Statoil sees ‘heavy’ answers abroad

Statoil is giving some definition to plans for turning its recently acquired North American “beachhead” into 200,000 barrels per day of synthetic crude production, helping the Norwegian giant sustain production at 1.2 million bpd until at least 2015.

Helge Lund, president and chief executive officer, said the company is on track for an initial 10,000 bpd of output from the Alberta oil sands no later than early 2010, climbing to its peak by 2020.

Having just acquired North American Oil Sands and 2.2 billion barrels of recoverable resource, Statoil is close to completing the second and third stages of front-end loading studies for its planned 200,000 bpd bitumen upgrader near Edmonton.

Until the company gets a better fix on capital costs it is reluctant to set a timetable for the upgrader. Neither is it ready to embark on further acquisitions until it develops what is already on its plate.

Lund said that as Statoil looks to diversify its global production, the oil sands have special appeal, because of their long-term nature, the political stability in Canada and the access to the world’s largest oil consumer in the United States.

He said his company is also eager to strengthen its heavy oil portfolio, taking advantage of the knowledge it has gained from a 10 percent stake in Venezuela’s Sincor project, a joint venture with France’s Total and Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA that is aiming for 200,000 bpd of heavy oil.

Given that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasts production from its 30 member nations will peak between 2010 and 2015 and the world will increasingly rely on Russia, the Middle East and Canada, Lund said it makes sense for international and state-owned companies to build their portfolios of unconventional resources. He is not deterred by the cost and labor pressures on the oil sands, noting that they exist on a global scale.

—Gary Park