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--(Business Wire)--
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.

for Oil & Gas RFID Solution Group
Ricardo Martinez, 713-392-9881 (Public Relations)
http://rfid.tamu.edu
info@rfidsolutiongroup.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009