Oil is the lifeblood of the modern world. Without it, there would be no planes, no plastic, no exotic produce, and a global political landscape few would recognise. Humanity's dependence upon oil looks set to continue for decades to come, but what is it? Fully updated and packed with fascinating facts to fuel dinner party debate, Professor Vaclav Smil's Oil: A Beginner's Guide explains all matters related to the `black stuff', from its discovery in the earth right through to the controversy that surrounds it today.

Bestselling author Bethany McLean reveals the true story of fracking's impact -- on Wall Street, the economy and geopolitics.

The technology of fracking in shale rock -- particularly in the Permian Basin in Texas -- has transformed America into the world's top producer of both oil and natural gas. The U.S. is expected to be "energy independent" and a "net exporter" in less than a decade, a move that will upend global politics, destabilize Saudi Arabia, crush Russia's chokehold over Europe, and finally bolster American power again.

Or will it?

Investigative journalist Bethany McLean digs deep into the cycles of boom and bust that have plagued the American oil industry for the past decade, from the financial wizardry and mysterious death of fracking pioneer Aubrey McClendon, to the investors who are questioning the very economics of shale itself. McLean finds that fracking is a business built on attracting ever-more gigantic amounts of capital investment, while promises of huge returns have yet to bear out. Saudi America tells a remarkable story that will persuade you to think about the power of oil in a new way.

It's a fair bet that most of what you think you know about oil prices is wrong. Despite the massive price fluctuations of the past decade, the received wisdom on the subject has remained fundamentally unchanged since the 1970s. When asked, most people - including politicians, financial analysts and pundits - will respond with a tired litany of reasons ranging from increased Chinese and Indian competition for diminishing resources and tensions in the Middle East, to manipulation by OPEC and exorbitant petrol taxes in the EU. Yet the facts belie these explanations. For instance, what really happened in late 2008 when, in just a few weeks, oil prices plummeted from $144 dollars to $37 dollars a barrel? Did Chinese and Indian demand suddenly dry up? Did Middle East conflicts magically resolve themselves? Did OPEC flood the market with crude? In each case the answer is a definitive no - quite the opposite in fact.

Industry expert Salvatore Carollo explains that the truth behind today's increasingly volatile oil market is that over the past two decades oil prices have come untethered from all classical notions of supply and demand and have transcended any country's, consortium's, cartel's, or corporate entity's powers to control them. At play is a subtler, more complex game than most analysts realise (or are unwilling to admit to), a very dangerous game involving runaway financial speculation, self-defeating government policymaking and a concerted disinvestment in refinery capacity among the oil majors.

In "Understanding Oil Prices" Carollo identifies the key players in this dangerous game, exploring their competing interests and motivations, their moves and countermoves. Beginning with the1976 oil embargo and moving through the 1986 Chernobyl incident, the implementation of the US Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, and the precipitous expansion of the oil futures market since the turn of the century, he traces the vast structural changes which have occurred within the oil industry over the past four decades, identifying their economic, social and geopolitical drivers, and analysing their fallout in the global economy. He explores the oil industry's decision to scale down refining capacity in the face of increasing demand and the effects of global shortages of petrol, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil, chemical feedstocks, lubricants and other essential finished products, and describes how, beginning in the year 2000, the oil futures market detached itself almost completely from the crude market, leading to the assetization of oil, and the crippling impact reckless speculation in oil futures has had on the global economy. Finally he proposes new, more sophisticated models that economists and financial analysts can use to make sense of today's oil market, while offering industry leaders and government policymakers prescriptions for stabilising the market to ensure a relatively steady flow of affordable oil.

A concise, authoritative guide to understanding the complex, oft misunderstood oil markets, "Understanding Oil Prices" is an important resource for energy market participants, commodity traders and investors, as well as business journalists and government policymakers alike.

This book proposes that price volatility and speculation in the oil market originate from a decades-long process of financialisation. The author challenges mainstream critical accounts of the market that typically invoke the notion of a global oil shortage and so-called 'peak oil' arguments. Instead, he argues that the development of the market has been punctuated by recurring oil price shocks. Chapters examine the evolution of the international oil market and investigate how, and to what effect, the process of financialisation has transformed the structure and dynamics of the global oil market from 1980 to the present day. In doing so, the book suggests that the process of financialisation is both the cause and the proof of a profound change in the structure of the global oil market, that has turned the triangle of producers, consumers, and mediators that characterised the oil market until the 1980s into a four-tier structure through the addition of financial actors.

This book reviews and examines the relevant portions of all international treaties, cases and the national law and practice of states, in relation to international aspects of offshore oil rigs. By doing so, it offers an understanding of the legal regime surrounding oil rigs and formulates an international law framework. It investigates the issues under consideration by analyzing provisions of international law pertaining to all aspects of oil rigs, as well as international treaties and their travaux preparatoires. It also examines the national legislation of major offshore oil and gas producers and defines a framework of customary international entities such as the OSPAR and the petroleum industries of certain major offshore oil producers. Based upon the book's findings, it is clear that in spite of their increasing importance, offshore oil installations are subject to fragmentary and vague legal rules under international law.

The petroleum industry is arguably the most influential and important industry in the world. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the economics of oil and natural gas extraction and production along with a detailed discussion of pricing, taxing, and markets of these most valuable commodities.

The optimization of the time profile of revenues from individual fields is discussed along with the development of oil pricing, tax systems, and oil and natural gas regulation. This book will be of great value to petroleum engineers, students in business and economics, policy makers, and anyone else interested in the future of petroleum production.

The first book to look at how energy companies can develop brands as they move to more sustainable energy solutions. The world is facing climate crisis, and never before has the world been looking at the energy industry to solve the delivery of power in ways that do not damage the planet. Includes insights from energy business leaders and is therefore more than an academic thesis, but a practical guide to resolving these branding and sustainability challenges.

In 20th century society, oil has played a fundamental role not only from the economic point of view, but also from the point of view of the political relationships established between major Western countries and oil-producing countries. A survey into oil history, its market dynamics and price evolution, is essential for a deeper understanding of modern industry and world economy, as world development depends on oil supplies, prices, and its political accessibility. Oil Economics and Policy follows the historical development of the oil industry, and inevitably also covers many aspects of energy resource economy. In so doing, it pays particular attention to one aspect, namely, the fixing of oil prices. This is mainly in order to attempt to understand whether, and by how much, the structural transformations that the oil industry has undergone during the various phases of its existence - and the various market structures deriving from them - have influenced the dynamics of oil prices. Alberto ClA is Professor of Industrial Economics at the University of Bologna. Minister of Industry and Trade during Lamberto Dini's government (January 1995-May 1996), he has been a member both of national and international scientific boards and of ministerial committees. He is author of numerous writings on industrial and energy economies and editor-in-chief of the journal Energia.

The Emirate of Kuwait hardly resembles the city-State it was at the start of the 20th century. The discovery of oil in 1938 rapidly transformed the tiny tribal sheikhdom of the Al-Sabah into a modern oil-producing state where, by the early 1980s, citizens were enjoying one of the highest standards of living in the world. While much has been written on the reasons why and how the Al-Sabah became a ruling dynasty, little is known about the nature of their authority and its relationship to Kuwait's social structure. Rivka Azoulay shows how despite the rapidity of change in the oil-rich, family-run emirate, it is the pre-oil dynamics of social and political life that dictate how society operates. The author shows that Kuwait's ambitious diversification plans to reduce oil-dependence by 2035 require a renegotiation of the regime's pact with society, which threatens the pre-oil alliances upon which the Al-Sabah's regime has been built.

Perspectives of Oil and Gas: The Road to Interdependence is an up-to-date analysis of the dynamics of petroleum resources. It covers such subjects as oil reserves, depletion policy, pricing strategy, technological factors, and consumer trends. Likewise, it addresses the constraints faced by oil industry planners, from production to third party sales and refining. In addition to in-depth analysis, this book proposes practical solutions to complex problems: for example, how the different objectives and interests of international oil companies and oil producing countries can be reconciled to their mutual advantage. Attention is also focused on development through cooperation beween producers, importers, and multinationals. Perspectives of Oil and Gas ends by addressing the main challenges confronting interdependent economies in the near future. Audience: Decision-makers, policy planners, and academics concerned with the business and technical aspects of the petroleum economy and industry.

This book provides an original analysis of the problems of ensuring that oil ports are sustainable in the broadest sense of the concept including environmental, social, technical and resource aspects. Taking China as its frame for analysis, chosen because of the authors' expertise and because it is the largest oil import country in the world, much of it by ship, it presents a detailed investigation of the issues that make up a sustainable port profile, using a variety of established statistical and operational techniques These are examined before an holistic model is derived. Recommendations are provided for future application both in China and elsewhere and also a range of ways suggested for how the framework could be adapted to other types of ports and locations.

Many leading experts contribute to this follow-up to An Introduction to Reservoir Simulation using MATLAB/GNU Octave: User Guide for the MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST). It introduces more advanced functionality that has been recently added to the open-source MRST software. It is however a self-contained introduction to a variety of modern numerical methods for simulating multiphase flow in porous media, with applications to geothermal energy, chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR), flow in fractured and unconventional reservoirs, and in the unsaturated zone. The reader will learn how to implement new models and algorithms in a robust, efficient manner. A large number of numerical examples are included, all fully equipped with code and data so that the reader can reproduce the results and use them as a starting point for their own work. Like the original textbook, this book will prove invaluable for researchers, professionals and advanced students using reservoir simulation methods. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Since the late 1980s, when the current tide of environmental concern began to rise, every improvement made by the oil industry has been followed by new demands for further progress. New problems have been placed on top of the old ones; first smog in the inner cities and oil spills on the beaches, then acid rain and forest die back followed by major tank disasters and renewed attention to urban air quality and finally, climatic change. The purpose of this book is to investigate whether the oil industry is able to extend and renew its social legitimacy as it faces its toughest agenda in a century — the challenges stemming from its impact on the environment and the consequent public questioning of its role in society. To find out whether and how the oil industry has responded to environmental issues in general and climatic change in particular, five indicators of change — vision & image, R&D, investments, and government relations — have been selected. These have been assumed to be expressions of an environmental strategy which can be identified as reactive, cautious or creative. The empirical analysis begins with case studies of the environmental response of five major oil companies: Shell, Exxon, BP, Amoco and Statoil. The next step is a case study of the refinery sector, which is the most environmentally sensitive part of the industry in many ways. In addition, a brief description of how three industry associations have tackled the same environmental issues is included. The main readership for this book will be policy makers, planners and researchers in the oil industry, and environmental consultants.

'Dripping with delicious detail' - Aditya Chakrabortty Taking the reader on a journey through North East Scotland, Merseyside, South Wales, the Thames Estuary and London, this is the story of Britain's oil-soaked past, present and future. Travelling the country, the authors discover how the financial power and political muscle of an industry built the culture of a nation from pop music to kitchen appliances, and how companies constructed an empire, extracting the wealth of the world from Iran to Nigeria and Alaska. Today, the tide seems to be going out - Britain's refineries have been quietly closed, the North Sea oilfields are declining and wind farms are being built in their place. As the country painfully shifts into its new post-industrial role in the shadow of Covid, Brexit and the climate crisis, many believe the age of oil to be over. But is it? Speaking to oil company executives and traders, as well as refinery workers, filmmakers and musicians, activists and politicians, the authors put real people at the heart of a compelling story.

Oil pulses through our daily lives. It is the plastic we touch, the food we eat, and the way we move. Oil politics in the twentieth century was about the management of abundance, state power, and market growth. The legacy of this age of plenty includes declining conventional oil reserves, volatile prices, climate change, and enduring poverty in many oil-rich countries. The politics of oil are now at a turning point, and its future will not be like its past. In this in-depth primer to one of the world s most significant industries, authors Gavin Bridge and Philippe Le Billon take a fresh look at the contemporary political economy of oil. Going beyond simple assertions of peak oil and an oil curse, they point to an industry reordered by global shifts in demand toward Asia, growing reliance on unconventional reserves, international commitments to reduce carbon emissions, a growing campaign for fossil fuel divestment, and violent political struggles in many producer states. As a new geopolitics of oil emerges, the need for effective global oil governance becomes imperative. Highlighting the growing influence of civil society and attentive to the efforts of firms and states to craft new institutions, this fully updated second edition identifies the challenges and opportunities to curtail price volatility, curb demand and the growth of dirty oil, decarbonize energy systems, and improve governance in oil-producing countries.

Building on original research into the petroleum industry and on the theory of crimes of globalization, this book introduces the concept of Market Criminology: the criminology of preventable market-generated harms and the criminogenic effects of market rationality in variegated forms of capitalism. Ifeanyi Ezeonu explores the ascendance of the fundamentalist form of market economy in Nigeria; the complicity of the state political and security apparatuses in the corporate expropriation of the country's petroleum resource wealth; the deleterious effects of this neoliberal architecture on the local population, as well as community resistance strategies over the years. This book offers a major contribution to research on state-corporate crime and the crimes of the powerful. Key reading for scholars and students in the areas of criminology, international political economy and sociology, this book will also be rich resource for researchers and non-governmental agencies working in the areas of environmental protection, human rights and sustainable development in the Global South, especially the Sub-Saharan Africa.

This work explores problems in national development in the Third World using Nigeria during the petroleum boom as a case study. The book explores how historical, political, ideological, economic, social, and cultural factors affected Nigeria's development and policies. Special attention is devoted to the development paradigms that influenced Nigerian development thinking, the national planning apparatus, nationalist ideology, and the role of world market and multinational corporations. "Petroleum and Structural Change in a Developing Country" concludes that Nigeria has experienced growth without change and that unless structural change is implemented, real development will remain elusive.

This book develops new econometric models to analyze and forecast the world market price of oil. The authors construct ARIMA and Trend models to forecast oil prices, taking into consideration outside factors such as political turmoil and solar activity on the price of oil. Incorporating historical and contemporary market trends, the authors are able to make medium and long-term forecasting results. In the first chapter, the authors perform a broad spectrum analysis of the theoretical and methodological challenges of oil price forecasting. In the second chapter, the authors build and test the econometric models needed for the forecasts. The final chapter of the text brings together the conclusions they reached through applying the models to their research. This book will be useful to students in economics, particularly those in upper-level courses on forecasting and econometrics as well as to politicians and policy makers in oil-producing countries, oil importing countries, and relevant international organizations.

Corporate Social Responsibility Failures in the Oil Industry directly challenges the oil industry's claims of corporate good citizenship, now widely advanced as part of a global public relations initiative. The volume spans the industry's reach, from the troubled waters of the UK offshore Continental Shelf, with its horrendous legacy of the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster, to the inhospitable shores of Newfoundland with its own tragic legacy of lost lives; to the new frontier of oil corporate colonialism in the former Soviet Union and the icy plains of Alaska. The central theme of violations of basic labour rights and of health and environmental protection standards will make uncomfortable reading in the boardroom. It is equally essential reading for those who seek to improve the position of workers and industries within the oil industry's global reach.

This book provides an overview of crude oil refining processes and presents a deep analysis of the current context and challenges imposed on players in the downstream industry. Crude Oil Refining: A Simplified Approach covers traditional processes of the refining industry, the impact of current trends, and technological routes available to help these players survive in a highly competitive environment. FEATURES Offers a simplified approach to crude oil refining processes Discusses economic information related to the downstream business, including refining margins and profitability Introduces newer trends in the industry, such as petrochemical integration, crude-to-chemicals refineries, and renewables coprocessing in crude oil refineries Presents the challenges related to these new trends and offers technological solutions to overcome them for profitable and sustainable operations Describes how the use of biofuels can minimize the environmental impact of transportation fuel in nations of high demand like Brazil Offering a contemporary view of current challenges and opportunities in the downstream oil and gas business, this practical book is aimed at readers working in the fields of petroleum and chemical engineering.

Kirkuk is Iraq's most multilingual city, for millennia home to a diverse population. It was also where, in 1927, a foreign company first struck oil in Iraq. Over the following decades, Kirkuk became the heart of Iraq's booming petroleum industry. City of Black Gold tells a story of oil, urbanization, and colonialism in Kirkuk-and how these factors shaped the identities of Kirkuk's citizens, forming the foundation of an ethnic conflict. Arbella Bet-Shlimon reconstructs the twentieth-century history of Kirkuk to question the assumptions about the past underpinning today's ethnic divisions. In the early 1920s, when the Iraqi state was formed under British administration, group identities in Kirkuk were fluid. But as the oil industry fostered colonial power and Baghdad's influence over Kirkuk, intercommunal violence and competing claims to the city's history took hold. The ethnicities of Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs in Kirkuk were formed throughout a century of urban development, interactions between communities, and political mobilization. Ultimately, this book shows how contentious politics in disputed areas are not primordial traits of those regions, but are a modern phenomenon tightly bound to the society and economics of urban life.

The first volume in a new Springer Series on Shipping and Transport Logistics, Oil Transport Management provides a full historical account of the evolution of the oil transport industry since the 1800's. In this comprehensive guide, the authors investigate the industry and describe the shipping market and its structure, as well as forecasting, location plan and the transportation chain. They dedicate a separate chapter to each topic to cover various concepts, including:

an introduction to the tanker shipping market, including how the freight, new vessel building, second hand and demolition markets influence one another,

the economic structure and organization of the tanker industry in both the past and present, and

forecasting the need for oil-based sea transportation.

Further chapters present case studies and simulations to illustrate the importance of factory location decisions and the need for oil infrastructure investments. Chapter One also includes a regression equation to predict the fleet size in tanker shipping. Oil Transport Management is a key reference, which can be practically applied to wider global research and practices.

Ideal for both industry practitioners, and researchers and students of shipping studies, Oil Transport Management provides a concise yet comprehensive coverage of the oil transport industry's history and a guide for its future development.
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Though oil prices have been on a downward trajectory in recent months, that doesn't obscure the fact that fossil fuels are finite, and we will eventually have to grapple with the end of their dominance. At the same time, however, skepticism about the alternatives remains: we've never quite achieved the promised 'too cheap to meter' power of the future, be it nuclear, solar, or wind. And hydrogen and bio-based fuels are thus far a disappointment. So what does the future of energy look like? The Tesla Revolution has the answers. In clear, unsensational style, Willem Middelkoop and Rembrandt Koppelaar offer a layman's tour of the energy landscape, now and to come. They show how rapid technological advances in batteries and solar technologies are already driving large-scale transformations in power supply, while economic and geopolitical changes, combined with a growing political awareness that there are alternatives to fossil fuels will combine in the coming years to bring an energy revolution ever closer. Within in our lifetimes, the authors argue, we will see changes that will reshape economics, the balance of political power, and even the most mundane aspects of our daily lives. Determinedly forward-looking and optimistic, though never straying from hard facts, The Tesla Revolution paints a striking picture of our global energy future.

They were a band of outsiders unable to get jobs with New York's gilded financial establishment. They would go on to build the world's multitrillion-dollar oil market, reaping unimaginable riches while bringing the economy to its knees. Meet the self-anointed kings of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the place where global oil prices are set to this day. In some ways, they are everything you would expect them to be: a secretive, members-only club of men and women who live lavish lifestyles; cavort with politicians, strippers, and celebrities; and blissfully jack up oil prices while profiting off the misery of the working class. In other ways, they are nothing you can imagine: many come from working-class families themselves. The progeny of Jewish, Irish, and Italian immigrants who escaped war-torn Europe, they take pride in flagrantly spurning Wall Street. Under the thumb of an all-powerful international oil cartel, the energy market had long eluded the grasp of America's hungry capitalists. Neither the oil royalty of Houston nor the titans of Wall Street had ever succeeded in fully wresting away control. But facing extinction, the rough-and - tumble traders of this tribe-led by the reluctant son of a produce merchant - went after Big Oil and won, creating the world's first free oil market and minting billions across decades of treachery and glory. Their stunning journey from poverty to prosperity belies the brutal and violent history that is their legacy. This is the real-life story both Washington and Wall Street don't want you to read.

The first volume in a new Springer Series on Shipping and Transport Logistics, Oil Transport Management provides a full historical account of the evolution of the oil transport industry since the 1800's. In this comprehensive guide, the authors investigate the industry and describe the shipping market and its structure, as well as forecasting, location plan and the transportation chain. They dedicate a separate chapter to each topic to cover various concepts, including: an introduction to the tanker shipping market, including how the freight, new vessel building, second hand and demolition markets influence one another, the economic structure and organization of the tanker industry in both the past and present, and forecasting the need for oil-based sea transportation. Further chapters present case studies and simulations to illustrate the importance of factory location decisions and the need for oil infrastructure investments. Chapter One also includes a regression equation to predict the fleet size in tanker shipping. Oil Transport Management is a key reference, which can be practically applied to wider global research and practices. Ideal for both industry practitioners, and researchers and students of shipping studies, Oil Transport Management provides a concise yet comprehensive coverage of the oil transport industry's history and a guide for its future development.