£1.5m to ‘Seek and Solve’

The project is the first to receive funding through the new Seek & Solve innovation funding programme launched in June 2014 with Statoil Technology Invest to help drive greater collaboration and innovation between large multinational companies and SMEs operating in the supply chain.

Speaking ahead of the oil and gas debate Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said:

“Scotland is blessed with many strengths in research and development and I believe it is key to maximising economic recovery from the UKCS.

“The £400,000 grant funding from Scottish Enterprise which, together with the £1.1 million of funding from the private sector will support this 17 month project aimed at significantly improving the performance and reliability of existing oil and gas sensory systems.

“This new funding will enable the company to refine and test its product design and performance by replicating real life conditions.

“Innovation is critical if we are to maximise recovery of the remaining reserves in the North Sea and this project demonstrates the Scottish Government’s commitment to a sustainable and certain future for the oil and gas sector. I am confident this scheme will deliver in Scotland just as successfully as it has in Norway.”

Scottish Enterprise chief executive, Lena Wilson, said:

“Today’s announcement marks a significant milestone for Seek & Solve with the first project to be awarded since we launched the programme. We are encouraging many more companies, like Raptor Oil, to deliver projects of this nature which result not just in commercial success for each organisation but help increase exports and Scotland's overall competitiveness.

“In the last year alone we’ve helped more than £6.13 million worth of innovation projects within oil and gas supply chain companies and supported key projects such as the new Oil and Gas Innovation Centre. Investing in innovation in this sector is vital to its long term future and we intend to do as much as possible to stimulate that in the coming years."

Gordon Cowie CEO of Raptor Oil Ltd said:

“Following two successful proof of concept phases we aim to move into the industrial R&D phase by replicating real life conditions at our purpose built test site in Aberdeen to research and refine our technology. We believe this is a key step in advancing our potentially ground breaking technology to a technology with end user validation and test data evidence derived from simulated and real well environments.”

Richard Erskine, head of Statoil Technology Invest, said:

“Statoil believes wireless telemetry has the potential to revolutionise in-well communication and we are delighted to be cooperating with Scottish Enterprise in funding this technology development. Hopefully Raptor is only the first of many such funding opportunities we will cooperate on as we continue to hunt for good ideas across Scotland.”

Background

Statoil is an international energy company with operations in 36 countries. Building on more than 40 years of experience from oil and gas production on the Norwegian continental shelf, the company is committed to accommodating the world's energy needs in a responsible manner, applying technology and creating innovative business solutions. Statoil is headquartered in Stavanger, Norway with approximately 23,000 employees worldwide, and is listed on the New York and Oslo stock exchanges.

This new technology has attracted the interests of global oil and gas companies ConocoPhillips and Statoil, both of which provided funding. Statoil more recently supported the company during a second proof of concept phase through its LOOP funding and is providing a second round of funding towards the research and design phase. This will bring Statoil’s total funding contribution to £850,000.