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IFP strengthens its ties to industry through JIPs (Joint Industry-Funded Projects)
05 June 2006
On 15 and 16 May 2006, IFP brought together more than 60 industrial, oil, and petroleum service and supply companies from across the world in order to present to them the new research programs in exploration and production that they will be given the opportunity to co-finance through JIPs (Joint Industry-Funded Projects). This is the fifth meeting of this type organized by IFP, attended by more potential sponsors every year.
The JIP is an original form of cooperation between industry and research that works as follows: IFP, alone or with another research organization - or even an oil company - does the R&D work, while industrial partners co-finance the program (the average participation fee is 50,000 euros) and benefit from the results; IFP retains the industrial property rights to its technologies.
Introduced by IFP about ten years ago, the JIP formula is an ever increasing success with industrial partners. Sales doubled between 2003 and 2005, and this rapid growth is expected to continue in the years to come. JIPs now account for approximately 5% of IFP's R&D volume in the field of petroleum exploration and production and the target for the period 2006-2010 is 10%. A dozen JIPs, having durations of 2 or 3 years, are currently under way and 6 or 7 new projects are expected to see the light of day in 2007.
These JIPs are a growing success because they meet both the needs of an applied research center like the IFP and those of the industry: for IFP, JIPs are a means of developing and validating methodologies and technologies by bringing them to bear on practical problems in the field. They are also, for the R&D teams, a way of staying in touch with the problems relevant to the industrial partners: each researcher at IFP can propose a JIP that will then be vetted by a selection committee. For the industrial partners, this form of cooperation is a way of benefitting from IFP's expertise and the latest technological advances, long before they reach the market, of contributing to the orientation of these research programs, of cutting development costs, and, finally, of spreading the risks.
There are three types of JIP at IFP: regional studies like the "Berkine Gas" JIP in partnership with the Algerian oil company Sonatrach, the objective of which is to evaluate the natural gas potential of the very deep deposits (more than 5000 meters) of the Berkine basin. Nine oil companies share the financing: Anadarko, BP, Cepsa, Eni Algeria, Gaz de France, Repsol-YPF, Statoil, Talisman and Total. The benefit to Sonatrach is obvious: the development of Berkine will depend on the results of this evaluation. JIPs can also be an occasion to develop prototype software intended for industrial use; IFP in this case validates a methodology by comparing it with its partners' operational data. Finally, a JIP can serve to validate the results of laboratory experiments: the Acacia JIP, for example, in which the partners are Eni, Petrobras, Schlumberger and Total, is aimed at ensuring the strength of well cements during the injection of CO2, a major issue for the geological storage of CO2.
Alongside self-financed research and research contracts with industrial partners, JIPs are, for IFP, a key to understanding industrial problems and a compass for steering its programs. Practiced abroad in different forms for many years, the JIP formula has proven its worth. Following IFP's lead, other French research centers are considering its application.
For further information:
Events > 2006 Fifth Annual JIP Seminar
IFP is a research and industrial development, training, and information services center active in hydrocarbons (oil and gas), their uses - in particular by vehicles -, and new energy and environmental technologies (production of fuels from biomass, biofuels, hydrogen, capture and storage of CO2, etc.).
In an international energy context marked by major challenges - renewing petroleum reserves, broadening the energy mix, and combating climate change - IFP' vocation is to innovate, develop and transfer technologies that will make it possible to supply enough energy to meet growing world needs, especially in the transport and petrochemicals sectors, lastingly and without harm to the environment, for the whole of the 21st century.
Contact presse IFP
Anne-Laure de Marignan
Phone : 01 47 52 62 07
Fax : 01 47 52 70 96
presse@ifp.fr
