Norway’s Statoil is aiming to play on its oil and gas strengths
and expertise to grow its renewable energy business, said executive vice
president of new energy solutions, Irene Rummelhoff.
Statoil has already made renewables part of its core activity,
after realising that “business as usual was not an option”, said Rummelhoff at
Offshore Wind Energy in London this week.
She added that, as the company had a lot of experience in offshore
installations, operations, modifications, derived from having worked in the oil
and gas industry, the change in direction was an “opportunity”.
“All skills were relevant for the offshore wind industry,” said
Rummelhoff. “This was an opportunity rather than a threat for an oil and gas
company, because we have an industry with immense growth potential in front of
us, where we can play on the competences we have already developed. It’s not
often these opportunities comes along.”
“Combining offshore wind and gas is a great opportunity that oil
and gas companies can work with, in combination with other technologies, like
batteries, and potentially also solar,” she said. “This will be a holistic
solution going forward that will play to the strengths of like Statoil and
Shell and other companies coming from the oil and gas sector.”
As it moved into the clean energy sector, Statoil acquired a 35%
in the Dudgeon wind farm off eastern England, and won an auction for commercial
development rights off New York.
The company said it now sees renewables as a “fully integrated
part of its strategy”, with “new energy” set to account for around 20% of its
capital investments by 2030.
In addition, Statoil’s budget for research projects is on an annual
base around £250m. By 2020, 25% of it will be invested in low carbon solutions,
says Rummelhoff.
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