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Traditionally, this State-of-the-Art section
has focused on those technologies that are leading edge
usually commercial products and services that have been proven
in the field and are available to the industry to help find
and produce oil and gas more efficiently: faster, cheaper,
cleaner than what has been available before. This article
looks earlier in the development cycle, considering emerging
technologies with a promise of commerciality and the companies
that are formed to bring those ideas to commercial fruition.
This feature is about the Rice Alliance for Technology and
Entrepreneurship and the 3rd Annual Energy Technology Venture
Forum held in Houston on September 30, 2005.
Supporting Early Stage Technology
Ventures and Technology Transfer
The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship was
founded in 1999 and is Rice University's flagship initiative
devoted to the support of technology entrepreneurship. The
mission of the Rice Alliance is to support the creation of
technology-based companies and the commercialization of new
technologies in the Houston and Southwest Region through
education, collaboration and research. The Rice Alliance has
assisted in the launch of over 150 new technologies, raising
more than $300 million in early-stage funding. The Rice
Alliance mentors early-stage technology companies, provides
educational programs, coordinates a business plan competition,
and hosts a variety of Technology Venture Forums in such areas
as Information Technology, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences and
Energy. The papers described below were presented at the third
such forum on energy.
The Rice Alliance and the Petroleum
Technology Transfer Council have overlapping missions, that
being an endpoint where a good idea is nurtured, the means to
bring it to a commercial product encouraged, the business plan
executed, and new technology put into the hands of customers
to make their businesses thrive, benefiting the technology
company and their investors, the customers and the public.
While the PTTC focuses more in moving new, but proven
technologies into the hands of the customer (producers) to
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improve the way they search for and produce
hydrocarbons, the Rice Alliance focuses earlier in the product
life cycle to ensure that the good idea is given the resources
to become commercial. However, the Rice Alliance is broader in
scope, considering technologies in a number of fields other
than energy. That said, it's also narrower in scope in that it
is focused on technology providers in the Southeastern Region
and smaller startup companies that lack the resources that the
mainstream larger companies enjoy. While all energy topics are
considered, from petroleum exploration to fuel cells and power
generation, the Houston focus tends to tilt the mix toward
Exploration and Production. And while the geographic focus may
seem narrow, it encompasses a large segment of the petroleum
industry.
The Rice Alliance Energy Venture Forum is
dedicated to the "best of the best." Six new startup
technology companies are featured each year along with
research organizations. The candidate companies to be featured
in the forum are screened on a number of rigorous criteria:
- Viability of the company - ability to
generate revenues and profit
- Proprietary technology - strength of the
technology and problem solved
- Competitive advantage and ability to
sustain that advantage
- Size of the market and potential revenue
stream
- Strength of the management team
- Proof of concept from bench testing or
field trials
- A sound marketing and business plan
- Attractiveness of the company from an
investors perspective
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And the Winners Are: (In no particular order)
Focus Energy Corporation, headquartered in Roswell, New Mexico
was founded in 2003 by Jim Manatt, former President and Chief
Operating Officer of Permian Exploration Corporation. The
mission statement of Focus is "To see what has not been seen
before in the subsurface ahead of the competition creating
distinct economic advantage for our shareholders, clients and
company." (www.focusenergy.com) Their proprietary technology is a robust 3-D
seismic spatial mapping system for reservoir visualization.
With this technology, they have demonstrated the capability to
directly detect and map porosity and the bypassed oil and gas
in carbonate reefs. In 2002, Focus teamed with Sandia National
Laboratory to demonstrate the ability to image bypassed
reserves, making a quantum leap over current imaging
technology. The project was successful, resulting in a
bypassed porosity model of a producing field.
Focus is now prepared to go forward with
commercial implementation. The initial target is the carbonate
reefs of the 2,100 square mile Central Basin Platform in West
Texas and Southeastern New Mexico. According to the Texas
University Bureau of Economic Geology, the reef system
originally had 12 billion barrels in place, with 3 billion
recoverable from wells drilled to date. The remaining
"addressable oil" is estimated at 5 billion barrels.
Initially, Focus seeks to trade their services for a carried
working interest and back-in. The average target is estimated
at 375,000 barrels/well and Focus hopes to participate in 40
wells. In Phase II, expected to begin in 2007, Focus plans to
take a full working interest in an additional 60 wells.
Worldwide reef targets are large and plentiful, including
onshore and offshore fields in the
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State-of-the-Art
Summary