A university project using advanced technologies to look for crude oil has sold for $76 million.

The Canberra-based Lithicon AS was formed by the Australian National University (ANU) and University of New South Wales, and has now been sold to the FEI Company; a US-based world leader in imaging technology for oil and gas exploration.

The Lithicon technique combines several approaches to accurately map and asses rocks and the fluid trapped within them. It has been extraordinarily useful for a number of companies’ coal and oil explorations in recent years.

Working with some of the world’s biggest resources companies, the technology has produced digital 3D images and simulations of fluids in rock samples, giving companies crucial help to work out the best way to extract resources. The approach was developed with assistance from a consortium of 14 multi-national oil and gas companies.

The big sale is one of the most significant returns on a commercial spin-off for the universities, which will see ANU receive $11 million from the proceeds and UNSW bag $4 million. For ANU, it means a five-fold increase on its original invention.

“The deal proves that Australian universities can grow a start-up company and work cooperatively with industry to build a successful business,” said Professor Michael Cardew-Hall, ANU researcher and director of Lithicon AS.

“FEI build instruments that free scientists to explore the fundamentals, the same tools which enable industry to apply leading edge research. In connecting innovation in research with innovation in industry they are the perfect partner for ANU,” said Professor Tim Senden, from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.

“By owning this emerging application they strategically support the source of the innovation – universities,” he said.