Oil Titans
Oil Titans

Author: Valerie Marcel

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2007-05-01

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780815754725

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A Brookings Institution Press and Chatham House publication Ninety percent of the world's oil reserves are entrusted to state-owned companies. Originally created as political instruments, these so-called national oil companies (NOCs) face new demands amid today's dwindling oil reserves and simmering social pressures. Increasingly, state-owned oil firms—particularly in the Middle East—are having to balance the political demands of their governments with the need to be commercially competitive. In this ground-breaking new volume, Valerie Marcel draws on unprecedented access to the politicians, engineers; and businessmen directing five Middle Eastern state oil companies to shed light on one of the most secretive segments of the international oil industry. The author tells the stories of Saudi Aramco, Kuwait Petroleum Corp., the National Iranian Oil Co., Sonatrach of Algeria, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.—oil titans which together produce one quarter of the world's oil and hold half of the world's known oil and gas reserves. Dr. Marcel explains the complex bond between each state and its oil company, tracing the relationship's evolution from the politically charged days of foreign concessions to today's world of profit-driven decisionmaking. Drawn from over 120 interviews with company executives, middle managers, and oil-ministry officials, the author identifies a number of surprising new trends in these companies' strategy, and she paints a picture of their nascent sense of corporate identity. The book provides rare, up-to-date insight into how state-owned companies are striking a balance between their national mission and their commercial needs. The book also provides an insider's guide to these companies' unique culture. Executives and researchers in the region—both inside and outside the oil industry—will find it a valuable tool for understanding business in the Middle East.

The Oil Companies and the Arab World
The Oil Companies and the Arab World

Author: Giacomo Luciani

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-02

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1317236270

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For many years, vertical integration characterized the international oil industry, with the same company controlling the entire process from crude exploration and production to the retailing. This structure was radically transformed in the 1970s and this book, originally published in 1984, examines whether the dis-integration which resulted was a long-term trend or a temporary phase. It examines the attitude of the major international oil companies, discusses the policies adopted by oil producing and oil importing countries, and the limits of ‘government to government’ deals underlined. The political and strategic implications of re-integration are explored, and relations between oil exporters and importers, and between the USA, Europe and the Arab world discussed.

Sedimentary Basins and Petroleum Geology of the Middle East
Sedimentary Basins and Petroleum Geology of the Middle East

Author: A.E.M. Nairn

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 1997-12-11

Total Pages: 979

ISBN-13: 008054083X

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The wealth of petroleum has made the Middle East one of the most actively explored regions of the world. The volume of geological, geophysical and geochemical data collected by the petroleum industry in recent decades is enormous. The Middle East may be a unique region in the world where the volume of subsurface data and information exceeds that based on surface outcrop.This book reviews the tectonic and geological history of the Middle East and the regional hydrocarbon potential on a country by country basis in the context of current ideas developed through seismic and sequence stratigraphy and incorporating the ideas of global sea level change.Subsurface data have been used as much as possible to amplify the descriptions.The paleogeographic approach provides a means to view the area as a whole. While the country by country approach inevitably leads to some repetition, it enhances the value of the volume as a teaching tool and underlines some of the changing lithologies within formations carrying the same name.

Arab Oil Policies in the 1970s (RLE Economy of Middle East)
Arab Oil Policies in the 1970s (RLE Economy of Middle East)

Author: Yusuf A. Sayigh

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-05-15

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 131759388X

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Until 1973 few people, either in the advanced, industrial countries or in the developing countries of the Third World, thought seriously on the issues and complexities involved in the production and marketing of the oil on which they relied. It was only with the sudden steep increases in oil prices that the oil industry became a matter of general discussion, and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) became a front page topic for analysis and comment. However, real understanding of the organisation and its policies did not accompany this rush of interest and much confusion has followed. In particular, the Arab exporters have received the weight of the criticism although they have only a share in the market and not a monopoly. This book attempts to instil a greater mutual understanding between oil exporters and importers, although it is not a wholesale endorsement of Arab policies, by outlining the major policy areas in this field. It looks at new policy options and their implications in exploration, marketing and pricing and at downstream operations such as the petrochemical and gas industries. In conclusion, this study identifies the wide-ranging opportunities that the new oil policies have opened up for the Arab countries, in the national, regional and international context, and assesses and clarifies the responsibilities which accompany this success. First published in 1983.

The Oil Curse
The Oil Curse

Author: Michael L. Ross

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-09-08

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0691159637

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Explaining—and solving—the oil curse in the developing world Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth—and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing. Ross traces the oil curse to the upheaval of the 1970s, when oil prices soared and governments across the developing world seized control of their countries' oil industries. Before nationalization, the oil-rich countries looked much like the rest of the world; today, they are 50 percent more likely to be ruled by autocrats—and twice as likely to descend into civil war—than countries without oil. The Oil Curse shows why oil wealth typically creates less economic growth than it should; why it produces jobs for men but not women; and why it creates more problems in poor states than in rich ones. It also warns that the global thirst for petroleum is causing companies to drill in increasingly poor nations, which could further spread the oil curse. This landmark book explains why good geology often leads to bad governance, and how this can be changed.

Oil Culture
Oil Culture

Author: Ross Barrett

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2014-10-15

Total Pages: 519

ISBN-13: 1452943958

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In the 150 years since the birth of the petroleum industry oil has saturated our culture, fueling our cars and wars, our economy and policies. But just as thoroughly, culture saturates oil. So what exactly is “oil culture”? This book pursues an answer through petrocapitalism’s history in literature, film, fine art, wartime propaganda, and museum displays. Investigating cultural discourses that have taken shape around oil, these essays compose the first sustained attempt to understand how petroleum has suffused the Western imagination. The contributors to this volume examine the oil culture nexus, beginning with the whale oil culture it replaced and analyzing literature and films such as Giant, Sundown, Bernardo Bertolucci’s La Via del Petrolio, and Ben Okri’s “What the Tapster Saw”; corporate art, museum installations, and contemporary photography; and in apocalyptic visions of environmental disaster and science fiction. By considering oil as both a natural resource and a trope, the authors show how oil’s dominance is part of culture rather than an economic or physical necessity. Oil Culture sees beyond oil capitalism to alternative modes of energy production and consumption. Contributors: Georgiana Banita, U of Bamberg; Frederick Buell, Queens College; Gerry Canavan, Marquette U; Melanie Doherty, Wesleyan College; Sarah Frohardt-Lane, Ripon College, Matthew T. Huber, Syracuse U; Dolly Jørgensen, Umeå U; Stephanie LeMenager, U of Oregon; Hanna Musiol, Northeastern U; Chad H. Parker, U of Louisiana at Lafayette; Ruth Salvaggio, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Heidi Scott, Florida International U; Imre Szeman, U of Alberta; Michael Watts, U of California, Berkeley; Jennifer Wenzel, Columbia University; Sheena Wilson, U of Alberta; Rochelle Raineri Zuck, U of Minnesota Duluth; Catherine Zuromskis, U of New Mexico.

Oil and the political economy in the Middle East
Oil and the political economy in the Middle East

Author: Martin Beck

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2021-08-17

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1526149087

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The downhill slide in the global price of crude oil, which started mid-2014, had major repercussions across the Middle East for net oil exporters, as well as importers closely connected to the oil-producing countries from the Gulf. Following the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the oil price decline represented a second major shock for the region in the early twenty-first century – one that has continued to impose constraints, but also provided opportunities. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle Eastern political economy in response to the 2014 oil price decline, this book connects oil market dynamics with an understanding of socio-political changes. Inspired by rentierism, the contributors present original studies on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The studies reveal a large diversity of country-specific policy adjustment strategies: from the migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, who lost out in the post-2014 period but were incapable of repelling burdensome adjustment policies, to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who have never been able to fulfil the expectation that they could benefit from the 2014 oil price decline. With timely contributions on the COVID-19-induced oil price crash in 2020, this collection signifies that rentierism still prevails with regard to both empirical dynamics in the Middle East and academic discussions on its political economy.

The Netherlands and the Oil Crisis
The Netherlands and the Oil Crisis

Author: Duco Hellema

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 9053564853

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This incisive study examines the role of the Netherlands in the October War and the oil crisis of 1973. The authors contend that the actions of the Dutch government were hypocritical: the Dutch government faced a domestic crisis when an oil embargo was levied against them by Arab countries for selling arms to Israel; yet after oil began arriving again two months later, the Dutch rejected a proposal for a stricter interventionist energy policy within the European Union. A probing and thought-provoking study, The Netherlands and the Oil Crisis draws on previously unavailable archival sources to shed new light on a pivotal moment in contemporary Dutch history.