The short history of the 0il and Gas industry is an epic narrative broken by modifications brought about by changes in technology, political systems (including …show more content…
This last change was profound at the same time breaking the integrated structure of the major international companies and opening international trade in oil to all comers, where the new state companies were largely sellers and private-sector companies were largely buyers.
For many years the threat of ‘0il running 0ut’ has been suggested as the second big turning point.x But this particular report argues that, on the contrary, it is demand that may be nearing a plateau – at least in developed countries – as the response of other industries to high oil prices and to climate change-related policies ruffle through every aspect of economies, so that energy is used more efficiently and other fuels substitute for oil. At the same time the combination of new technology and prices consistently higher than those of recent decades is opening new potential for new oil supplies from shale and other low-permeability formations (‘tight oil’), deep water and pre-salt oil deposits outside the traditional exporting …show more content…
The axis of the oil market is shifting from the trade between the Middle East exporters and US and European importers to one that links Asian developing markets to the Middle East, which no longer has sufficient oil to support these markets’ growing needs. Because the geography of oil production is so different from the geography of consumption; international trade is a continuing feature of the business; 6O% of 0il consumed is traded between regions. How the international 0il market works is critical to the industry and those involved with it.
The balance between state and the private sector has always been a feature of the history of the oil and gas industry. There is no pure private-sector ideal for oil; even in the United States governments are involved in allocating the resources under the lands they own and in subsidizing the highways on which 14% of the world’s oil supply is consumed. In other developed countries consumption of oil in transport is heavily taxed, while in many developing countries it is subsidized either directly or through direction of the state monopoly prices.
Not every aspect of the industry is covered (for example, oil refining and the gas distribution and retail sector). We have focused on those for which we believe the industry needs to clarify its response to critical