TNK-BP and the Skolkovo Foundation signed an agreement to cooperate on innovative projects aimed at improving the energy efficiency of process technology and oil & gas production facilities.

TNK-BP and the Skolkovo Foundation have agreed to focus their efforts on seeking out, evaluating and piloting projects in the following key areas: field development systems, mechanized production, surface infrastructure, oil and gas processing, and alternative means of producing and transmitting energy.

One of the most important aspects of the cooperation programme will be interaction between TNK-BP and the Skolkovo Foundation on the one hand, and leading Russian academic institutions on the other, to create multi-disciplinary research centres tasked with seeking out, developing and consolidating energy efficiency projects.

The Skolkovo Foundation will provide experts to assess innovations proposed by universities and institutes, while TNK-BP will work on selecting a process facility, trial site or pilot testing site for the new projects.

'People, innovation and technology are the key components of a company's success in the global economy', said Mikhail Slobodin, TNK-BP's Executive Vice President, Gas and Power. 'Working with the Skolkovo Foundation and the country's top academic institutions gives TNK-BP a wonderful opportunity to improve its energy efficiency and, in the longer run, to roll out our experience across the entire Russian energy sector'.

'I have absolutely no doubt that this kind of cooperation will be successful', stressed Aleksey Beltyukov, the Foundation's director of planning and development. 'I'm confident that in the very near future it will produce a large number of successful projects for which there will be demand in more than just the oil sector'.

Tags: TNK-BP