costs, more efficient reservoir management and fewer mistakes during well drilling will in turn raise profits and make more oil fields economically viable. IO comes at a time when the oil industry is faced with more "brown fields", also referred to as "tail production", where the cost of extracting the oil will be higher than its market value, unless major improvements in technology and work processes are made. It has been estimated that deployment of IO could produce 300 billion NOK of added value to the Norwegian continental shelf alone. On a longer time-scale, working onshore control and monitoring of the oil production may become a necessity as new fields at deeper waters are based purely on unmanned sub-sea facilities.

Moving jobs onshore has also been touted as a way to keep and make better use of an aging workforce, which is regarded as a challenge by western oil and gas companies. As the average age of the industry workforce is increasing with many nearing retirement, IO is being leveraged for knowledge sharing and training of younger workforce. More comfortable onshore jobs together with "high-tech" tools has also been fronted as a way to recruit young workers into an industry that is seen as "unsexy", "lowtech" and difficult to combine with a normal family life.