Pittsburgh, Pa. – In partnership with leading energy companies, technology investors and Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ Shale Gas Innovation & Commercialization Center, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) is proud to support the 2013 Shale Gas Innovation Contest – a competition that provides small- and mid-sized businesses the opportunity to showcase and market emerging technologies and services to the region’s growing natural gas industry.

Spearheaded by Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ Shale Gas Innovation & Commercialization Center, this year’s program highlights three winners from 12 finalists at an event held today in Washington County, Pa. More than 70 applicants entered this year’s contest for the opportunity to win $75,000 in prize money.

“Innovation, research and technological advancements have been, and continue to be, the catalyst for shale gas development’s sustained success,” said MSC chief executive officer Kathryn Klaber. “The companies honored today as finalists, as well as the other 70 applicants, should be proud of their work, and we commend their efforts to further improve the safe, productive, and cost-competitive development of this world-class resource. Without forward-looking thinkers and companies willing to invest in new technologies, the natural gas revolution that we’re witnessing today would not have been possible.”

The MSC, through its Research Collaborative, has been an active partner with the Shale Gas Innovation & Commercialization Center for the past three years. At the MSC’s annual SHALE INSIGHT ® conference, a Technology Showcase forum provides companies the opportunity to formally demonstrate and actively market their services to natural gas industry officials. Companies interested in presenting at SHALE INSIGHT® 2013 should visit www.shaleinsight.com for additional information on this year’s Technology Showcase.

Read more about technology driving America’s energy resurgence, as reported last week by the Associated Press:

  • Technology created an energy revolution over the past decade – just not the one we expected. … Oil companies big and small have used technology to find a bounty of oil and natural gas so large that worries about running out have melted away. New imaging technologies let drillers find oil and gas trapped miles underground and undersea. Oil rigs “walk” from one drill site to the next. But while the national focus was on alternatives, the oil and gas industry was innovating too. New technology allowed drillers to do two crucial things: find more places where oil and gas is hidden and bring it to the surface economically. … Onshore, small drillers learned how to pull oil and gas out of previously inaccessible underground rock formations.” .. “It has made possible things that were unthinkable 10 years ago…”

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