As part of its plans to increase the recovery rate on the Norwegian continental shelf from 50% to 60%, Statoil has commenced building Norway's biggest research center for improved recovery in Trondheim.

Norway's petroleum and energy minister Ola Borten Moe and CEO Helge Lund were present to celebrate the start of construction work on Statoil's Trondheim research center. The center, which will cost around $41.9 million, is due for completion towards the end of 2013.

The new research center will support the company by providing new technology and new methods to help maximize production on the fields where Statoil is operator or partner, on the Norwegian continental shelf and internationally.

The center, which is being built adjacent to Statoil's research centre at Rotvoll in Trondheim, will consist of four floors that prioritize areas of technology such as drilling and well, reservoir mapping and advanced injection techniques. The heart of the roughly 2,700-sq-m large center will be an industrial CT scanner that is 100 times more powerful than a medical CT scanner.

In addition to increasing the recovery rate, the center will help reduce costs and the environmental impact.