Innovations emerging from the Energy Department's oil and natural gas research programs do little good unless the nation's petroleum producers are made aware of them and deploy them in actual exploration and production operations.

The oil and gas industry in the United States today has a much different character than the industry of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. No longer does "Big Oil" dominate the makeup of America's oil and gas sector. For the most part, the major oil companies have focused their attention on more lucrative prospects outside of the United States.

Independent oil and gas producers - small businesses typically employing no more than 10 full-time employees - now drill 85 percent of the Nation's wells and produce 65 percent of the natural gas and nearly 50 percent of the oil that flows from wells in the lower 48 States. Most of these companies, however, are working on small financial margins and have few resources to risk on developing technological solutions to the problems they encounter in their oil or gas fields.

Therefore, the Office of Fossil Energy has made oil and natural gas technology transfer targeted specifically to small independent producers as one of its highest priorities.

Every major field project that receives federal funding from the Department's oil and gas research program must include a technology transfer element. Typically, the private operator is required to share the techniques and results of the project with other producers through workshops, technical papers, or site visits.

In addition to these contractual requirements, the Office of Fossil Energy's oil and gas research program has supported two major initiatives devoted to the transfer of petroleum technologies to the U.S. oil and gas industry:

The Petroleum Technology Transfer Council

MORE INFO Link to the PTTC Web Site [opens new browser window]

DOE helped industry create the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council (PTTC) in 1993. With federal seed money from the Department's Office of Fossil Energy, independent oil and gas producers launched the PTTC specifically to improve technology transfer and stimulate the application of innovative technology applications in actual field operations.

The PTTC conducts most of its technology transfer activities through 10 Regional Lead Organizations, each representing an oil and gas producing area that may have similar geologic features and technology needs. Technologies come from many sources-vendors and service companies, government laboratories, universities, producers themselves, and, notably, the DOE Fossil Energy R&D program.

The Natural Gas and Oil Technology Partnership

MORE INFO Link to the Natural Gas and Oil Technology Partnership Web Site [opens new browser window]

Begun in 1988, the Natural Gas and Oil Technology Partnership brings together the expertise of the Energy Department's national laboratories in collaborative projects with the nation's oil and gas producers and service companies. A major focus of the Partnership in its early stages was to apply the national defense capabilities of the Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories to the peaceful exploration and production of oil and natural gas. In later years, the Partnership expanded to include Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories in 1994, and Argonne, Brookhaven, Idaho, Pacific Northwest, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories in 1995.

Any natural gas and oil producer, refiner, or service company is eligible to participate in the Partnership, provided they team with a national laboratory. Universities and other research institutions may join project teams. The industry-driven program establishes active industry interfaces through review panels and forums that define industry needs, provide annual project reviews, and determine the priority of new proposals and ongoing projects.

The Partnership has focused its collaborative efforts on these specific topics:

• Drilling, Completion, and Stimulation Technology projects to develop and demonstrate innovative drilling, perforation, and fracturing processes; subsurface instrumentation; and advanced computational software. This area was added to the Partnership in 1992, and its industry interface is through the Completion Engineering Association and the Drilling Engineering Association.

• Oil and Gas Recovery Technology centers on assisting independent producers by providing a broad range of hardware and software technologies to improve production from existing wells and fields. This technology area originally focused on oil recovery but has expanded to include natural gas. The Industry Review Panel serves as the industry interface for evaluating projects. It consists of more than 25 individuals representing independents, majors, and service companies.

• Diagnostic and Imaging Technology projects strive to improve exploration and reservoir characterization through advances in borehole geophysics and seismic processing and imaging. There has been a continuing focus on improved borehole hardware as guided by industry through a 25-company Crosswell Seismic Forum, later renamed the Borehole Seismic Forum. In 1995, the addition of computational projects greatly broadened the scope of this area.

• Computational Technology became the fourth technology area of the Partnership in 1995. This major program provided the opportunity for collaborative R&D to enhance and apply computational technologies for finding, developing, and producing natural gas and oil. This area supported a range of activities from basic research to the development, demonstration, and transfer of sophisticated new technologies. Although this technology area was closed, ongoing projects were combined into the Diagnostic and Imaging; Oil and Gas Recovery; and Drilling, Completion, and Stimulation technology areas.

• Upstream Environmental Technology became the fifth technology area of the Partnership in 1997. This element of the Partnership seeks to develop technologies and practices that reduce environmental risk and decrease the cost of regulatory compliance. An industry review panel, along with DOE, selected two specific upstream environmental technology areas: produced water reduction and treatment, and stationary source emission control.

• Downstream Environmental Technology became the sixth technology area of the Partnership in 1998. This area addresses the needs of the U.S. refining industry, which produces refined products valued at over $110 billion per year and employs more than 120,000 people. The area emphasizes developing advanced processing technologies and to equip the refining industry with more efficient pollution prevention and environmental compliance capabilities. A joint government-industry workshop on processing heavy oils evaluates and selects the projects.

• Natural Gas Technology, organized in 2002, to meet the increasing demand for natural gas, which is expected to increase by 30 percent in 2020. The area includes two sub-topic areas: Gas Storage and Drilling, Completion, and Stimulation. The Gas Storage sub-topic emphasizes enhanced efficiency and reliability of natural gas storage systems. Projects within the Drilling, Completion, and Stimulation sub-topic develop new innovative technologies to reduce cost and improve drilling, completion, and production success in harsh reservoir environments.