With one quarter of proven oil reserves and the largest oil production in the world, Saudi Arabia has been at the center of world politics. Its vast oil resources have been utilized in various ways to maximize internal and external security. While oil revenue allowed the Saudi state to buy off legitimacy at home and abroad, the Saudi state exploited oil supply to either forge alliances with or pressure consuming and producing countries. By providing an insightful account of how oil resources shaped Saudi security policies since the mid-twentieth century, Islam Y. Qasem offers a timely contribution to the study of oil politics and the interrelationship between economic interdependence and security.

Enhanced-Oil Recovery (EOR) evaluations focused on asset acquisition or rejuvenation involve a combination of complex decisions, using different data sources. EOR projects have been traditionally associated with high CAPEX and OPEX, as well as high financial risk, which tend to limit the number of EOR projects launched. In this book, the authors propose workflows for EOR evaluations that account for different volumes and quality of information. This flexible workflow has been successfully applied to oil property evaluations and EOR feasibility studies in many oil reservoirs. The methodology associated with the workflow relies on traditional (look-up tables, XY correlations, etc.) and more advanced (data mining for analog reservoir search and geology indicators) screening methods, emphasizing identification of analogues to support decision making. The screening phase is combined with analytical or simplified numerical simulations to estimate full-field performance by using reservoir data-driven segmentation procedures.
Case Studies form Asia, Canada, Mexico, South America and the United States

Assets evaluated include reservoir types ranging from oil sands to condensate reservoirs.

Different stages of development and information availability are discussed

With extraction out of depleted wells more important than ever, this new and developing technology is literally changing drilling engineering for future generations. Never before published in book form, these cutting-edge technologies and the processes that surround them are explained in easy-tounderstand language, complete with worked examples, problems and solutions. This volume is invaluable as a textbook for both the engineering student and the veteran engineer who needs to keep up with changing technology.

In this highly anticipated volume, the world-renowned authors take a basic approach to present the principles of petroleum reservoir simulation in an easy-to-use and accessible format. Applicable to any oil and gas recovery method, this book uses a block-centered grid and a point-distributed grid. It treats various boundary conditions as fictitious wells, gives algebraic equations for their flowrates and presents an elaborate treatment of radial grid for single-well simulation to analyze well test results and to create well pseudo-functions necessary in conducting a practical reservoir simulation study. This book is accompanied by companion site that includes a single-phase simulator, a user s manual, data and output files for four solved problems. The easy-to-use simulator allows students, readers and educators to input new problems and get their solutions."

In this superb new volume, Edward Whitticks has charted the course for anyone working with contracts and dispute control in oil and gas, one of the most volatile industries in the world. His practical, straightforward approach will move you step by step through the process of contractual negotiations, bids and closeouts. For anyone working in the oil and gas industry today, finding your way through the maze of contract management seems more cutthroat and challenging than ever before. In "Construction Contracts," Edward Whitticks dispels the myth that there has to be a winner and a loser in contractual management and dispute control. As a desktop companion for project managers and engineers, contract administrators, cost scheduling engineers and others engaged in the field of refinery, pipeline and petrochemical construction, this book covers the entire contract process."

High oil prices are bound to undermine the U.S. economic recovery, unless global supplies increase significantly. Latin America holds the world's biggest oil reserves after the Middle East, but politics are hindering its potential, especially in Venezuela. Global U.S. security would benefit from a revamping of outdated and misguided idealism-driven policies toward Latin America, which, in fact, strengthen anti-American forces led by President Hugo Chavez.
This is a blind spot in American politics, one that threatens U.S. geopolitical and economic interests. At stake, ultimately, is the U.S.'s ability to navigate a shifting world and protect its way of life. Washington needs a new regional policy not only to neutralize Chavez, but also to secure long term access to Latin America's oil, improve global security, and counter the rising influence of regional players.
"America's Blind Spo"t offers a fascinating and thorough analysis of key geopolitical and economic threats to the U.S., highlighting the need for a new Latin American policy doctrine based on military and strategic priorities.

This title presents key information on the oil industry world-wide, and will be of interest to anyone involved in or studying the politics of oil production, processing and selling. Oil has long been at the forefront of political agendas, and with increased tensions in the Middle East, there has never been a greater need for up-to-date, reliable information on this key industry. Four sections present a through overview of current issues in the politics of oil in historical perspectives. The first section consists of essays written by a variety of academic and other experts on topics including oil and the global political economy, supermajor oil companies and geopolitics, oil and Iraq and environmental conflict in Nigeria. The second section is an A-Z glossary for reference of theories, issues, organizations, countries, conflicts and disputes, including entries on Azerbaijan, Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline, Carter Doctrine, Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Greenpeace, Peak Oil etc. The third section includes detailed maps, both regional and worldwide, showing oil pipelines, oil reserves, production, consumption and trade flows, as well as statistics on petroleum reserves, production, consumption, trade movements and imports and exports. The final section is a select bibliography.

For decades, studies of oil-related conflicts have focused on the effects of natural resource mismanagement, resulting in great economic booms and busts or violence as rebels fight ruling governments over their regions' hydrocarbon resources. In "Oil Sparks in the Amazon," Patricia I. Vasquez writes that while oil busts and civil wars are common, the tension over oil in the Amazon has played out differently, in a way inextricable from the region itself.
Oil disputes in the Amazon primarily involve local indigenous populations. These groups' social and cultural identities differ from the rest of the population, and the diverse disputes over land, displacement, water contamination, jobs, and wealth distribution reflect those differences. Vasquez spent fifteen years traveling to the oilproducing regions of Latin America, conducting hundreds of interviews with the stakeholders in local conflicts. She analyzes fifty-five social and environmental clashes related to oil and gas extraction in the Andean countries (Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia). She also examines what triggers local hydrocarbons disputes and offers policy recommendations to resolve or prevent them.
Vasquez argues that each case should be analyzed with attention to its specific sociopolitical and economic context. She shows how the key to preventing disputes that lead to local conflicts is to address structural flaws (such as poor governance and inadequate legal systems) and nonstructural flaws (such as stakeholders' attitudes and behavior) at the outset. Doing this will require more than strong political commitments to ensure the equitable distribution of oil and gas revenues. It will require attention to the local values and culture as well.

The Caspian Sea region is rich in oil and natural gas and can potentially become a major energy supplier. Despite the interest of the three Caspian countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, their energy resources have remained mainly undeveloped a decade after their independence. The main factor that has prevented the full development of the Caspian energy resources has been the difficulty of selecting long-term safe, reliable, and economically viable export routes. The three landlocked Caspian countries have no choice but to depend on their neighbors to access international waters for their exports. For many reasons, including internal stability and extensive oil facilities and pipelines, Iran offers the most suitable routes to all three Caspian countries. However, despite the interest of the Caspian energy-exporters, in using this route, the U.S. policy of containment of Iran has prevented them from doing so. For political, economic, and security reasons, the existing in-use Georgian and Russian routes cannot and will not be a long-term solution for energy exports. The insistence of the American government on imposing the expensive and unreliable Turkish route on the reluctant Caspian energy-exporters and its categorical rejection of the Iranian route have created a major obstacle to the development of the Caspian energy industries.

As Peimani suggests, if this policy continues, many oil and gas exporters will opt for the Iranian route without regard to existing U.S. punitive legislation. The results could well be the isolation of the U.S. in the Caspian region and a gradual exclusion of American oil companies from the region. This overview will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and policymakers involved with economic and political issues of the region.

The opening of the Caspian Sea basin to Western investment following the breakup of the Soviet Union produced a major contest for access to the region's vast energy reserves on the part of powers as close as Russia, Turkey, and Iran, and as far away as Japan and the United States. Indeed, the struggle to exploit Caspian oil has been one of the most monumental geopolitical developments of the post-Cold War era as external powers vie for political, economic, and military influence in a region brimming not only with oil, but also with ethnic conflicts and historical animosities.

The coming decade of rapidly increasing demand for energy will ensure the continued interest and engagement of external powers with often competing geopolitical agendas. Thus the geopolitical developments spawned by the opening of the Caspian Sea are likely to continue to far outweigh the actual impact of Caspian oil on world energy markets. This collection of essays by prominent scholars and international experts offers several important and often conflicting interpretations of the events unfolding along the shores of the world's oldest oil-producing region.

Processes of change, stagnation and development in the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council are analyzed in this book. The contributors show impact of oil revenues on population change and social development and on redefining the socio-economic role of the state. Oil could open venues for industrialization and development. However, lack of population policies, problems of human resources development, the rather slow change in gender relations and in political systems and heavy spending on militarization, it is argued, could impede development endeavour.

Two decades ago, British Petroleum, a venerable and storied corporation, was running out of oil reserves. Along came a new CEO of vision and vast ambition, John Browne, who pulled off one of the greatest corporate turnarounds in history. BP bought one company after another and then relentlessly fired employees and cut costs. It skipped safety procedures, pumped toxic chemicals back into the ground, and let equipment languish, even while Browne claimed a new era of environmentally sustainable business as his own. For a while the strategy worked, making BP one of the most profitable corporations in the world. Then it all began to unravel, in felony convictions for environmental crimes and in one deadly accident after another. Employees and regulators warned that BP's problems, unfixed, were spinning out of control, that another disaster--bigger and deadlier--was inevitable. Nobody was listening. Having reported on business and the energy industry for nearly a decade, Abrahm Lustgarten uses interviews with key executives, former government investigators, and whistle-blowers along with his exclusive access to BP's internal documents and emails to weave a spellbinding investigative narrative of hubris and greed well before the gulf oil spill.

Oil and Nation places petroleum at the center of Bolivia's contentious twentieth-century history. Bolivia's oil, Cote argues, instigated the largest war in Latin America in the 1900s, provoked the first nationalization of a major foreign company by a Latin American state, and shaped both the course and the consequences of Bolivia's transformative National Revolution of 1952. Oil and natural gas continue to steer the country under the government of Evo Morales, who renationalized hydrocarbons in 2006 and has used revenues from the sector to reduce poverty and increase infrastructure development in South America's poorest country. The book advances chronologically from Bolivia's earliest petroleum pioneers in the nineteenth century until the present, inserting oil into historical debates about Bolivian ethnic, racial, and environmental issues, and within development strategies by different administrations. While Bolivia is best known for its tin mining, Oil and Nation makes the case that nationalist reformers viewed hydrocarbons and the state oil company as a way to modernize the country away from the tin monoculture and its powerful backers and toward an oil-powered future.

Lean Refining: How to Improve Performance in the Oil Industry addresses the tremendous opportunities this quality improvement system can exploit to achieve huge financial gains, while simultaneously improving morale, timeliness, quality, safety, reliability, and environmental performance. The book offers numerous examples of how lean methodologies can be applied, the gains that can be achieved, and takes readers through a prescriptive process of implementation. The book is divided into 3 parts. Part I is specific to the topic of lean manufacturing, and explains exactly what lean is... as well as what it isn't. Part II addresses lean manufacturing in the oil industry in general, and refining in particular. It explains why lean is not the prevalent improvement strategy in refining, and why it's more likely to appear among the smaller companies first. It also explains the differences that petroleum refining brings to the lean model. Part III covers topics needed to understand how to implement, organize, and roll out a lean transformation from the top down. An affiliated website boasts tons of valuable information, including: Forms and evaluations for such topics as The 10 Lean Killers, The 6 Roll Out Errors, The 5 Precursors to a Lean Transformation, and more; Samples of working documents such as A3s, Leader Standard Work, and 5 supervisory tools, in both template form and completed; A comprehensive reading and reference list of nearly 500 resources, broken into topical material; Links to 3rd-party websites where readers can download e-forms and other related information. "Lonnie Wilson merges his extensive knowledge and experience of both lean manufacturing and refining in an easy-to-grasp way." -N. Brandon Hughes, ChEng & Energy MBA, Optimization & Production Analyst, YASREF an Aramco JV"No matter what your business, the principles identified in this book can positively change your company's operating and financial results-and your management skills.... I highly recommend it." -Eugene J. Voiland, Founding President & CEO (retired), Aera Energy, LLC"It is simply uncanny how he breaks down complexity to deliver valuable insight and, most importantly, solutions that work." -Jason Farley, Founder BridgeGap Consulting"I have found in Lonnie Wilson a rare combination of both passion for, and the ability to clearly communicate, the principles of continuous improvement." -Michael J. Wiseman, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt MJW Lean Consulting LLC"A 'must read' for all refinery employees, these are instructions on how to create a world-class re fining team." -R.R. Kooiman, PE"I wish I could have had the opportunity to have Lonnie teach and mentor me 25 years ago." -Fred Kaschak, Global Manufacturing Director, The Woodbridge Group"It is not just the best book on the subject; it is the only book. Lean Refining will change the industry forever." - Robert H. Simonis, Founder, KCE Consulting, Director of Rapid Improvement, CEVA Logistics, Lieutenant Colonel (retired), U.S. ArmyLonnie Wilson, a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt and Six Sigma trainer, has been teaching and implementing Lean techniques for 40 years. His experience spans 20 years in manufacturing management with an international oil company. In 1990, he founded Quality Consultants, which teaches and applies Lean techniques to small entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 Firms, principally in the US, Mexico, and Canada. Mr. Wilson has taught for the El Paso Community College and the University of Texas at El Paso, and is an active Senior Member of the American Society for Quality Control. He has spoken at the iSixSigma annual Petroleum Energy Conferences, Industry Week, Honda Lean Suppliers Network, APICS, ASQ, and ARM (Association of Rotational Molders) Annual Conferences. Wilson is the author of the highly successful, How to Implement Lean Manufacturing, published by McGraw-Hill. Preface Introduction The Story of the Toyota Headrest Cell, the Theta Cell What Is Lean Manufacturing? Why Is Lean Manufacturing So Misunderstood? How Much Has Lean Penetrated the Refining Business? Where Will Lean First Appear in the Refining Industry? How Can Lean Benefit the Refining-Focused Businesses? What Differences Does Petroleum Refining Bring to Lean? The House of Lean Lean Manufacturing Foundational Issue-People Lean Manufacturing Foundational Issue-Process Stability Lean Manufacturing: The Quality Control Tools How Lean Has Worked in the Oil Business Distinguishing Lean from Other Improvement Methodologies Implementing the Lean Transformation.

While oil price fluctuations in the past can be explained by pure supply factors, this book argues that it is monetary policy that plays a significant role in setting global oil prices. It is a key factor often neglected in much of the earlier literature on the determinants of asset prices, including oil prices. However, this book presents a framework for modeling oil prices while incorporating monetary policy. It also provides a complete theoretical basis of the determinants of crude oil prices and the transmission channels of oil shocks to the economy. Moreover, using several up-to-date surveys and examples from the real world, this book gives insight into the empirical side of energy economics. The empirical studies offer explanations for the impact of monetary policy on crude oil prices in different periods including during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008-2009, the impact of oil price variations on developed and emerging economies, the effectiveness of monetary policy in the Japanese economy incorporating energy prices, and the macroeconomic impacts of oil price movements in trade-linked cases. This must-know information on energy economics is presented in a reader-friendly format without being overloaded with excessive and complicated calculations. enUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>

'Clear-eyed and illuminating.' Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor 'A rich, superbly researched, balanced history of the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.' General David Petraeus, former Commander U.S. Central Command and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency 'Destined to be the best single volume on the Kingdom.' Ambassador Chas Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Assistant Secretary of Defense 'Should be prescribed reading for a new generation of political leaders.' Sir Richard Dearlove, former Chief of H.M. Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Something extraordinary is happening in Saudi Arabia. A traditional, tribal society once known for its lack of tolerance is rapidly implementing significant economic and social reforms. An army of foreign consultants is rewriting the social contract, King Salman has cracked down hard on corruption, and his dynamic though inexperienced son, the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, is promoting a more tolerant Islam. But is all this a new vision for Saudi Arabia or merely a mirage likely to dissolve into Iranian-style revolution? David Rundell - one of America's foremost experts on Saudi Arabia - explains how the country has been stable for so long, why it is less so today, and what is most likely to happen in the future. The book is based on the author's close contacts and intimate knowledge of the country where he spent 15 years living and working as a diplomat. Vision or Mirage demystifies one of the most powerful, but least understood, states in the Middle East and is essential reading for anyone interested in the power dynamics and politics of the Arab World.

Environmental and Health Issues in Unconventional Oil and Gas Development offers a series of authoritative perspectives from varied viewpoints on key issues relevant in the use of directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, providing a timely presentation of requisite information on the implications of these technologies for those connected to unconventional oil and shale gas development. Utilizing expertise from a range of contributors in academia, non-governmental organizations, and the oil and gas industry, Environmental and Health Issues in Unconventional Oil and Gas Development is an essential resource for academics and professionals in the oil and gas, environmental, and health and safety industries as well as for policy makers.

The Mexican expropriation of British and American properties in March 1938 marked the first time any oil-producing country successfully stood up to foreign companies who claimed to own oil properties in that country and who had the support of their respective governments. Totally reliant on overseas oil at a time when war seemed imminent, British officials responsible for policy toward Mexico immediately emphasized the importance of preventing other oil-exporting nations from following Mexico's lead. Washington also sought to make an example of Mexico--one that would guarantee respect for U.S. businesses operating abroad.

Although both Washington and London wanted to return to the pre-expropriation status quo, Washington was unwilling to work with London to achieve this goal, and Washington's attitude paralleled its reaction to British efforts to get U.S. support on certain defense issues during this critical period. The resulting Anglo-American strife over how to handle Mexico was also consistent with Anglo-American commercial competition and the oil rivalry in Mexico early in the century.

This book explains how and why large oil-producing corporations have affected government institutions, energy policy, and politics in the United States—and suggests how their influence can be reduced. Big oil is the leading factor in U.S. energy politics today; the largest oil-producing companies also constitute a formidable force and interest group in American politics. This book examines why oil is so important and how the prominence of huge corporations—often working in the absence of countervailing forces—has affected government institutions, policy (with a focus on energy policy), and politics in the United States. Analyzing big oil's influence on political outcomes, particularly through campaign contributions and lobbying, this book shows how strong corporate power affects political participation. The book documents how the influence of big oil flows in all directions, intricately connecting U.S. policies at all levels—foreign policy, federal, state, and even local—regarding oil exploration, development, production, and transportation. Readers will come away with a clear understanding of how these multi-tiered relationships between oil corporations and governments work to the advantage of corporations—and to the disadvantage of states and the citizens they represent.

In the emerging post-Cold War new world order, the economics and politics of the oil industry will be quite different. New approaches and mechanisms are under way to deal with new challenges and old difficulties, such as environmental imperatives and the uncertainty of prices and availability. This edited volume provides an authoritative and comprehensive view of changing oil markets through informative discussions on global oil reserves, production and consumption trends, futures markets, refining, the political economy, and global environmental concerns. A very useful tool for researchers, scholars, and businesspeople in energy and environmental policy economics, political economics, economics of natural resources, and regional economics.

The third book in the Getenergy Guides series, The Evolution of Four Energy Nations considers how four very different countries have evolved as oil and gas-producing nations and how the interventions of government, industry and the education and training sector have addressed workforce and skills development challenges in each of these countries. This volume will explore - in each case - the historical growth of the industry, the dynamics of the industry today and the projected direction of travel for the industry in the future. Within this context, the volume will examine the nature of the skills and workforce demands that each country has experienced and will analyze the influence of policy initiatives (including those related to the establishment and running of national oil companies), the impact of industry activities, and the role of education and training providers. Each of these four extended case studies will reveal what we can learn from past and recent experiences. The case studies will also explore the extent to which the effectiveness of approaches to skills and workforce development within the oil and gas industry are contextual and what commonalities there are in terms of success factors. The Guide will conclude with a set of observations regarding best (and worst) practices that can inform future interventions in hydrocarbon-producing nations across the world.

Volume 1: "Education and Training for the Oil and Gas Industry: Case Studies in Partnership and Collaboration" explores the way in which global standards in education within the oil and gas industry can be developed and implemented through partnership and collaboration. This volume considers the current political and economic context for this within oil and gas producing countries and maps out key stakeholders, explores current education and training provision, gathers perspectives from industry and from national oil companies and develop a manifesto for education and training in the oil and gas industry globally. "The Getenergy Guides" crystallizes the lessons and examples of best practice from ten years of interactions and engagements. It offers a blueprint for a unified, universal set of quality standards and collates the tools and techniques necessary to implement these standards in a way that all companies, training providers, educators and governments can embrace.

Edited by Getenergy s Executive Team which for more than a decade has uniquely specialized in mapping and connecting the world of academia and learning with the upstream oil and gas industry through events and workshops around the globe. Detailed research into the key facts surrounding each case with analysis to enable readers to quickly and effectively extract the lessons and apply to a variety of challenges in building oil/gas workforce capacity. Highlights the business lessons for universities, colleges and training providers from collaborative working to support skills projects for major companies where demand is greatest. Includes full colour images and partnership diagrams to underscore key concepts Offers a unified and universal case study rating mechanism in which readers can participate on-line to be part of this important and varied community. "

The oil price collapse of 1985-6 had momentous global consequences: non-fossil energy sources quickly became uncompetitive, the previous talk of an OPEC 'imperium' was turned upside-down, the Soviet Union lost a large portion of its external revenues, and many Third World producers saw their foreign debts peak. Compared to the much-debated 1973 `oil shock', the `countershock' has not received the same degree of attention, even though its legacy has shaped the present-day energy scenario. This volume is the first to put the oil `counter-shock' of the mid-1980s into historical perspective. Featuring some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field, Counter-Shock offers a balanced approach between the global picture and local study cases. In particular, it highlights the crucial interaction between the oil counter-shock and the political `counterrevolution' against state intervention in economic management, put forward by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the same period.

Measurement is the basis of commerce between producers, royalty owners, transporters, process plants, marketers, state and federal government authorities, and the general public. In fact, accurate measurement of hydrocarbon fluids and materials has a significant impact on the Gross National Product of exporting and importing countries, the financial performance and asset base of global companies, and the perceived efficiency of operating facilities. The need for accurate fiscal measurement is obvious. This information-packed volume covers all aspects of natural gas measurement and provides a clear presentation of the measurement principles, state-of-the-art technology, and its applications in the real world.

This contributed volume examines the far-reaching effects of the weakening of OPEC's cohesion and influence in the 1980s, the resulting decline of oil prices, and the accompanying economic reversals. These events resulted in both fortune and misfortune for oil users and producers and dramatically changed energy economics worldwide. Moreover, as revealed in this volume, the decade of the 1980s demonstrated that oil producers and oil importers can prosper in an atmosphere of mutual respect, cooperation, and moderation.

The work examines major oil-related topics such as the experiences of OPEC and non-OPEC oil suppliers in the 1980s, adjustment and response of oil importers to changes in the oil market, the impact of oil price changes on both the developed and developing world, and possible future developments in the global oil market. This volume will be of interest to scholars of energy and international economics, as well as professionals in the area of energy development and markets.