About the project
SIVAC adressed the development of the Norwegian petroleum supply industry. It was based on an innovation system perspective, which means that we consider the interaction between different actors as a key driver for innovation and value creation over time.
Analyses of resource-based economic sectors, such as oil and gas, show that productivity and growth over time is dependent on innovation processes in technologically oriented supporting or enabling industries. SIVAC emphasizes this perspective and will empirically investigate collaboration between the supply industry and the petroleum industry nationally and internationally.
With increasing international exports of petroleum-related technological expertise, it is also important to document how technological innovations, developed in collaboration with international partners increase innovation and value creation on the Norwegian continental shelf. Finally, SIVAC will also examine how technology transfer from the oil and gas sector contributes to the industrial diversification through in depth studies of selected technological development networks.
Financing, cooperation and final report
The SIVAC project was funded by the Petromaks programme in the Norwegian Research Council.
SIVAC was conducted in collaboration between the Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK) at University of Oslo, IRIS/University of Stavanger, Universidade Candido Mendes in Brazil, and Aker Solutions.
SIVAC was completed in February 2019. An overview of the results is available in the final report below.
For further information contact Professor Taran Thune.
Events
Oct. 18, 2018: Book launch: Petroleum Industry Transformations: Lessons from Norway and Beyond
Time and place: Oct. 18, 2018 2:15 PM – 3:30 PM, Realfagsbiblioteket
Researchers in the SIVAC project will launch their recent book "Petroleum Industry Transformations: Lessons from Norway and Beyond" (Routledge, 2018).
Sep. 14, 2017: Transformations in the Norwegian petroleum industry: handling turbulence and forging ahead?
Time and place: Sep. 14, 2017 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM, Aud. 2, Georg Sverdrups hus
The aim of the seminar is to discuss ongoing transformations in the upstream petroleum industry in Norway.
The Norwegian petroleum industry is currently facing a multitude of challenges. One is the prolonged slump in commodity prices, and other is the maturing of fields on the continental shelf and the third is the long-term viability of the industry in a world moving to climate friendlier energy solutions. The industry is trying to cope with new demand and conditions by investing and deploying new technologies, by increasing efficiency and by entering new markets.
Handling turbulence is nothing new in this industry, but can it rely on past successes in how to handle transformation or is the successful past locking the industry into rigid patterns it cannot escape from?
This seminar brings together industry, policy-makers and analysts that study the ongoing transformation in the petroleum industry. The seminar is organized by the SIVAC-project, funded by the Petrosam2-program in the Norwegian Research Council.
Preliminary program
- 12.00 - 12.15 welcome by TIK Head of Department, Fulvio Castellacci, and introduction by SIVAC Project, Professor Taran Mari Thune
- 12.15 – 13.00 Contracting, regulating and making industrial policy under uncertainty: Reflections on the developments on the Norwegian continental shelf. Professor Charles Sabel, Maurice T. Moore Professor of Law and Social Science at Columbia Law School, USA
- 13.05 - 13.35 Modes of innovation in upstream petroleum – past successes, future hindrances? Professor Taran Thune, University of Oslo
- 13.35 - 14.05 Foreign market entry as a way of handling turbulence? Senior researcher TIK Helge Ryggvik, University of Oslo
- 14.30 – 15.00 Alternative markets and “green flings”: experiences of entering into new markets outside of petroleum. Researcher, PhD, Allan Dahl Andersen, University of Oslo
- 15.00 - 16.00 Opportunities and challenges in transformations: What does it take for suppliers to make the transition from a domestic oil and gas market and can policy support it? This will be a panel discussion.
- The moderator is Professor Magnus Gulbrandsen. The participants will each be given five minutes to present their perspectives on the ongoing transitions in the industry. This will be followed by a debate, and subsequent questions from the audience.
Panel:
- Anne-Mette Hilmen - Deputy Director General, Ministry of Petroleum and Energy: Climate, Industry and Technology Department
- Werner Karlsson - Regional Director Europe and Middle East, Norwegian Energy Partners
- Hanne Wigum - Manager Renewable Technology, Statoil
- Hans Petter Bøe Rebo - Fagsjef/Assistant Director for Oil and gas technology Suppliers, Norsk Industri/Federation of Norwegian Industries
- Kjartan Pedersen - Director of Research & Innovation, Aker Solutions
- Professor Ole Andreas Hegland Engen - SEROS: Centre for Risk Management and Societal Safety, University of Stavanger
News
2019: GLOBOIL and SIVAC at Norway Brazil weeks
In late 2018, researchers from TIK's oil & gas related projects GLOBOIL and SIVAC participated in the Norway Brazil Weeks.
Day 1: Networking event
Networking barbeque at the Residence of the Consul General of Norway in Rio de Janeiro, Sissel Hodne Steen, co-organised by the Consulate and Innovation Norway. We had the chance to meet the participants from Norwegian companies and institutions participating at the Norway Brazil Weeks conference. There were participants from the oil and gas industry and Norwegian Universities.
Day 2-3: The VI conference
The VI November conference as part of Norway Brazil Weeks was held at the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas in Rio de Janeiro.
This year was the 6th edition of the conference which aims to bring together researchers and industrial practitioners from Norway and Brazil to present and discuss their ongoing and potential bilateral research, innovation and educational projects. This year the focus was on how energy research can respond to the driving forces for transformation - digital, environmental and social.
Antonio Botelho, who was part of the SIVAC project and now also the GLOBOIL project, also had a presentation and exposed the Brazilian experience of the oil and gas industry in comparison to the Norwegian one.
There was a joint discussion during the Q&A session, as well as key note speeches from Johan Hustad (NTNU), Aly Brandenburg (Shell Brazil) and Ivan Oliveira (CBPF).
After parallel sessions on Exploration and Geosciences and Materials Technology with presentations from academics and practitioners, the day was concluded with a networking dinner in the Botafogo area.
Day 3 consisted of 4 parallel sessions with interesting presentations from university and industry actors: Digitalization and Automation, Subsea Field Development, Environment and Improved Oil Recovery and Flow Assurance.
Day 4: Workshop at the Brazilian innovation and research agency
TIK organised a Workshop at the Brazilian innovation and research agency – Financiadora de Inovação e Pesquisa (FINEP). The title of the workshop was “2018 Brazil-Norway O&G innovation research workshop". The workshop targeted Brazilian researchers/academics, managers, policy and government officers interested in management, economics and policy research results and agenda of petroleum industry development in Brazil in a global perspective.
The first session chaired by Prof. Paulo Bastos Tigre (Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) was titled “Innovation collaboration, suppliers and operators”. Taran Thune gave a presentation titled Supplier Industry and Value Creation - new research on innovation in the Norwegian petroleum industry and the role of suppliers and received comments from Dr Breno Medeiros, a specialist on Energy Resources and Industries at Deloitte. The joint discussion after the two presentations was moderated by Milton Costa Filho.
The second session (“Collaboration for Upgrading and Innovation: National into Global Value Chains”) was chaired by Alfredo Renault (Superintendente, Superintendência de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis ANP).
Antonio Botelho gave the presentation on «Boosting collaborative upgrading in the Brazilian Oil and Gas Industry towards Global Value Chain Enhancement” and Helge Ryggvik gave a presentation with the title “The Norwegian oil and gas supply industry in hard times: innovation in global supply chains”.
A joint discussion after the two presentations was moderated by Dr. Telmo Ghiorzi (Director & Coordinator, R&D Working Group, Associação Brasileira das Empresas de Serviços de Petróleo ABESpetro).
The two sessions were followed by a joint discussion moderated by Maurício Alves Syrio (Project Superintendent Innovation Area 2, FINEP) and Rune Andersen (Innovation Norway).
The workshop concluded with a constructive discussion on how the Brazilian oil and gas ecosystem could improve their innovation capabilities by putting in practice some of the lessons learned from the Norwegian oil experience.
In the afternoon of the same day, Taran took part in The Blue Industries & DeepSea Conservation Round-Table organised as part of the VI November Conference.
Taran talked about diversification of the Norwegian petroleum supply firms from oil industry to new markets.
2017: Is "oil-Norway" ready for a transition?
Is the oil industry able to adjust in a time of low oil prices and increased focus on environmentally friendly solutions?
Written by: Robin Reistad Fiske
Researchers from the Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture at the University of Oslo have during recent years worked on the SIVAC project, where they have researched the Norwegian supplier industry from the oil sector. The focus has been on the industry's innovative power and ability to adjust, in a time of low oil prices and increasing focus on environmentally friendly solutions.
Recently, representatives from Statoil, Aker Solutions, the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, and others from the Norwegian oil sector, gathered at the University of Oslo for on the concluding seminar of the project.
For the occasion, professor Charles Sabel from Columbia Law School in New York held an opening lecture. Sabel talked about vertical disintegration in the industry and how this is the result of an uncertainty about technological development. Several researchers then presented the work that has been done for SIVAC during the recent years, and the subsequent findings from this work.
Project Manager for SIVAC, Taran Mari Thune, presented results on how supplier companies innovate. The findings suggest that the sector has innovative gains through research and development, but primarily through collaboration with users and through practical implementation of projects. Suppliers in the oil industry have an ability to adapt fast as a result of the sector's cooperation model. At the same time, studies show significant challenges with radical change due to the unique model of innovation. The model is very favourable for the suppliers, but also locks them into a “captive” relationship with the buyers, the oil companies.
The next post came from Helge Ryggvik, who compared the Norwegian and Brazilian oil industry. Norway and Brazil began building their oil sectors at approximately the same time. Despite this, the Norwegian supplier industry has had significantly more success than Brazilian. The comparison clarifies a successful policy model in Norway, and exemplifies a state’s impact in the industry.
Researcher Allan Dahl Andersen held the last lecture of the day. This contribution to the SIVAC project focused on actors from the Norwegian oil sector who have tried to enter into new markets with their products or services. Dahl Andersen said that many of the actors who made such a conversion successfully had been early movers in terms of transition. The project shows that challenges related to diversification to new markets are not primarily about technology, but about business conditions.
The seminar was concluded with a panel debate between six representatives who are heavily involved in the oil sector. The panel consisted of Kjartan Pedersen from Aker Solutions, Hanne Wigum from Statoil, Hans Petter Bøe Rebo from Federation of Norwegian Industries, Ole Andreas Engen from the University of Stavanger, Werner Karlsson from Norwegian Energy Partners and Anne Mette Hilmen from the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. They all agreed that oil has an important role to play in Norwegian industry to come, and that the supplier industry would be able to transition to new assignments if the contracts were there.
Charles Sabel from United States concluded that Norway was fascinating, as he felt that the state spoke industry's interests and the industry spoke human interests.
2017: New book from the SIVAC-team coming up
The research team in the SIVAC-project is in the process of preparing a comprehensive volume on the Norwegian petroleum industry, to be published by Routledge in the spring of 2018.
The book, co-written with several Norwegian and international researchers, addresses the issue of industrial development of petroleum resources, and specifically the role and development of petroleum supplier companies. The empirical context is the industrial development of petroleum resources in Norway during the last two decades. Norway is a small country, but a large producer and exporter of oil and natural gas.
Norway is interesting in an international perspective, as the country has had a deliberate policy of supporting the development of a technology intensive petroleum supply and service industry, which now is more valuable than the petroleum production. The petroleum industry and the suppliers have undergone profound changes the last decades, in terms of technological developments, business models and markets. This book will address how the Norwegian upstream petroleum industry and its supply industry has changed from the turn of the millennium, and will address a range of specific transformation strategies that is currently taking place. In particular, the book looks at three transformations, where Norwegian experiences are described and discussed in an international perspective.
- Technological upgrading and innovation in upstream petroleum and the supply industry’s role in an increasingly innovative upstream petroleum business
- Globalization of the upstream business and the supplier firms’ experiences in entry into foreign markets
- Diversification into and out of petroleum – and the potential for new growth paths for supply companies in a post-oil future.
