Innovations in oil & gas - upstream breakthrough technologies and required acceleration framework

Bridging the gap between idea and successful hi-tech business is an extremely challenging task in any technology area. However each area has its own peculiarities in terms of the main tasks to be solved and the competences to be developed. For upstream technologies the most challenging specific task is to validate the technology through full-scale field tests and then find early adopters to make first sales. This task is a typical chicken-and-egg problem: how to perform a full-scale field test if only a thoroughly validated technology can grant access to the field. The primary goal of Skolkovo Oil & Gas Center is to facilitate the development of Russian oil & gas startups from the stage of proven concept or tested prototype to first commercial sales.\nThis paper focuses on the key initiatives and mechanisms implemented by the Center to reach this goal and some successful cases of their implementation.