Being one of the major players in the industry, Dow Chemical has an old footprint in the region, particularly with their presence in Kuwait. More recently, the company has been developing their presence in Saudi Arabia with Sadara.
Because of their deep involvement with the regional oil and gas industry, it was ideal for the organisation to participate at ADIPEC, which offers a perfect platform for them to explore different opportunities with their clients in the region.
Adriano Gentilucci, commercial leader of the company, said, “We founded a specific oil and gas business within the company in 2008. We have been participating of the event since the inception of that segment and we will continue.
With exploration and production being the main focus of the show, Dow participates as it has a presence across the value chain of the industry. In fact, the company, according to Gentilucci, has a strong focus in exploration and production across the region and offer solutions that particularly go into segment of the industry.
Given their strong involvement across the value chain of oil and gas, EOR is an area where they plan to grow more in this region.
“We are working in this area with our improvement in advanced chemistry. So we continue to spend R&D resources and capital in the range of $1.5bn in R&D expenditure per year globally,” Gentilucci said.
After the drop in oil prices, decision makers of the company felt more comfortable to bring their technologies into the region, “because the region is probably now in the right time to start applying those types of technologies.”
The dip in crude oil prices has put some pressure on the investment capacity of companies in the region. When well-managed and well-designed, EOR allows oil companies to find opportunities to produce oil on their existing facilities.
With conventional standard, techniques, oil companies only recover a minority of the existing potential, with an average of 30% of the original oil in place. This can be increased by an additional 10% to 15% with secondary oil recovery which includes water injection systems. Still, a relatively large quantity of oil remains unrecovered.
“This is very valuable for a company today because the capital investment is more modest,” explains Gentilucci. “This is an area where we saw an opportunity for us to explore.”
“I don’t see the oil price will change in the foreseeable future. I see that oil companies are slowly readapting to this level. Seen as unsustainable a year ago, this level now looks more sustainable to the players of the sector and has become the new norm. Companies that have been readapted I believe are now much more efficient. They are able to produce at a lower costs,” he added.
For Dow Chemical as a manufacturer that is fully integrated in the industry, immediately adapting to the new prices was critical. “Being a buyer of crude oil products, we also optimised our solutions,” Gentilucci concludes.
