Merger of IT systems went fast and smooth with Cegal's help
In December 2021, SVAL Energi bought the oil company Spirit Energy. When the two organizations where merged, a complex merger of the companies' IT systems began. Along the way, Cegal has been the IT partner and ensured that everything ran smoothly.
"Now, we are approaching the elite division, and that's where we're headed!" The ambitious SVAL Energi CEO Nikolai Lyngø said this after SVAL bought Spirit Energy's Norwegian operations for almost USD 1 billion – the largest transaction in the North Sea since 2019.
The story of SVAL Energi is a small oil fairytale in itself. The small oil exploration and production company has grown into a reliable energy company within just a few years. With the acquisition of Spirit Energy, growth continues. SVAL is now taking over 45 licenses for production and exploration of oil and gas. Spirit Energy holds partnerships in 11 producing oil and gas fields, two of which are operatorships. With this acquisition, SVAL more than doubles its production from approximately 20,000 to almost 60,000 barrels of oil equivalents in 2023.
SVAL's vision is to be among the best exploration and production companies by 2030, measured by carbon intensity from energy production. The company will be an active contributor to the reduction in carbon intensity from the licenses they participate in. The ambition is to become a leading company within sustainability and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) in Norway and worldwide.
Fast merging of companies and IT systems
For SVAL Energi, this is a major acquisition, and overnight it also brought many new co-workers for staff in both companies. At the same time as the organizations merged and moved into new locations in the Veritas building in Stavanger, a complex merger of the two companies' IT systems began with Cegal as an IT partner. In addition to the processes of merging the organizations and IT systems, all operations including production and exploration acitivites were to run as normal.
Today, the it is demonstrated that the merger of the companies and the integration of the IT systems have gone very well despite a very tight completion deadline on 1 April 2022. According to Det Norske Veritas (DNV), which has audited the merger, such impressive results are rarely seen, and considers this merger to be one of best they have ever autited. DNV also points that IT is front-running and proactive.
Without a dedicated team from Cegal who had expertise in and from such projects in the past, it would not have gone so well, so quickly, and with the results we have obtained
Kjetil Kildal, SVAL Energi
Anyone who has worked with mergers and integration processes knows that they are often time-consuming challenges whith regardss to agreeing on common work processes. Also, problems often arise when different business-critical IT systems must be coordinated and merged. If SVAL had not succeeded in its process, the company would not have been able to become an operator on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
Without IT, no oil production
"At IT, we operate systems that secures value of an extensive size, and if we do something wrong, there will be big consequences. Safety and stability are the cornerstone of everything Cegal does. This means that we are confident that they deliver security services and that they deliver the operational uptime they say they do. It is crucial for us to have such an IT partner backing us," continues IT Director Kjetil Kildal at SVAL Energi.
He says that SVAL has chosen to focus their core operations as well as growth. He adds that SVAL will not primarily deal with IT but will consume data and need a forward-leaning IT partner who can deliver agile and up-to-date solutions.
"We will need to bring in new systems and incorporate, operate and retire systems at great speed, with security and integrity as the main focus of our IT partner. That is why we let someone who knows IT deliver IT services to us. It is also crucial to have an IT partner who has both experience and capacity for delivery, and that we can trust the IT partner to support our growth," says Kildal.
The IT Director adds that it is positive that Cegal has a strategy of being a central driving force as a technology supplier for the green shift.
During the entire merger and integration process, Cegal has shown that they are agile and can turn around quickly
Kjetil Kildal, SVAL Energi
During the process, Cegal has, among other things, delivered the rollout and operation of 200 computers and a total of 200 IT systems on the IT platform Cegal Cetegra (formerly called GeoCloud). Cegal also set up a dedicated 24/7 service desk for SVAL and has supplied and operates IT infrastructure. In addition, there are IT security solutions and services.
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