A key theme at the Smart Fields Summit last week in Houston was the ever-increasing need for the world’s oil producers to collaborate in order to survive in a market where resources have become harder to get at. Similarly, at the GE Oil & Gas Meeting in Florence, Italy, this week, the theme is “Powering the Future of the Oil and Gas Industry Together.” And it was there that GE announced its deepening partnership with Chevron Energy Technology.
Building on its existing collaboration on flow analysis technology for oil and gas wells, Chevron Energy Technology and GE Oil & Gas announced the creation of the Chevron GE Technology Alliance, which will develop and commercialize technologies to solve critical needs for the oil and gas industry.
The alliance leverage R&D from GE’s newest Global Research Center in Oklahoma City. When GE announced that research center close to a year ago—the first to be dedicated to oil and gas technology—GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt pointed to collaboration as the key to pushing gains in unconventional energy resources. “Unconventional resources, and shale gas in particular, may be one of the biggest productivity drivers of our lifetime,” he said at the time. “At GE, we see a tremendous opportunity in the oil and gas space. Since 2007, we have invested $11 billion to build broad technical capabilities that can deliver productivity gains and foster innovation for our customers.”
The Oil & Gas division is GE’s fastest-growing business, with revenues of more than $15 billion; earnings and new revenue for the division grew 16 percent in 2012. “GE brings its leading manufacturing capabilities, worldwide marketing, distribution and extensive R&D capabilities not only for oil and gas, but also other business sectors to this alliance,” said Paul Siegele, president of Chevron Energy Technology and chief technology officer for the alliance. “Together, we hope to bring impactful new technologies to the industry.”
Chevron is involved in virtually every facet of the energy industry, including crude oil and natural gas, refining, petrochemical products, geothermal energy, biofuels and more. “Chevron’s deep understanding of the oil and gas industry, combined with GE’s long tradition of technology development and close collaboration with strategic partners, will uniquely position this new alliance to address the industry’s technology needs,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, president and CEO, GE Oil & Gas. “The solutions developed by this alliance will take on even more industry significance given Chevron’s proven leadership in being first to field test and deploy new technology breakthroughs.”
This partnership builds upon an ongoing collaboration between Chevron and GE developing the GE Safire flow meter, now being tested and deployed on Chevron land-based well production lines in the western U.S. In addition to the flow metering collaboration, which is being conducted with the Measurement & Control business within GE Oil & Gas, the alliance is also managing a coatings project and will be taking on additional high-value projects in the near future.
The alliance provides a mechanism for commercializing early-stage technologies from Chevron, GE or other technology partnerships. For example, GE flow meter products will be developed incorporating the swept-frequency acoustic interferometry (SFAI) metering technology incubated in an alliance between Chevron and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
“Los Alamos develops unique technologies and these can have powerful applications for U.S. industry,” said Duncan McBranch, chief technology officer for LANL. “Strategic partnerships with industry allow us to accelerate breakthrough innovation in these areas. As the alliance demonstrates, national laboratories can serve an important role in connecting different industry partners to strengthen the U.S. innovation landscape.”
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