Statoil to explore oil and gas space technologies for NASA

Oil and gas company Statoil has joined forces with the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) to explore space technologies in the search for oil and gas.

The collaboration is aimed at exploring how technologies and knowledge from the space and oil and gas industries can be relevant to one another.

The work will be carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, managed by the California Institute of Technology.

Expected to run from 2013 to 2018, the contract between Statoil and NASA will focus on research areas such as supercomputing, materials, robotics, development of new tools, and communication optionality.

Statoil research, development and innovation acting senior vice president Lars Høier said that new solutions and ideas are needed, as searching for oil and gas resources has become technically advanced over the past decade.

"To Statoil this is a significant opportunity to take technologies developed by NASA and JPL for the harsh and challenging environments of space and apply them to the equally demanding environments of oil and gas production," Høier added.

JPL director Charles Elachi said: "This agreement is the latest example of how NASA and JPL technologies can benefit us here on earth. It’s also an example of how collaborations with other industries can be beneficial to space exploration."

Annually Statoil spends $550m on research, development and innovation. Its latest agreement with NASA is complementary to the work which is already in progress.

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Image: From left: Statoil research, development and innovation acting senior vice president Lars Høier; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory director Dr Charles Elachi. Photo: courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.