Oil Gas RFID Solution Group Consortium Brings Next Generation Wireless Technology to the Petroleum Industry:

Announces New Membership, Lab Facility, and Plans for Growth.

Houston, Texas February 12^th 2009 -- The Oil & Gas RFID (OGR) Solution Group today outlined its 2009 plan for advancing RFID Technology with the Petroleum and Petrochemical Industries. As part of its long term objectives to "develop systems with the help of a consolidated effort of Oil & Gas professionals", some of the groups new participants include BP (formally British Petroleum), Dow Chemical, Oracle, and Texas Instruments. It has also announced the opening of its 52 acre live-lab facility, which includes simulated petroleum and petrochemical environments where testing of field equipment and application systems can be performed.

Group Director and Co-Founder, Dr. Ben Zoghi of Texas A&M University, has been involved in supporting and enabling these industry/integrator interactions and aligning objectives as the group moves forward. "Our group has the industries foremost champions of Wireless and Radio Frequency Identification Technology. It is our objective that with this group of industry leaders we will cultivate a successful roadmap of adoption for the entire industry. A roadmap that bridges industry standards, exposes pain points, and enables business optimization," says Dr. Zoghi.

"There is a tremendous value with putting academia, solution provider, and end-user around the same table. Some of our workshops involve partnering integrators and hardware providers together to define and develop turn-key systems based on end-user requirements. It truly is an exceptional demonstration of the synergies of our member eco-system," adds Dr. Zoghi.

The group is also headed by 8 other founding members that are no strangers to the RFID industry. They include: Gary Smith, the Subject-Matter Expert for Dow Chemical's RFID and GPS, AutoID Expertise Center, Curt Smith the Director of Applications for the Chief Technology Office for BP, Konrad Konarski co-founder of OGR and President of Merlin Concepts & Technology, Sam Falsafi co-founder of OGR and Senior Director of Business Solutions for Shipcom Wireless, Jason Brewer the Strategic Account Manager for Avery Dennison, John Rommel the Director of RFID Channel Development, Chris Mahler the Director of Industry Development for EPC Global, and Dr. Tom Chen of the University of Houston.

The founding members to-date have played a considerable role in building a foundation for the group to support product, business, and system development initiatives moving forward. With this in place, a new round of industry experts have come on board to support the group’s effort. These companies include recognized wireless and RFID industry leaders Identec Solutions, Merrick Systems, Hi-G-Tek, AirGate Technologies, Axcess International, and the aforementioned Oracle and Texas Instruments.

Dr. Zoghi adds, "With these industry executives added to the growing list of recognized RFID professionals, the group is enthusiastically moving forward with our 2009 plans."

These plans include enhancing the capabilities of both end-users and solution providers to evaluate innovation through the OGR's "Live RFID Lab". This lab includes a variety of simulated petroleum and petrochemical environments to test and showcase wireless and RFID solutions. These environments include production facilities, storage tanks, rigs, pipeline, rail cars, and various other setups that are inherent to the sector. The facility provides an ability to present these systems to the end-user community with a low-risk and controlled system environment. Furthermore, it allows these systems to be validated in conditions that are virtually identical to live environments.

In addition to the laboratory, OGR's strategic initiatives include the possibility for international expansion to the middle-east, where a growing need and adoption of wireless and RFID technology is surfacing, as well as aligning some of its new objectives with a changing economy and a new price point for petroleum. With a changing face to the 2009 global petroleum market space, OGR is aiming to showcase these cost saving and business enhancing value points of wireless and radio frequency identification technology that are brought forth by the consolidated work of the end-users, solution providers, and academic institutions of the group.

"We have succeeded in bringing the industry together and are committed to our groups objectives to identify, define, develop and deploy the wireless and RFID systems for the market space. This year we want to reach out to the end-user community, whether it be exploration, drilling, production, refining, or product manufacturing, and enhance their business with the knowledge and systems that we've developed at OGR through our partners and members, "concludes Dr. Zoghi.

The Oil & Gas RFID Solution Group (OGR) brings together select industry subject matter experts, academic researchers and technology service providers to identify, define, develop, and deploy cutting edge solutions for Exploration, Production, Drilling, Refining, Petrochemical Processing and Field Product Manufacturing in the Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical markets. By educating and refining the customers understanding of what the technology can do for them, and developing systems with the help of a consolidated effort of industry professionals, the solutions group is creating scalable application systems and data standards, and helping to generate understanding and adoption of Radio Frequency Identification within the Industry. Its founding members include Texas A&M University, Motorola, Merlin Concepts & Technology, Shipcom Wireless, Avery Dennison, Dow Chemical, BP, University of Houston, and EPC Global.

Website: http://rfid.tamu.edu
Email: info@rfidsolutiongroup.com
Public Relations Contact:
Ricardo Martinez
(713) 392-9881