The oil and natural gas industry in the United States today has a much different character than it did prior to 1980. No longer does “Big Oil” dominate the makeup of America 's oil and natural 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 natural 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 its natural gas and 40 percent of its oil (nearly 60 percent 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 natural gas fields.

In addition to attending and presenting at numerous industry conferences and workshops each year, NETL uses the services of the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council to ensure the widest dissemination of effective technology. DOE helped industry create PTTC in 1993. This non-profit, industry-driven organization transfers exploration and production technology to U.S. oil and natural gas producers through programs that meet the technology needs of its customers, primarily independent producers. PTTC conducts most of its technology-transfer activities through 10 regional lead organizations, each representing an oil and natural gas producing area that may have similar geologic features and technology needs.

To assist the small and independent operators who own the vast majority of the Nation's “stripper” wells—those that produce less than 10 barrels per day of oil or less than 60 thousand cubic feet per day of natural gas—NETL organized a Stripper Well Consortium in association with Pennsylvania State University. The consortium allows operators to leverage their resources and experiences, with federal assistance, to analyze the causes of premature well declines and to apply the latest technologies to correct them.

Identifying new technology needs among America 's oil and natural gas producers is also part of NETL's mission. The PRIME (Public Resources Invested in Management and Extraction) program [PDF-6000KB] emphasizes longer-term, higher-risk research with the goal of reducing costs, risks, and environmental impacts associated with finding and producing U.S. petroleum resources. In kicking off the program, NETL conducted a 2001 workshop in Houston , Texas , convening over 60 technology developers and users from industry, academia, and the DOE national laboratories. The workshop's purpose was to get industry input on exploration and production technology R&D needs and opportunities to facilitate the public-private partnerships that would follow.

Several other programs, now inactive, generated information of value to small independent producers:

• The PUMP (Preferred Upstream Management Practices) program was specifically designed to help slow the decline in the Nation's oil production and to maintain the domestic infrastructure to continue to produce oil. PUMP was aimed at pairing “best practices” and solutions coming from new technologies with an active campaign of disseminating information to domestic producers. PUMP's strategies were to focus on regions that present the biggest potential for additional oil production; integrate solutions to technological, regulatory, and data constraints; demonstrate validity of these solutions through targeted field demonstrations and comprehensive documentation of successful use, and establish technology transfer methods and organizations to provide access to information.
• In 1995, DOE launched Technology Development with Independents , a program that assisted independent producers in developing and demonstrating technologies especially relevant to their operations. Efforts entailed cost-shared R&D field demonstration projects whose results were quickly disseminated to the industry through workshops and other communications efforts. The goals of the program were to extend economic production of domestic fields by slowing the rate of well abandonments and preserving industry infrastructure; and to increase ultimate recovery in known fields using advanced technologies. Since 1995, 62 projects were conducted in 19 states. Projects included research in the areas of reservoir characterization; production management; formation evaluation; improved oil recovery; and produced water reduction.
• On Tribal lands, there are an estimated 890 million barrels of oil and natural gas liquids, and 5.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This resource base translates into huge potential revenues for the Tribes. DOE's Native American Initiative was designed to help Tribes develop and manage their energy resources in an environmentally-sound manner by participating in joint exploration and production efforts with the oil industry. The program supported the development and application of innovative petroleum technologies and promoted government-to-government relationships and Tribal partnerships with industry and academia. The program required oil and natural gas companies working on NETL projects on Tribal lands to take on Tribes as partners and to employ Tribal members where possible.