Technology Transfer in Oil Industry, Significance and Challenges

Oil industry is one of the biggest and most effective industries in the world and it has more important role in energy market in the future. The impact of this industry in economy, policy and development of oil-producing countries is considerable and distinguished from two aspects. One is the role of oil-related technologies in developing of the country and increasing revenue and second is the risk of no oil future for oil-producing countries. Despite of depending these countries on oil production, there is a big gap between them and oil corporations from revenue point of view. This is mainly because of oil technology that has not been developed in oil-producing countries. In the world the business of big oil corporations is based on engineering capability and strong technical infrastructure. Main part of the income of those corporations is due to their industrial capabilities, but oil-producing countries gain income from selling crude oil while getting their industrial needs especially in the field of engineering, planning and equipment from big oil corporations and foreign technology suppliers. The promotion of technology transfer to developing countries has been a recurrent issue on the international economic agenda of the past three decades .This article studies the importance of technology transfer in oil industry and procedures and obstacles to decrease technological and revenue gap between oil-producing countries and technology creator countries. The article was based on actual case studies of successful technology transfer events and a simple model of the technology transfer.The authors hope this article may stimulate others to consider how to utilize technology more effectively to enhance competitiveness of developing countries in the changing global economy.