22 April 2014, News Wires – Norway’s Aker Solutions and US services giant Baker Hughes have agreed to form a subsea production technology alliance.
The Olso- and Houston-based duo said the non-incorporated alliance would seek to “develop technology for production solutions that will boost output, increase recovery rates and reduce costs for subsea fields”.
Baker Hughes chief executive Martin Craighead said that the tie-up would aim to “identify and integrate the most effective combinations of in-well and subsea technologies, enabling greater production rates – efficiently and economically – from subsea fields”.
“Deepwater subsea fields have so far been characterized by low recovery rates, and new discoveries in deeper and more hostile environments are making these fields even more costly to develop,” he commented.
Aker Solutions executive chairman Oyvind Eriksen said that the partnership would help the two companies’ customers to “unlock the vast values that come from subsea production”.
“Subsea factory development is a key focus for Aker Solutions and the partnership with Baker Hughes will provide critical capabilities that will help us develop technologies to create a fully-functioning subsea production system which will improve recovery rates and lower costs for oil producers,” he said.
The new alliance, to be co-located and based in Houston, is to be led by general managers Svenn Ivar Fure of Aker Solutions and Brage Johannessen of Baker Hughes.
The two companies said the new venture would aim to combine Aker Solutions’ strengths in subsea production and processing systems with Baker Hughes’ well completion and artificial lift specialisations, as well as advance industry capabilities in subsea well intervention.
The alliance, whose implementation remain subject to any applicable anti-trust or regulatory approvals, will be structured to allow each company to offer any products and services to create an integrated solution.
– Upstream