Portrait

The Company

Since its foundation in 1935, the staff at RAG have been applying their experience, their expert knowledge and their extensive commitment to ensure the sustainable provision of natural domestic energy resources in the form of oil and gas. Expanding from our home market in Austria, we are now also applying our expertise in other European countries. Storage of natural gas is another key area of our business. Thanks to over 30 years’ experience and the continuing massive expansion in operations in recent years RAG now ranks amongst the leading storage operators in Europe. Our underground natural gas storages supply both national and international customers. This means that we are making a vital contribution to secure the supply in Austria and throughout the whole of Central Europe. Stockpiling crude oil as an emergency reserve for Austrian customers, trading and transport of natural gas, renewable energy projects such as geothermal energy and biogas complete the company’s product portfolio.
Our extensive experience, technological expertise, highly specialised knowledge and the strong commitment of our staff, together with the highest international safety and environmental engineering standards, have made RAG one of the most successful companies in Austria.

We exploit energy lying deep in the earth.

Searching, discovering, producing and storing are our “key concepts”. They express what we do every day for Austria’s and Europe’s security in terms of energy supply. Using the latest technology, we discover crude oil and natural gas, extract it from deep underground (as deep as 4,000 metres in some cases), convert naturally formed gas fields into underground gas storages, and transport the valuable energy to our customers.
We work under challenging conditions, around the clock, in wind and adverse weather caonditions with the highest safety standards and concern for the environment.

Health, safety and the environment

Our HSE target: Zero accidents

Around 400 RAG staff and roughly 1,000 contractors and upstream suppliers make a daily contribution to the success of the company and help in taking it to the next level. Maintaining and promoting the health and motivation of our staff are the guidelines for our daily work. The highest level of safety at work and energyefficient processes and environmentally friendly technologies are the fundamental principles behind our responsible approach to the utilisation of domestic resources. These principles are implemented consistently. The efforts made by the company over many years have ensured that RAG occupies a leading position in the Exploration and Production community.

Promoting health
Physically fit employees perform better, work with better concentration, and pay more attention to their own safety. For that reason, we implement measures to maintain and promote the physical and mental wellbeing of our employees.

Focus on safety
"Zero accidents" is the target in all our activities and operations. When it comes to the safety of our employees, we don’t compromise. Systematically minimizing risks to people and to the environment is the key task of our HSE Management system.

Protecting the environment
Protecting the environment is a particular concern for us. For that reason, our activities in the area of environmental protection – such as optimising use of energy, reducing emissions, developing and applying technologies to avoid creating waste (e.g. the waste-free drilling concept) and new methods for permanently monitoring and inspecting of plants and lines – go well beyond the legal requirements.
 
The HSE Management system ensures that HSE objectives are continuously pursued, optimized and implemented.

Seismic surveys

3D seismic is one of the most important and most effective methods in the search for crude oil and natural gas.

Variations in sound properties of the materials in different layers of rock can be used to locate possible oil and gas fields. In Austria and Bavaria, 3D seismic surveys, covering an area of 3,500 km², have been conducted since 1984.
The wealth of data derived from this is processed using state-of-the-art technology. High-performance computers are used to create three-dimensional im­ages of the topmost section of the earth‘s crust. We also work with processes such as geo-statistics, detailed signal analysis and data inversion techniques to track down hidden hydrocarbon reservoirs. RAG’s specialist knowledge is applied for the structural and stratigraphic interpretation of the data using interdisciplinary teamwork (geophysics, geology, reservoir engineering,drilling engineering). This ensures that drilling projects hold the greatest promise of success. But definite proof of hydrocarbons is obtained only by drilling.

Exploration

From the concept to drilling

"High-tech" is an indispensable element when it comes to modern-day drilling engineering. Synthetic diamonds and the latest know-how from the field of metallurgy provide drilling tools with the strength and cutting edge to cope with the most challenging requirements. Even the hardest rocks no longer constitute an obstacle to drilling. In softer layers of rock, it is possible to drill over 600 metres in a single day using the latest drilling technology. The drill bit can now be steered in any desired angle and direction. Using this technology, we have successfully drilled horizontal wells of up to 1,500 metres, as for example in the Puchkirchen storage.

The search for crude oil and natural gas is further intensified and production increased by using two new, ultra-modern drilling rigs, each with a 200-ton hook load. We achieve the highest environmental standards by employing a waste-free drilling concept, by using natural gas to produce energy instead of diesel fuel, and through a wide range of other innovations. The internationally recognised safety certificate (SCC) demonstrates that we achieve the top EU standards.
Our well-trained and qualified experts ensure high quality and competitive advantages when it comes to our core competence of "drilling".

Production

Oil and gas from domestic sources

Production of crude oil
A steel pipe (casing) is run and cemented into the drilled well before starting the oil production. The reservoir fluids flow out from the pore spaces of the rock and up to the surface through this production string in the borehole. If the naturally occurring pressure in the reservoir declines, subsurface rod pumps are used to continue the oil production. For deep and highly deviated wells special equipment such as electric submersible pumps, multiphase pumps and electronic metering devices to record and optimise the pump load supplement conventional production methods. The water being produced from the reservoir – up to 95% of the total produced volume – is returned back into the reservoir after it has been separated from the crude oil.
The crude oil fields in our exploration areas are small by international standards and operational costs represent a technical challenge. Our employee’s expertise, use of the latest technologies, environmental sensitivity and rigorous cost optimisation have ensured that that crude oil production from Austria’s domestic sources remains competitive.

Production of natural gas
Natural gas reservoirs always contain some water vapour as well. The natural gas produced needs to be dried using a dehydration unit. The industrial alcohol, glycol, is used to remove the residual water from the natural gas. State of the art production facilities with associated measurement and automation devices process the gas for subsequent use. Special low-temperature facilities remove the higher hydrocarbons condensates. All the collected liquid is either put to further use or disposed back into the reservoir.
If the natural reservoir pressure is no longer sufficient to produce the gas into the pipeline, special compression units are used to extend the gas production.

RAG’s modular gas production facilities can be easily moved and re-used on other, new production sites once a gas field is abandoned. We mitigate the natural decline of production by committing high levels of investment and employing new, innovative technologies. Extensive seismic and drilling operations form the basis for exploration and production of new natural gas reserves. The production of domestic resources constitutes an important contribution to a country’s security of supply.

Storage

Austria has high-grade subsurface reservoirs that are well suited for natural gas storage. We have been using former gas fields as gas storages since 1982 and thus decisively improving security for the domestic natural gas supply.

Developing storage capacity
Storage of natural gas has become increasingly important in recent years. This type of energy storage is one of the central elements in securing gas supply for Austria and Europe. RAG provides services to major domestic and European natural gas suppliers by creating and operating underground gas storages. Their reliable operation allows RAG’s customers to safeguard their supply of natural gas. In Austria and abroad, we are involved in the development of a large number of new storage projects to satisfy the growing demand for energy storage.This with a view to safe guarding the European supply of natural gas. Since 1982, RAG has operated an underground gas storage at Puchkirchen, and has steadily improved the relevant expertise. The Haidach underground gas storage (one of the biggest in Europe) has recently come on-stream. Our involvement in the 7Fields project has assured RAG a place amongst the leading storage operators.

Modular and peak period storage
At smaller natural gas fields, RAG develops and operates so called “modular storage facilities“ in which RAG designed production modules are deployed. Storages such as Aigelsbrunn or Haidach 5 are used both as peak period storage (i.e. to cover peaks in demand) and as seasonal storage within the Austrian network.RAG’s underground gas storages are essential in exploiting renewable but variable energies such as wind-power or solar energy. Natural gas in storage, with the potential to easily convert it to electricity using gas turbine power stations, makes it possible to exploit energies dependent on the wind or sun at all.
Natural gas from RAG’s underground storage satisfies the energy demand in those instances where renewable energy sources cannot meet it.

Reservoirs
The term "reservoir" (or "hydrocarbon reservoir") is used to describe porous layers of rock where the pores are filled with liquid or gaseous materials. The quality of a reservoir is determined by its permeability, as well as by its porosity, as these influence the production capacity of a borehole.
Crude oil and natural gas are accumulated in the naturally occurring reservoir and cannot escape, thanks to the overlying, sealing shale layer. The search for hydrocarbon reservoirs begins with geophysical measurements (e.g. seismic surveys) of the subsurface. Using this seismological data, the location and areal extend of rock units in the subsoil are determined and recorded as data volumes. In the ideal case these form the basis for preparing drilling projects for oil and gas. While drilling rock samples are collected (cuttings and cores).
Detailed analysis of these samples (e.g. thin sections) provides information about the pore space and mineralogy of the reservoir rocks.

Supply

As partner with national and international energy suppliers, RAG offers customised solutions for trading and supply.

The core business of RAG is the search for and production of crude oil and natural gas and to make these valuable resources available to the domes­tic market in Austria. Our crude oil is processed in Austrian refineries. The natural gas production is consumed at the regional level; deliveries are taylored to meet local and seasonal demand.
In addition, RAG is also engaged in transregional gas trading and supplies domestic and foreign energy utilities with natural gas. We are specialised in flexible deliveries and can offer assured supply of crude oil and natural gas that is not dependent on imports, thanks to our domestic production.

Geothermal energy

Providing a trigger for Austria’s thermal spas

With the development of deep geothermal water wells (down to a depth of 3,500 metres), RAG has often acted as a trigger for Austria’s thermal spa landscape (Blumau, Loipersdorf, Bad Waltersdorf in Styria, and Geinberg in Upper Austria). RAG has also successfully contributed to the utilisation of geothermal energy in Bavaria (Munich-Riem, Simbach-Braunau).

Our experience with successfully completed projects demonstrates our commitment to the sustain­able use of energy as a resource by exploiting geothermal energy. With electricity and heat generation from - hydrothermal systems, we can provide a relizable energy supply from the practically inexhaust­ible heat source of the earth itself – which is climate and environmental friendly.