Cooperation, cost cuts, and new tech keys to unlock oil & gas from tight reservoirs

March 4, 2026, by Melisa Cavcic

Given the large quantities of oil and gas in so-called tight reservoirs on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD), reporting to Norway’s Ministry of Energy, has shed light on ways to speed up the oil and gas production from tight reservoirs off the coast of Norway.

Illustration; Credit: Morten Berentsen/NOD

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate claims its mapping results show that cooperation between the companies, cost reductions, and applying new technology can contribute to profitable production from tight reservoirs, as many of the about 90 discoveries still awaiting development decisions are situated in such tight reservoirs.

As a result, NOD is adamant that the industry will need to improve cooperation, curb costs, and apply more modern technology to extract hydrocarbon resources in a profitable way, after mapping the status, challenges, and potential measures needed to develop these resources.

While many discoveries remain undeveloped due to challenging reservoir properties and high risk, it is also believed that profitability for these discoveries is lower than for the reservoirs that have been produced so far.

Arne Jacobsen, Assistant Director for Technology and Subsurface at Norwegian Offshore Directorate, commented: “To achieve profitable production, we’re dependent on existing infrastructure. In other words, this is time-critical.”

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The Norwegian Offshore Directorate has provided insight into several types of technologies that can lead to increased production from tight reservoirs, including hydraulic fracturing, which involves fracturing the reservoir rock and keeping the fractures open by filling them with sand to make it easier for oil and gas to flow into the well, and increase the production potential.

The next method is slim-hole drilling (thin-hole drilling), which is used to drill wells with diameters that are smaller than usual, meaning that the borehole is slimmer, and both the equipment and well structure are designed to be light and cost-saving.

There is also a coiled tubing drilling method, where a continuous, long, flexible pipe is used instead of traditional, rigid drill strings that are screwed together part by part. This enables the coiled tubing to be fed into the well during drilling as one long unit without seams, said to make the operation faster, more flexible, and often cheaper.

The last item on the list is controlled acid jetting (CAJ) technology, which is developed specifically to increase productivity in long horizontal wells, where traditional methods have a limited range.

“Several of these technologies are well-tested elsewhere around the world. They aren’t entirely new on the NCS, either, but are underused. We need more experience to improve our risk understanding and bring the costs down,” added Jacobsen.

According to NOD, modelling and field studies of the Victoria, Warka, Sabina, and Linnorm discoveries show that such technology could substantially increase the recovery rate.

Many deposits with tight reservoirs were awarded in connection with APA 2025, such as Victoria in the Norwegian Sea; thus, technology like hydraulic fracturing could be very important here.

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The Norwegian Offshore Directorate claims to have worked actively to increase competence and share experience through seminars, study trips, and meetings with the largest operators and suppliers.

In light of this, it is recommending multiple measures to accelerate the development of tight reservoirs, including strengthening cooperation between relevant companies, which can often take place in a cooperative forum, where participants share experience gained on the NCS and internationally.

In addition, relevant projects should be followed up systematically, which entails sharing production data and experience from wells, where methods are used to improve recovery from tight reservoirs. Additional focus on technology development and skills development is needed.

NOD also underlines that established cooperative bodies, such as Force, national research centers within oil and gas, as well as Offshore Norge, are deemed to have the potential to play important roles in exchanging experience and building competence.

“The industry broadly agrees that more cooperation can result in better solutions overall. In turn, this can lead to necessary cost reductions. The supplier industry is also interested in bringing experience from other countries to the NCS,” noted Jacobsen.