This book, first published in 2007, presents research by leading scholars to an international audience of academics, business executives, and policy makers. This research is presented in two clusters. The first cluster of studies explores four cross-cutting topics, including surveys of the changes in industry structure, corporate strategies, plant technologies, governmental policies, finance, and corporate governance. The second cluster of studies comprises nine country surveys that examine the experiences of representative nations in chemical production and foreign trade. By combining the similar historical cases of a few nations (such as Sweden, Norway, and Finland), the authors are able to deal with eleven chemical-producing nations, including all of the leaders in this area as well as some of the important followers.

In the 2nd edition of The Acquisition & Divestiture of Petroleum Property, authors Jim Haag & Gene Wiggins have revised and expanded upon the insightful and comprehensive first edition. This book will be of value to anyone who wants to learn the industry standard steps needed to acquire or sell oil and gas property. The book now includes a new format and sections on: The consideration of geology in property analysis The determination of oil and gas reserves quantities by reservior engineering methods The assessments of property value The evaluation of exploratory opportunities The analysis of unconventional resources and reserves Updated market value from recent transactions A review of the challenges to acquire properties outside the U.S. Additional case histories .

The long awaited third edition of Properties of Petroleum Fluids covers all the essential components, properties, and equations for the various fluids and gases. Esteemed author William McCain, has expanded and revised his book to now include new and updated correlations and rules for preparing values of nearly all the fluid properties required by petroleum engineers. The third edition also includes new research on asphaltenes and gas hydrates and two new chapters on gas condensates and volatile oils.

After looking briefly at the reasons for the oil fraternity’s choice of Venezuela, the book examines the relationship between Gómez’s government and the oil companies during this period. It deals with the government’s initial encouragement, legislation, and unsuccessful attempts to increase production from the small number of companies operating before 1919. The important local links between the oil companies and vested interests, including Gómez’s family and entourage, are examined to determine the level of interaction between the two groups. The socio-economic effects of the companies are looked at in detail to ascertain their impact, both regionally and nationally, on agriculture, trade, currency fluctuations, industry and politics. Finally, the government’s reaction to this and the degree of control exercised over the exploitation of its natural resources are examined.

What light does nearly twenty-five years of scientific study of the Exxon Valdez oil spill shed on the fate and effects of a spill? How can the results help in assessing future spills? How can ecological risks be assessed and quantified? In this, the first book on the effects of Exxon Valdez in fifteen years, scientists directly involved in studying the spill provide a comprehensive perspective on, and synthesis of, scientific information on long-term spill effects. The coverage is multidisciplinary, with chapters discussing a range of issues including effects on biota, successes and failures of post-spill studies and techniques, and areas of continued disagreement. An even-handed and critical examination of more than two decades of scientific study, this is an invaluable guide for studying future oil spills and, more broadly, for unraveling the consequences of any large environmental disruption. For access to a full bibliography of related publications, follow the resources link at www.cambridge.org/9781107027176.

Heiss provides the most detailed account available of the 1951 seizure of British oil holdings in Iran by prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a turning point in cold war history.

Irene L. Gendzier presents incontrovertible evidence that oil politics played a significant role in the founding of Israel, the policy then adopted by the United States toward Palestinians, and subsequent U.S. involvement in the region. Consulting declassified U.S. government sources, as well as papers in the H.S. Truman Library, she uncovers little-known features of U.S. involvement in the region, including significant exchanges in the winter and spring of 1948 between the director of the Oil and Gas Division of the Interior Department and the representative of the Jewish Agency in the United States, months before Israel's independence and recognition by President Truman. Gendzier also shows that U.S. consuls and representatives abroad informed State Department officials, including the Secretary of State and the President, of the deleterious consequences of partition in Palestine. Yet the attempt to reconsider partition and replace it with a UN trusteeship for Palestine failed, jettisoned by Israel's declaration of independence. The results altered the regional balance of power and Washington's calculations of policy toward the new state. Prior to that, Gendzier reveals the U.S. endorsed the repatriation of Palestinian refugees in accord with UNGA Res 194 of Dec. 11, 1948, in addition to the resolution of territorial claims, the definition of boundaries, and the internationalization of Jerusalem. But U.S. interests in the Middle East, notably the protection of American oil interests, led U.S. officials to rethink Israel's military potential as a strategic ally. Washington then deferred to Israel with respect to the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, the question of boundaries, and the fate of Jerusalem-issues that U.S. officials have come to realize are central to the 1948 conflict and its aftermath.

This work asks why in recent years the social and economic upheavals in Kuwait and Qatar have been accompanied by a remarkable political continuity. Professor Crystal investigates this apparent anomaly by examining the impact of oil on the formation and destruction of political coalitions and state institutions. Partly based on a year's fieldwork in the Gulf, and making full use of Arabic and Gulf sources, Oil and Politics in the Gulf aims to go beyond previously published accounts of the region in its analysis of the effects of oil on domestic politics.

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.

Many on-site power plants either fail outright or perform far below expectations- all because of poor planning and evaluation of the power plants from the beginning. This book is intended to help those interested in cogeneration power plants by laying out a thorough and proven planning methodology for new facilities, as well as an evaluation methodology for existing facilities. There are many good reasons to want your own power plant including: improved power quality, increased reliability, and savings on energy expenses- buying power wholesale, rather than at retail prices. Although the economics are certainly important, there are a wide range of other advantages to consider, the relative value of which will vary depending on your unique circumstances.

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.

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.

Catholic Herald Book Awards 2019 Finalist, Current Affairs "Auzanneau has created a towering telling of a dark and dangerous addiction."-Nature The story of oil is one of hubris, fortune, betrayal, and destruction. It is the story of a resource that has been undeniably central to the creation of our modern culture, and ever-present during the darkest exploits of empire the world over. For the past 150 years, oil has become the most essential ingredient for economic, military, and political power. And it has brought us to our present moment in which political leaders and the fossil-fuel industry consider extraordinary, and extraordinarily dangerous, policy on a world stage marked by shifting power bases. Upending the conventional wisdom by crafting a "people's history," award-winning journalist Matthieu Auzanneau deftly traces how oil became a national and then global addiction, outlines the enormous consequences of that addiction, sheds new light on major historical and contemporary figures, and raises new questions about stories we thought we knew well: What really sparked the oil crises in the 1970s, the shift away from the gold standard at Bretton Woods, or even the financial crash of 2008? How has oil shaped the events that have defined our times: two world wars, the Cold War, the Great Depression, ongoing wars in the Middle East, the advent of neoliberalism, and the Great Recession, among them? With brutal clarity, Oil, Power, and War exposes the heavy hand oil has had in all of our lives-and illustrates how much heavier that hand could get during the increasingly desperate race to control the last of the world's easily and cheaply extractable reserves.

Irene L. Gendzier presents incontrovertible evidence that oil politics played a significant role in the founding of Israel, the policy then adopted by the United States toward Palestinians, and subsequent U.S. involvement in the region. Consulting declassified U.S. government sources, as well as papers in the H.S. Truman Library, she uncovers little-known features of U.S. involvement in the region, including significant exchanges in the winter and spring of 1948 between the director of the Oil and Gas Division of the Interior Department and the representative of the Jewish Agency in the United States, months before Israel's independence and recognition by President Truman. Gendzier also shows that U.S. consuls and representatives abroad informed State Department officials, including the Secretary of State and the President, of the deleterious consequences of partition in Palestine. Yet the attempt to reconsider partition and replace it with a UN trusteeship for Palestine failed, jettisoned by Israel's declaration of independence. The results altered the regional balance of power and Washington's calculations of policy toward the new state. Prior to that, Gendzier reveals the U.S. endorsed the repatriation of Palestinian refugees in accord with UNGA Res 194 of Dec. 11, 1948, in addition to the resolution of territorial claims, the definition of boundaries, and the internationalization of Jerusalem. But U.S. interests in the Middle East, notably the protection of American oil interests, led U.S. officials to rethink Israel's military potential as a strategic ally. Washington then deferred to Israel with respect to the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, the question of boundaries, and the fate of Jerusalem-issues that U.S. officials have come to realize are central to the 1948 conflict and its aftermath.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.