Oil corporations biofuels technology strategies: Disregard and alliances

The high oil prices, the need to reduce greenhouse gases emission and the search for energy security have increased the interest in the research, exploration and production of alternatives to fossil fuels. This paper discusses some key aspects of technological strategies of four large oil companies that invested in biofuel from 2005 to 2010. The results show that some of these companies, which for many years worked independently on their R&D projects, looked for strategic alliances in their biofuel projects. These partnerships were targeted at joint research and production, research and development, acquisitions and joint ventures. Part of the investments on R&D was directed towards ethanol and biodiesel, but with different approaches in each company. Petrobras invested to increase the ethanol production capacity, while BP had most of its projects aiming at breakthroughs in biodiesel. Shell focused on research and development of second generation biofuels and Exxon invested particularly in the production of biodiesel. Except by Petrobras and maybe Shell, oil companies do not seem very concerned with a biofuels threat to their businesses in the short or medium term.