This volume examines the social history of oil workers and investigates how labor relations have shaped the global oil industry during the twentieth century and today. It brings together the work of scholars from a range of disciplines, approaching the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of oil. The contributors analyze a number of key oil producing regions, including the Americas, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Europe and Africa.
“A book that should be read . . . Smith brings an alchemic talent to describing physical labor.” —The New York Times Book Review “Beautiful, funny, and harrowing.” – Sarah Smarsh, The Atlantic “Remarkable . . . this is the book that Hillbilly Elegy should have been.” —Kirkus Reviews A vivid window into the world of working class men set during the Bakken fracking boom in North Dakota Like thousands of restless men left unmoored in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, Michael Patrick Smith arrived in the fracking boomtown of Williston, North Dakota five years later homeless, unemployed, and desperate for a job. Renting a mattress on a dirty flophouse floor, he slept boot to beard with migrant men who came from all across America and as far away as Jamaica, Africa and the Philippines. They ate together, drank together, argued like crows and searched for jobs they couldn't get back home. Smith's goal was to find the hardest work he could do--to find out if he could do it. He hired on in the oil patch where he toiled fourteen hour shifts from summer's 100 degree dog days to deep into winter's bracing whiteouts, all the while wrestling with the demons of a turbulent past, his broken relationships with women, and the haunted memories of a family riven by violence. The Good Hand is a saga of fear, danger, exhaustion, suffering, loneliness, and grit that explores the struggles of America's marginalized boomtown workers—the rough-hewn, castoff, seemingly disposable men who do an indispensable job that few would exalt: oil field hands who, in the age of climate change, put the gas in our tanks and the food in our homes. Smith, who had pursued theater and played guitar in New York, observes this world with a critical eye; yet he comes to love his coworkers, forming close bonds with Huck, a goofy giant of a young man whose lead foot and quick fists get him into trouble with the law, and The Wildebeest, a foul-mouthed, dip-spitting truck driver who torments him but also trains him up, and helps Smith "make a hand." The Good Hand is ultimately a book about transformation--a classic American story of one man's attempt to burn himself clean through hard work, to reconcile himself to himself, to find community, and to become whole.
Sets forth the many technical procedures involved in refining. Included are a new chapter on simple and complex refineries, and a revised chapter on gasoline blending, including current information on alcohol blending components.
A prominent linchpin in world politics and in security policies world over, oil and gas have tremendous value in both, the political and economical sectors of global relations, business establishments and policy. Regardless of whether one is a novice to a given field, or a well accomplished veteran in the field, there is a need for the continued engagement with the basics that underlie the core subjects. With that in mind, the Fundamentals of Oil and Gas is a perfect primer for the first-timer in the field, while also a copious text to help a seasoned veteran stay abreast with the nuances of the world of Oil and Gas.
People throughout the world use crude oil products in some form every day: the plastic bottles we drink from, the gasoline that powers our vehicles, and the desks we sit at in school and work. These are all things that make our lives easier. However, we might not have access to them without the hard work put in by oil rig workers. These men and women work on offshore oil rigs away from their friends and families for weeks at a time. Readers will learn about what it takes to become an oil rig worker, the different types of jobs available on an oil rig, and why these jobs are so important to modern society.
How is digitalization of the offshore oil industry fundamentally changing how we understand work and ways of knowing? Digitalization sits at the forefront of public and academic conversation today, calling into question how we work and how we know. In Digital Oil, Eric Monteiro uses the Norwegian offshore oil and gas industry as a lens to investigate the effects of digitalization on embodied labor, and in doing so shows how our use of new digital technology transforms work and knowing. For years, roughnecks have performed the dangerous and unwieldy work of extracting the oil that lies three miles below the seabed along the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Today, the Norwegian oil industry is largely digital, operated by sensors and driven by data. Digital representations of physical processes inform work practices and decision-making with remotely operated, unmanned deep-sea facilities. Drawing on two decades of in-depth interviews, observations, news clips, and studies of this industry, Eric Monteiro dismantles the divide between the virtual and the physical in Digital Oil. What is gained or lost when objects and processes become algorithmic phenomena with the digital inferred from the physical? How can data-driven work practices and operational decision-making approximate qualitative interpretation, professional judgement, and evaluation? How are emergent digital platforms and infrastructures, as machineries of knowing, enabling digitalization? In answering these questions Monteiro offers a novel analysis of digitalization as an effort to press the limits of quantification of the qualitative.
The book makes the case for process safety and provides a brief overviews of the upstream industry and of CCPS Risk Based Process Safety. The majority of the book focuses on the concepts of implementing process safety in wells, onshore, offshore, and projects. Topics include Overview of Upstream Operations; Overview of Risk Based Process Safety (RBPS); Application of RBPS in Drilling, Completions, Work-Overs & Interventions, Application of RBPS in Onshore Production, Application of RBPS in Offshore Production, Application of RBPS to Engineering Design, Installation, and Construction, Future Developments in the Field
The effect of corrosion in the oil industry leads to the failure of parts. This failure results in shutting down the plant to clean the facility. The annual cost of corrosion to the oil and gas industry in the United States alone is estimated at $27 billion (According to NACE International)—leading some to estimate the global annual cost to the oil and gas industry as exceeding $60 billion. In addition, corrosion commonly causes serious environmental problems, such as spills and releases. An essential resource for all those who are involved in the corrosion management of oil and gas infrastructure, Corrosion Control in the Oil and Gas Industry provides engineers and designers with the tools and methods to design and implement comprehensive corrosion-management programs for oil and gas infrastructures. The book addresses all segments of the industry, including production, transmission, storage, refining and distribution. Selects cost-effective methods to control corrosion Quantitatively measures and estimates corrosion rates Treats oil and gas infrastructures as systems in order to avoid the impacts that changes to one segment if a corrosion management program may have on others Provides a gateway to more than 1,000 industry best practices and international standards
Handbook of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations is an authoritative source providing extensive up-to-date coverage of the technology used in the exploration, drilling, production, and operations in an offshore setting. Offshore oil and gas activity is growing at an expansive rate and this must-have training guide covers the full spectrum including geology, types of platforms, exploration methods, production and enhanced recovery methods, pipelines, and envinronmental managment and impact, specifically worldwide advances in study, control, and prevention of the industry's impact on the marine environment and its living resources. In addition, this book provides a go-to glossary for quick reference. Handbook of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations empowers oil and gas engineers and managers to understand and capture on one of the fastest growing markets in the energy sector today. Quickly become familiar with the oil and gas offshore industry, including deepwater operations Understand the full spectrum of the business, including environmental impacts and future challenges Gain knowledge and exposure on critical standards and real-world case studies
The Oil and Gas Industry boasts some of the highest income earning jobs of any industry in the world. Of the dozens of job categories in the Oil and Gas Industry, the majority have a higher income earning potential than their counterparts in other industries. Careers which are as diverse as accounting and Chemical engineering are readily available to those who knew where and how to look. Many are just unaware of where to look and how to land these jobs. Until now, the information about the various career opportunities in this industry has never been organized and condensed into such a concise book. If you are thinking about a Career in the Oil and Gas Industry, this is where you should start. In "Careers in the Oil & Gas Industry: A Guidebook of Practical Advice" Alfonso Colombano and Ryan Ray detail the ultra complex Oil and Gas industry. Beginning with a brief summary of the Upstream, Midstream, and Downstream markets, they paint a picture of the industry using a broad brush. After that, the remaining chapters are characterized by high quality synopses of the multiple Career opportunities available in each sector, and the sort of personality preferences that tend to flourish more naturally in each. Building on that, Alfonso and Ryan detail the ideal career paths and other means of securing these jobs.
