Nanotechnology Exploration for Oil and Gas

Nanotechnology Exploration for Oil and Gas



Aug. 2007  - A proposal by a group of petroleum 
producing and oil field service companies and the University of 
Texas-Austin to engage in joint research and development of nanotechnology 
in the exploration and production of oil and gas will not be opposed by 
the Bush administration on anti-trust grounds. 
The goal of the joint venture, called the Advanced Energy Consortium, AEC, 
is to develop nanosensors that can be injected into oil and gas well bores 
below the Earth's surface. 
These nano-scale sensors, many times smaller than a human hair, would 
migrate out of the well bores and into the surrounding earth to collect 
data about the physical characteristics of hydrocarbon reservoirs. The 
data could enable the more efficient exploitation of oil and gas 
resources. 
The U.S. Department of Justice announced its position Thursday in a 
business review letter from Thomas Barnett, assistant attorney general in 
charge of the Department's Antitrust Division, to counsel for the AEC in 
response to consortium's request for such a statement. 
Barnett said the department "has no present intention to take antitrust 
enforcement action" but "reserves the right to bring an enforcement action 
in the future if the actual operation of the proposed conduct proves to be 
anticompetitive in purpose or effect." 
AEC's current members are BP America Inc., ConocoPhillips Company, 
Marathon Oil Company, Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, Shell 
International E & P Inc., Schlumberger Technology Corporation, and 
Halliburton Energy Services, Inc., with management provided by the 
University of Texas-Austin. Additional companies may join AEC with the 
approval of two-thirds of the existing members and the university. 
The AEC's anticipated research effort will have an annual budget of about 
$7 million to fund research, which will be carried out by the university. 
The member companies will each contribute $1 million for each of the first 
three years of the research program and thereafter will provide funding as 
determined by the Board of Management made up of one representative of 
each member company. 
The university will own all inventions resulting from the research. Each 
member that contributed to the development of any invention will receive a 
royalty-free, nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide perpetual license to 
use the invention for noncommercial internal purposes and will also have 
the independent right to make, use, and sell any patented inventions. 
The university intends to license its rights to third parties on a royalty 
basis, subject to the approval of the AEC members. 
Commercializing the results of the proposed research is beyond the scope 
of the venture, and the AEC itself will not license, produce, market or 
distribute anything. 
All AEC members will retain the right to engage in independent research 
and development and to obtain intellectual property rights relating to 
such research. 
In the Department's letter to AEC, Barnett stated that AEC "appears to be 
structured so that its proposed business conduct will not create any risks 
to competition." 
Barnett wrote, "To the extent that the AEC engages in research efforts 
that would not be undertaken by individual firms, the joint venture may 
have the pro-competitive effect of promoting innovation." 

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