A glut of oil, dropping prices, the threat of insolvency, a divided membership -- these developments in the early weeks of 1985 underline the cogency of Mohammed Ahrari's historical study of the OPEC oil cartel and his argument that economic forces, not politics, determine OPEC's action in the world arena. The impetus for the formation of OPEC in 1960 was the desire of the oil-producing states for greater income from their most valuable resource. The international oil corporations had secured lucrative concessions early in this century, and in the 1960s they still dictated both the terms of production and the prices paid the oil states. In the buyers' market of the 1960s, the organization found itself with little economic clout. But in the early 1970s, OPEC members succeeded not only in manipulating the price of crude oil but in reducing the status of the oil corporations to that of mere managers of upstream operations. In addition, they accumulated enormous numbers of petrodollars by exploiting increasingly tight markets in the aftermath of the oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian revolution in 1979. The effects of OPEC policies on the consuming countries have been skyrocketing inflation and sustained recession, with profound political repercussions. But the OPEC members have found their apparent power an uncertain blessing, as Mr. Ahrari demonstrates. Their failure to develop pricing formulas sensitive to fluctuations in the international oil market have made them highly vulnerable. In addition, the political tensions emanating from the Iran-Iraq war and from the specter of repetition of Iranian-style revolution elsewhere in the Persian Gulf have made OPEC's continued viability highly uncertain.

Exploration seismology uses seismic imaging to form detailed images of the Earth's interior, enabling the location of likely petroleum targets. Due to the size of seismic datasets, sophisticated numerical algorithms are required. This book provides a technical guide to the essential algorithms and computational aspects of data processing, covering the theory and methods of seismic imaging. The first part introduces an extensive online library of MATLAB (R) seismic data processing codes maintained by the CREWES project at the University of Calgary. Later chapters then focus on digital signal theory and relevant aspects of wave propagation and seismic modelling, followed by deconvolution and seismic migration methods. Presenting a rigorous explanation of how to construct seismic images, it provides readers with practical tools and codes to pursue research projects and analyses. It is ideal for advanced students and researchers in applied geophysics, and for practicing exploration geoscientists in the oil and gas industry.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is one of the most recognizable acronyms among international organizations. It is mainly associated with the 'oil shock' of 1973 when prices of petroleum quadrupled and industrialized countries and consumers were forced to face the limits of their development model. This is the first history of OPEC and of its members written by a professional historian. It carries the reader from the formation of the first petrostate in the world, Venezuela in the late 1920s, to the global ascent of petrostates and OPEC during the 1970s, to their crisis in the late-1980s and early- 1990s. Formed in 1960, OPEC was the first international organization of the Global South. It was perceived as acting as the economic 'spearhead' of the Global South and acquired a role that went far beyond the realm of oil politics. Petrostates such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran were (and continue to be) key regional actors, and their enduring cooperation, defying wide political and cultural differences and even wars, speaks to the centrality of natural resources in the history of the twentieth century, and to the underlying conflict between producers and consumers of these natural resources.

Geopressure drives fluid flow and is important for hydrocarbon exploration, carbon sequestration, and designing safe and economical wells. This concise guide explores the origins of geopressure and presents a step-by-step approach to characterizing and predicting pressure and least principal stress in the subsurface. The book emphasizes how geology, and particularly the role of flow along permeable layers, drives the development and distribution of subsurface pressure and stress. Case studies, such as the Deepwater Horizon blowout, and laboratory experiments, are used throughout to demonstrate methods and applications. It succinctly discusses the role of elastoplastic behaviour, the full stress tensor, and diagenesis in pore pressure generation, and it presents workflows to predict pressure, stress, and hydrocarbon entrapment. It is an essential guide for academics and professional geoscientists and petroleum engineers interested in predicting pressure and stress, and understanding the role of geopressure in geological processes, well design, hydrocarbon entrapment, and carbon sequestration.

The most utilized technique for exploring the Earth's subsurface for petroleum is reflection seismology. However, a sole focus on reflection seismology often misses opportunities to integrate other geophysical techniques such as gravity, magnetic, resistivity, and other seismicity techniques, which have tended to be used in isolation and by specialist teams. There is now growing appreciation that these technologies used in combination with reflection seismology can produce more accurate images of the subsurface. This book describes how these different field techniques can be used individually and in combination with each other and with seismic reflection data. World leading experts present chapters covering different techniques and describe when, where, and how to apply them to improve petroleum exploration and production. It also explores the use of such techniques in monitoring CO2 storage reservoirs. Including case studies throughout, it will be an invaluable resource for petroleum industry professionals, advanced students, and researchers.

Oil is one of the world’s most important commodities, but few people know how its extraction affects the residents of petroleum-producing regions. In the 1960s, the Texaco corporation discovered crude in the territory of Ecuador’s indigenous Cofán nation. Within a decade, Ecuador had become a member of OPEC, and the Cofán watched as their forests fell, their rivers ran black, and their bodies succumbed to new illnesses. In 1993, they became plaintiffs in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit that aims to compensate them for the losses they have suffered. Yet even in the midst of a tragic toxic disaster, the Cofán have refused to be destroyed. While seeking reparations for oil’s assault on their lives, they remain committed to the survival of their language, culture, and rainforest homeland. Life in Oil presents the compelling, nuanced story of how the Cofán manage to endure at the center of Ecuadorian petroleum extraction. Michael L. Cepek has lived and worked with Cofán people for more than twenty years. In this highly accessible book, he goes well beyond popular and academic accounts of their suffering to share the largely unknown stories that Cofán people themselves create—the ones they tell in their own language, in their own communities, and to one another and the few outsiders they know and trust. Their words reveal that life in oil is a form of slow, confusing violence for some of the earth’s most marginalized, yet resilient, inhabitants.

For over eighty years the Arab region has derived massive wealth from its natural resources, yet the region's economies remain little diversified, while the oil market is experiencing major structural shifts with the advent of shale gas. Moreover, the resource itself is eventually exhaustible. Under these conditions economic prosperity cannot be sustainable. The critical question is how can the countries of this region escape the 'oil curse'? In this volume, leading economists argue that the curse is not a predestined outcome but a result of weak institutions and bad governance. A variety of analytical perspectives and examination of various international case studies leads to the conclusion that natural resources can only spur economic development when combined with sound political institutions and effective economic governance. This volume, with its unique focus on the Arab region, will be an important reference for researchers and policymakers alike.

The availability of low-cost energy from fossil fuels - in particular oil - has been the driving force behind postwar global economic growth, such that the petroleum industry has some of the world's largest companies. This book examines the economics of the oil and gas industry, from exploration, development and production, to transportation, refining and marketing. At each stage of the value chain, the key economic costs and considerations are presented in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the workings of the industry. The book examines some of the unique economic challenges the industry faces, including negotiating international contracts with host countries (to gain access to hydrocarbons), managing the risks of recovery, implementing cross-border pipelines, dealing with huge variations in the taxation of refined products, and reacting to the effect of price control and subsidization in the OPEC nations which can create massive volatility in pricing. The search for low-carbon fuels, the impact of shale gas, the prospect of finite reserves, and the global political realities of the competing demands of oil-importing and oil-exporting countries are shown to make the sector high risk, but the economic rewards can be huge.

Drawing on their extensive knowledge of the oil industry, Roberto F. Aguilera and Marian Radetzki provide an in-depth examination of the price of the world's most important commodity. They argue that although oil has experienced an extraordinary price increase over the past few decades, we have now reached a turning point where scarcity, uncertain supply and high prices will be replaced by abundance, undisturbed availability and suppressed price levels. They look at the potential of new global oil revolutions to bring the upward price push to an end and examine the implications of this turnaround for the world economy, as well as for politics, diplomacy, military interventions and the efforts to stabilize climate. This book will appeal to a wide readership of both academics and professionals working in the energy industry, as well as to general readers interested in the ongoing debate about oil prices.

In "Petrolia," Brian Black offers a geographical and social history of a region that was not only the site of America's first oil boom but was also the world's largest oil producer between 1859 and 1873. Against the background of the growing demand for petroleum throughout and immediately following the Civil War, Black describes Oil Creek Valley's descent into environmental hell. Known as "Petrolia," the region charged the popular imagination with its nearly overnight transition from agriculture to industry. But so unrestrained were these early efforts at oil drilling, Black writes, that "the landscape came to be viewed only as an instrument out of which one could extract crude." In a very short time, Petrolia was a ruined place--environmentally, economically, and to some extent even culturally. Black gives historical detail and analysis to account for this transformation.

Ecuador is the third-largest foreign supplier of crude oil to the western United States. As the source of this oil, the Ecuadorian Amazon has borne the far-reaching social and environmental consequences of a growing U.S. demand for petroleum and the dynamics of economic globalization it necessitates. Crude Chronicles traces the emergence during the 1990s of a highly organized indigenous movement and its struggles against a U.S. oil company and Ecuadorian neoliberal policies. Against the backdrop of mounting government attempts to privatize and liberalize the national economy, Suzana Sawyer shows how neoliberal reforms in Ecuador led to a crisis of governance, accountability, and representation that spurred one of twentieth-century Latin America's strongest indigenous movements.Through her rich ethnography of indigenous marches, demonstrations, occupations, and negotiations, Sawyer tracks the growing sophistication of indigenous politics as Indians subverted, re-deployed, and, at times, capitulated to the dictates and desires of a transnational neoliberal logic. At the same time, she follows the multiple maneuvers and discourses that the multinational corporation and the Ecuadorian state used to circumscribe and contain indigenous opposition. Ultimately, Sawyer reveals that indigenous struggles over land and oil operations in Ecuador were as much about reconfiguring national and transnational inequality-that is, rupturing the silence around racial injustice, exacting spaces of accountability, and rewriting narratives of national belonging-as they were about the material use and extraction of rain-forest resources.

The word was that you could earn $17,000 a month in the Bakken Oilfield of North Dakota. So they flooded in: the profiteers, deadbeats, ex-cons, dreamers, and doers. And so too did Maya Rao, a journalist who embedded herself in the surreal new American frontier. With an eye for the dark, humorous, and absurd, Rao set out in steel-toed boots to chronicle the largest oil boom since the 1968 discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Businessmen turned up to restart their careers after bankruptcy or fraud allegations from the financial crisis. An ex-con found his niche as a YouTube celebrity exposing the underside of oilfield life. A high-rolling Englishman blew investors' money on $400 shots of cognac as authorities started to catch on that his housing developments were part of a worldwide Ponzi scheme. Part Barbara Ehrenreich, part Upton Sinclair, this is an on-the-ground narrative of capitalism and industrialization as a rural, insular community transformed into a colony of outsiders hustling for profit-a sobering exploration of twenty-first century America that reads like a frontier novel.

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.

The Global Oil & Gas Industry: Stories from the Field relates specific examples of challenges in decision making, changing business practices, and the difficulties in executing complex projects across the global industry. From contentious border disputes over mineral rights to the emergence of industry disrupters shaking the status quo, each story presents contemporary issues to distill lessons that are transferrable to management challenges both inside and outside of the global oil and gas industry. Bestselling PennWell authors Andrew Inkpen and Michael Moffett join with industry expert Kannan Ramaswamy to provide a narrative of 18 stories, each highlighting a different aspect of the industry. This collection provides an enriching, thought-provoking look into a business that many believe to be globally mature, but as these stories intimate, are increasingly local, emerging, and evolving with the global economy. Features and Benefits: Examples of the complex business situations in oil and gas and how excellent (and sometimes less-than-excellent) leaders navigate these difficult circumstances. Insights into the decision making of oil and gas companies from around the world Different themes that span the entire industry value chain: upstream, midstream, and downstream Timeless truths for the hydrocarbon sector and for many other businesses

In this book, Alan Taylor reveals that the history of Dorset's oil starts in the 1850s with attempts to extract oil and gas from mined oil shale at Kimmeridge. By the early twentieth century exploration geologists had realised the significance of oil seeps and other geological features found along the Dorset coast. It seemed that oil might lie in the rock strata at specific locations deep under the Dorset countryside. The author explains how exploration drilling, during a period of eighty years, led to the discovery of four producing oil fields by BP and others. The unfolding of the development of each field in such an environmentally sensitive area is described. One oilfield, Wytch Farm, has turned out to be the largest producing onshore oilfield in Western Europe. Access to databases held by HM Government's Oil and Gas Authority has enabled the author to produce a set of unique maps and diagrams to illustrate the historical development of Dorset's oil. Packed with interesting facts and stories, this is an essential book for those interested in Dorset's industrial history.

Oil is the world's single most important commodity and its political effects are pervasive. Jeff D. Colgan extends the idea of the resource curse into the realm of international relations, exploring how countries form their foreign policy preferences and intentions. Why are some but not all oil-exporting 'petrostates' aggressive? To answer this question, a theory of aggressive foreign policy preferences is developed and then tested, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Petro-Aggression shows that oil creates incentives that increase a petrostate's aggression, but also incentives for the opposite. The net effect depends critically on its domestic politics, especially the preferences of its leader. Revolutionary leaders are especially significant. Using case studies including Iraq, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, this book offers new insight into why oil politics has a central role in global peace and conflict.

Oil, Democracy, and Development in Africa presents an optimistic analysis of the continent s oil-producing states. With attention to the complex histories, the interactions of key industry actors and policy makers, and the goals of diverse groups in society, this contribution fills a gap in the literature on resource-abundant countries. John R. Heilbrunn presents a positive assessment of circumstances in contemporary African oil exporters. The book demonstrates that even those leaders who are among the least accountable use oil revenues to improve their citizens living standards, if only a little bit. As a consequence, African oil producers are growing economically and their people are living under increasingly democratic polities. Heilbrunn thus calls for a long-overdue reassessment of the impact of hydrocarbons on developing economies."

Oil was a basic source of conflict between the United States and Japan. This book examines the role played by the Standard-Vacuum Oil Company in the crisis that led to Pearl Harbor. "Stanvac" was the largest American supplier of oil to Japan and represented the single largest American direct investment in Asia before the war. In the context of Stanvac's relations with various governments, the author examines the ways in which United States petroleum policy was formulated and the arrangements by which Japan sought to increase its oil reserves. He provides new insight into the impact of the financial freeze of July 1941, the origins of the Pacific War, and the complexities of oil diplomacy. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Irvine Anderson carefully reconstructs the years between 1933 and 1950 and provides a case study of the evolution of U.S. foreign oil policy and of the complex relationships between the U.S. government and the business world. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

As OPEC has loosened its grip over the past ten years, the oil market has been rocked by wild price swings, the likes of which haven't been seen for eight decades. Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations. Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how-even from the oil industry's first years-wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions-first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC-succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations-including mistakes to avoid-as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.

Drawing on their extensive knowledge of the oil industry, Roberto F. Aguilera and Marian Radetzki provide an in-depth examination of the price of the world's most important commodity. They argue that although oil has experienced an extraordinary price increase over the past few decades, we have now reached a turning point where scarcity, uncertain supply and high prices will be replaced by abundance, undisturbed availability and suppressed price levels. They look at the potential of new global oil revolutions to bring the upward price push to an end and examine the implications of this turnaround for the world economy, as well as for politics, diplomacy, military interventions and the efforts to stabilize climate. This book will appeal to a wide readership of both academics and professionals working in the energy industry, as well as to general readers interested in the ongoing debate about oil prices.

Gathering the right kind and the right amount of information is crucial for any decision-making process. This book presents a unified framework for assessing the value of potential data gathering schemes by integrating spatial modelling and decision analysis, with a focus on the Earth sciences. The authors discuss the value of imperfect versus perfect information, and the value of total versus partial information, where only subsets of the data are acquired. Concepts are illustrated using a suite of quantitative tools from decision analysis, such as decision trees and influence diagrams, as well as models for continuous and discrete dependent spatial variables, including Bayesian networks, Markov random fields, Gaussian processes, and multiple-point geostatistics. Unique in scope, this book is of interest to students, researchers and industry professionals in the Earth and environmental sciences, who use applied statistics and decision analysis techniques, and particularly to those working in petroleum, mining, and environmental geoscience.

This is the story behind the greatest oil discovery success of last century and the building of the Trans Alaska pipeline. This book details and celebrates a colossal oil exploration feat and a world-class engineering and construction project.

National Oil Companies (NOCs) play an important role in the world economy. They produce most of the world's oil and bankroll governments across the globe. Although NOCs superficially resemble private-sector companies, they often behave in very different ways. Oil and Governance explains the variation in performance and strategy for NOCs and provides fresh insights into the future of the oil industry as well as the politics of the oil-rich countries where NOCs dominate. It comprises fifteen case studies, each following a common research design, of NOCs based in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. The book also includes cross-cutting pieces on the industrial structure of the oil industry and the politics and administration of NOCs. This book is the largest and most systematic analysis of NOCs to date and is suitable for audiences from industry and academia, as well as policy makers.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Austrian Empire ranked third among the world's oil-producing states (surpassed only by the United States and Russia), and accounted for five percent of global oil production. By 1918, the Central Powers did not have enough oil to maintain a modern military. How and why did the promise of oil fail Galicia (the province producing the oil) and the Empire?

In a brilliantly conceived work, Alison Frank traces the interaction of technology, nationalist rhetoric, social tensions, provincial politics, and entrepreneurial vision in shaping the Galician oil industry. She portrays this often overlooked oil boom's transformation of the environment, and its reorientation of religious and social divisions that had defined a previously agrarian population, as surprising alliances among traditional foes sprang up among workers and entrepreneurs, at the workplace, and in the pubs and brothels of new oiltowns.

Frank sets this complex story in a context of international finance, technological exchange, and Habsburg history as a sobering counterpoint to traditional modernization narratives. As the oil ran out, the economy, the population, and the environment returned largely to their former state, reminding us that there is nothing ineluctable about the consequences of industrial development.