SLB and Vår Energi embark on digital quest to speed up oil & gas decision-making

May 29, 2026, by Melisa Cavcic

U.S.-headquartered technology player SLB is pooling resources with Norway’s oil and gas player Vår Energi to help the operator advance progression from discovery to development, cutting time to first oil by building on multi-discipline, collaborative well planning workflows that reduce cycle times from months to days for projects on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS).

SLB and Vår Energi have teamed up on an expanded collaboration to scale well planning and integrated field development planning across the operator’s Norwegian Continental Shelf operations. While collaborative well planning is already reducing cycle times from months to days, integrated field development planning is expected to support similar benefits.

In light of this, the expanded deployment is designed to support faster, more consistent decision-making, as operators work to sustain production from mature offshore assets while managing increasing development complexity. Vår Energi is deploying the Delfi digital platform to connect exploration, subsurface evaluation, well planning, subsea design, field development planning, and production in a cloud-native environment.

By enabling teams to work concurrently using shared data and standardized workflows, SLB claims the approach reduces handoffs and rework, supporting more consistent, timely decision-making from early evaluation through development planning.

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Rakesh Jaggi, President of SLB’s Digital business, commented: “As offshore developments become more complex, performance increasingly depends on how quickly teams can align, evaluate options and make decisions using trusted data.

“By bringing disciplines together in an integrated digital environment, operators can shorten planning cycles and improve the speed and quality of decisions needed to progress opportunities, including marginal subsea tiebacks.”

This expanded collaboration reflects a broader shift toward cloud-based planning approaches that help operators reduce time between key development milestones, improve coordination across disciplines, and maximize value from existing resources in mature basins.

Standardized, integrated workflows are perceived to enable concurrent cross-discipline work, reducing handoffs and rework while improving timely, trusted-data decisions for mature offshore assets, including marginal subsea tie-backs.

This pact in Norwegian waters comes shortly after SLB won multiple deals for offshore drilling services at a gas development off the coast of Indonesia with Mubadala Energy.