An Insightful Guide to Avoiding Offshore Oil- and Gas-Industry Disaster Designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining offshore oil and gas industry equipment and systems can sometimes result in accidents, injuries, and other serious problems. Safety and Reliability in the Oil and Gas Industry: A Practical Approach focuses on oil and gas industry equipment reliability, offers useful and up-to-date information on the subject, and covers in a single volume the most common safety and reliability engineering issues in the oil and gas industry. The book introduces the latest developments in the area, and provides relevant methods and approaches. It also presents important aspects of various case studies on major accidents in the oil and gas industry, and considers human factors that contribute to accidents and fatalities in the area of oil and gas. Additionally, this book describes: Mathematical concepts Oil and gas industry equipment reliability characteristics Accident data and analysis Mathematical models used for performing safety and reliability-related analyses in the industry Safety and Reliability in the Oil and Gas Industry: A Practical Approach covers important aspects of safety in the offshore oil and gas industry. A reference designed with engineering professionals in mind, this book can also be used in oil- and gas-industry-related courses, and serves as a guide for anyone concerned with safety and reliability in the area of oil and gas.

Starting with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill incident, Oil Spill Impacts: Taxonomic and Ontological Approaches chronicles a timeline of events that focus on the impact of oil spills and provides an understanding of these incidents using a number of approaches. The book includes an interdisciplinary oil spill taxonomy, an oil spill topic map, and highlights information-organization tools, such as indexes, taxonomies, and topic maps that can be used to connect information resources with concepts of interest. The topic map combines the function of ontology with the function of organized information resources, and contains thousands of concepts and their relationships extracted from approximately 300 documents stemming from various academic conference presentations, journal articles, news reports, and web pages. Divided into four parts, the book begins with a brief introduction of the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill events followed by a breakdown of the taxonomy concepts distributed into categories and their subcategories. The book then describes the oil spill topic map separated by concepts, relationships, and references. This interdisciplinary reference provides to its readers: The perspective of multiple disciplines instead of just one discipline An indication of the most important topics in the oil spill domain Developed research in the oil spill and oil drilling areas A broad and detailed view of oil spill issues The book serves students, teachers, and researchers interested in oil spill issues, oil spill incidents, and addresses their impacts that involve coastal and marine environmental sciences, biological sciences, chemistry, disaster management, geology, sociology, and government policy.

In Market Madness, Dr. Blake Clayton, a Wall Street stock analyst and former Oxford researcher, draws on a century's worth of statistical data to offer a revolutionary new look the history of oil and future of energy.
The culmination of a multi-year study, he shows how generational fears about an imminent, irreversible shortage of oil punctuate the history of oil since its earliest days. He explores the conditions in which oil supply fears arise, gain popularity, and eventually wane, and shows how important such stories can be in affecting financial markets. He links these episodes to the behavioral concept of irrational exuberance and new era economic thinking, first popularized by Nobel Laureate Yale economist Robert Shiller, to show how unfounded pessimism affects the market for oil and other exhaustible resources. Acknowledging the significant geological and structural changes the oil market has undergone over the last century, the book does not dismiss today's shortage fears out of hand, but asks what they reveal about how commodity markets function and what that means for investors and public officials.
Clayton argues that the lessons to be learned from this history are the need for quality data about US and global oil reserves, the importance of clear communication from public officials about energy markets and resources, and the value of transparency in commodities markets. While these measures will not eliminate volatility and unpredictability in energy markets, he writes, they would mitigate unnecessary price spikes and improve investor and government decision-making.
The book addresses popular debates in economics and finance on how mass beliefs affect financial markets while also offering a colorful narrative history for general readers about the dramatic booms and busts of the American oil industry.

This is a major work providing a country-by-country analysis of African oil and gas. The book details the oil and gas frameworks and the key concerns in the most significant jurisdictions including traditional producing countries such as Libya, Algeria, Angola and Egypt, and more recent areas with significant potential such as Sudan. Topics addressed include the key terms of the petroleum laws, the types of legal arrangement in place (eg, concession agreement, production sharing contract or service agreement), the fiscal terms, the acquisition of acreage, governing law, dispute resolution mechanisms and governmental control. Covering 26 countries in total, this book features contributions from a variety of leading experts in the industry, including from ministries of petroleum, national oil companies, international oil companies, law firms and consultancies. This unique new work provides a wider understanding of oil and gas law, contracts and regulations within the African continent.

This is a history of the abuses suffered by Africa through colonial, imperial and capitalistic scrambles for oil that have plagued the continent for centuries. France, the US, Portugal, Spain and other western nations have continually plundered Africa's resources, leading to political corruption and the annihilation of democracy that continues to this day. Extraordinary stories reach far into the depths of domination and control. Neo-colonialism in Gabon, Yankee Landlords of Cabinda and the World Bank in Chad are explored, as is the growth of kleptocracy, the rise of multinational corporations and the legacy of slavery. Concluding with evidence of how Africans have refused to remain passive in the face of such developments, forming movements to challenge this new attempt at domination, this book challenges our understanding of Africa, raising questions about the consequences of our reliance on foreign resources.

In 1984, the oil, chemical and atomic workers began a 5-year campaign to win back the jobs of its members locked out by the BASF Corp. in Geismar, Louisiana. The multiscale campaign involved coalitions with local environmentalists as well as international solidarity from environmental and religious organizations. The local coalition which helped break the lockout was maintained and expanded in the 1990s. This alliance is one of numerous labor-community coalitions to emerge increasingly over the past 20 years.""Labor-Environmental Coalitions: Lessons from a Louisiana Petrochemical Region"" traces the development of the Louisiana Labor-Neighbor Project from 1985 to the present, within the context of a long history of divisions between labor and community in the U.S. The Project continued after the lockout, thriving during 1990s, expanding from one community to four counties to include 20 local member organizations, and broadening its agenda from the original jobs crisis and pollution problems to address a wide range of worker, environmental health, and economic justice issues."" Labor-Environmental Coalitions"" explores the dynamics of the Louisiana coalition to offer lessons for other coalition efforts. The book seeks to understand coalitions as a necessary strategy to counteract the dominant forces of capitalist development. The author contends that the Labor-Neighbor Project, like labor-community coalitions generally, created a unique blend of politics shaped by the geographic nature industry's politics; by the relative openness of government; and by the class experience of labor and community members.The Louisiana Project demonstrates that for labor-community coalitions to thrive they must broaden their agenda, strengthen their leadership and coalition-building skills, and develop access to multiscale resources. The author argues that for labor-community coalitions to have longer term political impact, they should adopt an explicitly progressive approach by building a broader class and cultural leadership, and by demanding state and corporate accountability on economic, public health, and environmental justice issues.

Vaughn P. Shannon argues that US foreign policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict has been determined at three levels of analysis: that of systemic strategic context, that of domestic politics, and that of individual decision-makers. In this book he explores the role of each level of influence, as well as the implications for the posture which the US has chosen. Reflecting changing circumstances, the volume examines the Cold War, the Gulf War and the new 'War on Terror' and how they have each placed differing pressures on US policymakers as they strive to maintain the ultimate strategic goal of preserving regional oil from becoming dominated by hostile forces. It is suitable for courses on American foreign policy, world politics and politics of the Middle East.

Buckle propagation is a problem unique to offshore pipelines, in which the local collapse of a locally weakened section of the pipe initiates a collapse that propagates at high speed catastrophically flattening the line by kilometers. The lowest pressure that can sustain the propagation of the collapse, the propagation pressure, is only a small fraction of the collapse pressure of the intact pipe. The large difference between these two pressures requires that pipelines be designed on the collapse pressure, and the extent of the potential catastrophic damage suffered is limited by the periodic introduction of buckle arrestors to the line. Volume 2 of the book series Mechanics of Offshore Pipelines addresses the major aspects of buckle propagation including its initiation, establishment of the propagation pressure, and the dynamics of buckle propagation. Buckle propagation under tension, in pipe-in-pipe pipeline systems, and confined buckle propagation in tubulars such as grouted casing are examined in dedicated chapters. Three chapters deal with the performance of the most commonly used buckle arrestors under both quasi-static and dynamic buckle propagation. Each of these problems is studied through experiments, analyses, and large-scale numerical simulations. The results are used to provide empirical design equations and design guidelines on how to mitigate the effects of buckle propagation.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence Techniques in the Petroleum Industry gives engineers a critical resource to help them understand the machine learning that will solve specific engineering challenges. The reference begins with fundamentals, covering preprocessing of data, types of intelligent models, and training and optimization algorithms. The book moves on to methodically address artificial intelligence technology and applications by the upstream sector, covering exploration, drilling, reservoir and production engineering. Final sections cover current gaps and future challenges.

As certain oil and gas provinces near the end of their production lives, companies, governments and other stakeholders are turning their attention to decommissioning. The price of disposing of oil and gas installations is enormous. Yet the costs of getting it wrong can be even greater. Part A of this fully updated second edition looks at decommissioning and the oil and gas life cycle. Part B contains chapters on decommissioning and international law. Part C focuses on decommissioning in the North Sea and contains chapters on government policy, environment law, offshore contracting, health and safety, financial and technical issues, further examined using a case study from a completed North Sea decommissioning project. Part D provides an international comparative analysis, with new chapters on Denmark, Namibia, Netherlands and New Zealand. As well as decommissioning professionals, this title will be of interest to oil and gas executives, lawyers, environmental consultants, tax advisers, accountants, insurers, investment bankers, academics and other professionals connected to the oil and gas industry.

In Offshore Software Development: Making It Work, hands-on managers of Offshore solutions help you answer these questions: -What is Offshore and why is it an IT imperative? -What do you need to do to successfully evaluate an Offshore solution? -How do you avoid common pitfalls? -How do you confront security and geopolitical risk? -How do you handle issues related to displaced workers? The author applies her considerable experience in the analysis of such Offshore issues as the financial growth of the Offshore industry, keys to success in initiating a program, choosing and managing vendors, risk mitigation, and employee impacts. A detailed program checklist outlines the steps for successful Offshore execution, providing real-world exposure and guidance to a movement that has become a fixture in the IT realm. About the Author Tandy Gold is a 20-year veteran of the technology industry who is focused on entrepreneurial consulting and innovation. As part of her responsibilities in implementing the first Offshore initiative for a large financial institution, she created a monthly Offshore interest group. Comprised of Offshore program managers from Fortune 100 firms, together they represent more than 40 years of experience in Offshore.

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.

Make-or-break decisions involving millions of dollars are all in a day's work for Christian Gillette, chairman of Everest Capital, New York's most renowned private equity firm. He's taken on the toughest, most powerful, and often most dangerous adversaries and prevailed-all the while honing his skill for being cool under fire, literally. But now Gillette will be put to the ultimate test. He's offered the chance to seal a deal unlike any other, one that goes beyond boardrooms, balance sheets, and even Everest itself-one that will leave its mark on history. Gillette is no stranger to Jesse Wood, the first African American president of the United States, having been Wood's chosen running mate in his historic bid for the White House. Though still slightly upset over being dropped from the ticket at the eleventh hour, Gillette's not about to ignore the chief executive's summons to a top-secret meeting at Camp David. There, Wood drops a bombshell: The president of Cuba is dead. Cuba's communist regime has kept the dictator's demise hush while it races to fill the power vacuum. And the United States is poised to support a cabal of Cuban professionals plotting a coup. The President wants Gillette to meet with the conspirators and size up the chances for a successful capitalist revolution. But by no means can his mission be traced back to the White House. If anything goes wrong, Gillette is on his own. And if certain people have their way, something will go wrong. For the conspiracy to liberate Cuba isn't the only one afoot. Enemies in high places, who will go to any lengths to wreak revenge on Gillette and to unseat President Wood, have set in motion a campaign of deception, sabotage, and murder whose shockwaves will resonate from the streets of Havana to the Oval Office. But for Gillette, who has just named his alluring and ambitious protege, Allison Wallace, as his successor at Everest, the greatest peril may lie much closer to home. The Successor is blue-chip Stephen Frey, marshaling his flawless instincts for edgy, provocative, breathtaking suspense with a master's touch. From the Hardcover edition.

In these 5000 pages Archive Editions presents a key selection of facsimile original British government documents detailing the history and development of Kuwait from 1899 to modern times. The set includes a map box containing 11 maps dated between 1910 and 1956 including a table of the Al Subah ('Atbi), Ruling Family of Kuwait and a table showing the descendants of Mubarak I (ruled 1896-1915). In compiling this work the editor has selected documents focusing on Kuwait itself - on the events that occurred there and on the lives of the people in the region, including international trade, oil negotiations, Islamic affairs, tribal affairs, labour movements, boundary questions, and the role of the Al-Sabah family. It is intended that the work should function as an aid to scholars and Gulf Arabs, in the absence or unavailability of relevant Arab records.