The selection environment for gas to liquids technology and technological strategies: Challenging the natural trajectory

The Gas to Liquids technology (GTL) consists of a chemical conversion of natural gas into a stable liquid by means of the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis. This conversion makes it possible to obtain products that can be consumed directly as a fuel (for example, Diesel) or special products such as lubricants. The original version of the FT process, using coal as the raw material, was commercially developed in Germany in the 1940s, during the Second World War. Nevertheless, with the exception of Sasol, a South African company, the FT process was abandoned by chemical companies after the war. The decade of the 1990s witnessed the return of the FT process to the center of attention in the world petroleum and natural gas industry. A radical transformation in the selection environment of this technology has opened the door for its reemergence. This paper analyzes the way in which the GTL’s selection environment is challenging its natural trajectory. We show that this selection environment is driving the technology into directions that are not in balance with the technology’s natural trajectory, as defined by Nelson and Winter (1977). As a consequence, at the level of their R&D strategies, firms have difficulties in defining a clear research program. The analysis of firms’ technological strategies gives evidence of a fragmented R&D effort. Some companies concentrate their efforts in the search for radical innovations trying to develop small-scale competitive processes. Others, such as big oil companies, tend to emphasize heavily economies of scale. As a result, the emergence and diffusion of the GTL technology tend to be locked in by a high level of uncertainty and a research agenda not clearly defined, which means that players tend to work with a dispersion of efforts.