Farouk Al-Kasim to speak at petroleum conference

2010 NZ Petroleum Conference International Keynote Speaker
Farouk Al-Kasim

President, Petroteam

One of the keynote speakers at this year’s NZ Petroleum Conference is hailed as one of the architects of Norway’s success as one of the world’s leading oil producing nations.

The conference is the country’s premier event for the oil exploration and production industry. This year’s conference theme is Transformation; focusing on the role the oil industry could play in transforming New Zealand’s economy and how we can ensure that the country continues to be a highly attractive global destination for petroleum investment.

Farouk Al-Kasim heads Norwegian-based consultancy Petroteam AS, which provides top-level advice on petroleum resource management to Norway and other countries.

As the New Zealand Government looks to the oil industry as a key driver for economic growth, it is timely that Farouk Al-Kasim is speaking at the conference hosted by Crown Minerals on September 19-22 at SKYCITY Convention Centre, Auckland.

Al-Kasim has a wealth of knowledge in the petroleum sector and is amply qualified to comment about Norway’s success in transforming its economy through its oil revenues and New Zealand’s potential to do the same.

He has written and published a book covering lessons we can learn from Norway, Managing Petroleum Resources -- the Norwegian Model in a Broad Perspective. He has also advised the Norwegian Ministry of Industry on petroleum and related issues.

Al-Kasim’s expertise and advice was instrumental in the formation of Norway’s national oil company, Statoil (now known as StatoilHydro, and regulatory organisation, Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. Al-Kasim acted as the directorate’s director of resource management from 1973 until early 1991 before becoming president of his own consultant company Petroteam.

Willy Olsen, a former manager with Norway’s national oil company, Statoil (now known as StatoilHydro), was quoted in the Financial Times newspaper as saying, “Farouk is perhaps the greatest value creator Norway has had”.

The newspaper continued: “And with good reason. Most of the oil found in the world is never recovered: the average extraction rate worldwide is around 25 per cent. Norway averages 45 per cent, and for that, Olsen gives Al-Kasim much of the credit: he pushed the government to increase extraction rates; insisted that companies try new technologies, such as water injection in chalk reservoirs or horizontal drilling; and threatened to withdraw operating licences from companies that balked. “It is this culture, a culture of ‘squeezing the last drop out’, which he cultivated,” says Olsen.”

Major oil and gas discoveries in the mid-1970s have transformed Norway’s economy. Large sums of investment capital poured into the offshore oil sector, leading to greater increases in Norwegian production costs and wages than in the rest of Western Europe up to the time of the global recovery of the mid-1980s. The influx of oil revenue also permitted Norway to expand an already extensive social welfare system. Norway has established a state Petroleum Fund that exceeded $457 billion by the end of December 2009. The fund is primarily designed to help finance government programs once oil and gas resources become depleted.

At the conference, Al-Kasim will speak about ‘Lessons from the Norwegian experience’. He will review the reasons for Norway’s success in managing its oil resources, including innovative technological development, focus on improved oil recovery, objective petroleum administration, diversity among licensees, clear fiscal rules securing sufficient reward for investors while optimising national revenue and astute management of petroleum revenue.

Al-Kasim graduated as a petroleum geologist from Imperial College, London University in 1957 and spent his first 11 years working for Iraq Petroleum Company, and from 1968 to 1973 was advisor to the Norwegian Ministry of Industry in Oslo on Petroleum and related issues.

For more background on Farouk Al-Kasim please download the full version of the Financial Times article:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html

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