Today, national oil companies (NOCs) own 90% of the world's oil and gas reserves and are responsible for 70% of oil and gas production. But NOCs need access to technology, management skills, capital, and markets, says West. Thus, over time, producing areas have been, and will continue to be, opened to outside investors. This means that, in the future, national oil companies will own most of the world's oil, but international oil companies will produce it. Such a situation would be "insupportable," said Robin West, chairman of Petroleum Finance Co., and it will drive a fundamental change in the industry's structure.
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In their new roles, says West, service companies will manage technical and operating risks, the international firms will manage financial and political risks, and NOCs will manage national interest in resources.
As an example of this new model, Tony Hayward, group vice-president of BP Amoco Exploration, cited the development of Venezuela's Daci¢n field by Lasmo plc, which outsourced much of the work to Schlumberger. Lasmo managed the financial and commercial issues for Venezuela, and Schlumberger did all of the work on the ground, he said. "More and more of these kinds of things are going to be carried by the service companies."
Quoted from this week's Oil & Gas Journal |
