New Middle East Base for Global Technology Development Organisation

ABERDEEN, Scotland, March 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- ITF, the oil and gas industry's technology facilitator, is gearing up to launch a new base in the Middle East where it plans to attract new members and increase awareness of its global technology funding programme.

Set to open in April, the new office is being established as part of ITF's ambitious international growth strategy that will also see new bases open up in the U.S, Australia and Asia Pacific.

The organisation has also revealed the appointment of a new in-country regional manager, Ryan McPherson, who will head up the office in Abu Dhabi.

Mr McPherson is tasked with raising awareness of the organisation in the Middle East and Asia Pacific, in a bid to increase ITF membership from major operators and service companies.

He said: "ITF already has some valuable member companies from these regions including Aramco Services Company (subsidiary of Saudi Aramco), TAQA, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), Petronas and Woodside. However, in order to meet the global industry's growing technology needs we feel it is vital that we have on the ground representation in these important oil producing regions."

Mr McPherson takes up the new post after having previously worked as business improvement lead for global services company PSN. He also has a wealth of knowledge with ITF due to previously working for the organisation as a senior technology analyst for three years.

He will be relocating to Abu Dhabi in order to provide a one-to-one service out of the new regional base. The opening of the new office follows on from ITF's recent technology challenge workshop (TCW) which was held in Kuwait in February. This was the first ever TCW to be held in the Middle East region.

TCWs are organised as facilitated sessions to stimulate informed debate from the expert attendees. Focussing on the technology challenges around enhanced oil recovery (EOR), more than 40 specialists were personally invited from major operators, services companies and academia to 'fine tune' the technology requirements within the broader EOR theme.

    
    The top challenges identified by those attending were:

    - High temp high salinity solutions
    - Screening methods
    - Hybrids
    - EOR chemical database
    - Reservoir management
    - Large scale N2 injection
    - Heavy oil EOR
    - Low cost chemicals
    - Simulation gaps
    - Smart water

The information from these detailed discussions will now form the basis for a global 'call for proposals' which will be distributed to the international technology development and academic communities, calling on them to submit their innovative ideas to tackle these specific industry-wide technology issues.

Another integral part of the workshop was devoted to discussions on setting up a 'Gulf Cooperation Chapter' (GCC) to bring Gulf based NOCs and IOCs together to work collaboratively at solving technology challenges in the region. This innovative approach will be driven forward by ITF and other attendees to ensure the successful model can be replicated for a number of technology issues facing companies in the region.

Made up of 25 global oil and gas operators and service companies, ITF is a not-for -profit organisation that drives the development and implementation of groundbreaking technology.

Neil Poxon, managing director of ITF said: "Establishing a permanent presence in the Middle East will enable us to achieve our ambitions of securing a further GBP50 million of investment from members to launch 40 joint industry projects per year by 2015, ultimately bringing game-changing technologies into the field."

http://www.oil-itf.com

For further information contact Gayle Nicol, Senior Account Manager, the BIG Partnership, tel +44-1224-615019, gayle.nicol@bigpartnership.co.uk