Gulf Oil Corporation Research Articles

Rents in the political economy of colonial Angola – from the coffee boom to Cabinda Gulf

Angolan agricultural and mining capital benefited from a long-lasting boom until the mid 1950s but afterwards the world market of tropical commodities changed and agricultural capitals entered into a trend of falling profit rates.This paper tries to evaluate this fall and to describe how it was countered by public policies. In fact, during the last two decades before 1974 the colonial State implemented expenditure amounting to more than a 1 billion USD. The State expenditure was funded by the taxation of mineral rents, mainly coming from the diamond and oil sectors.The local reinvestment of mineral rents, as the recent evolution of the petro-states shows, was an exceptional historical experience. In late colonial Angola capital accumulation came to depend on an increasingly smaller number of rent-generating corporations (in fact, two) and so did the State military expenditure, which included a colonial war budget. This situation generated a political flaw: one of those corporations, Cabinda Gulf Oil, was an affiliate of the Gulf Oil Corporation and the visibility of this association led to a public campaign in the US led by a Congregationalist Church. The campaign against the presence of Gulf in Angola was obviously not successful. Still this model of rent-distributing could have hardly last in a capitalist world market and therefore it survived the United Church efforts for only one year more.

Strategy and Manipulation Tools of Crisis Communication in Printed Media

The study deals with the question what communication strategies and manipulation tools institutions use in the field of mass communication, if they are in a given critical stage and solve disturbed relationships with the public through the unconventional forms of crisis communication. The study examines this issue in the advertising product ‘Understanding is everything’ which was published by Gulf Oil Corporation in 1984. The study shows that the tools of semiotic and discourse analysis are able to interpret the mediated contents of media texts when it detects a discursive field and communication processes which the text enters. The study concludes that different discursive fields and different communication processes and contexts which media products enter, generate different and even excluding interpretations of corporate communication and manipulative strategies.

William W. Cooper: Innovator, Fighter, and Scholar

W illiam Wager Cooper was born on July 23, 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama, where his father was a bookkeeper and later a distributor for Anheuser-Busch. Bill’s family moved to Chicago when he was three years old. His father owned a chain of gasoline stations, but lost them during the Great Depression. With his father in ill health and no family revenue, Bill left high school after his sophomore year to work at whatever jobs he could find. These included spotting pins in bowling alleys, caddying at golf courses, and even professional boxing, where his record was 58 wins, 3 losses, and 2 draws. While hitchhiking to the golf course one day, Bill met Eric L. Kohler, a principal with Arthur Andersen & Co., who became his life-long mentor. Kohler loaned him money to enroll as a non-degree student at The University of Chicago. Bill liked the academic atmosphere and took the college entrance examinations, intending to become a physical chemist. During his studies, Kohler asked him to review the mathematics used in a patent infringement suit. After Cooper found errors in the mathematics used by the plaintiff’s engineers, Andersen hired him part time during the school year and full time in the summer. This awakened Cooper’s interest in accounting, and he switched his major to economics. While at Chicago, Bill became good friends with a political science student, Herbert A. Simon. Cooper graduated Phi Beta Kappa with his A.B. in 1938.

Eight strategic decisions that weakened gulf oil

The notion that ‘success breeds failure’ is well known to management scholars and practitioners. Gulf Oil Corporation was among the largest corporations in the world. In 1984, its management was forced to seek a white knight to avoid a hostile takeover. The $13·3bn merger with Chevron is among the largest deals in corporate history. This research explores ‘how’ and ‘why’ this event occurred through case research. Strategic decision processes across eight critical events during 30 years were examined. Data was collected through interviews with forty senior corporate executives. The case analysis suggests that inertia and political processes stifled innovation. Also, there is evidence that Gulf's ‘downward spiral’ began 10 years prior to the takeover battle. The data reveal the internal dynamics of decline, the complexities of organizational life, and paradoxical situations which challenge executives. The continuing challenges in the oil industry, as recently exemplified at British Petroleum, underscore the importance of acting promptly to avoid such downward spirals.

Development and Use of a Modeling System to Aid a Major Oil Company in Allocating Bidding Capital

Bidding at U.S. offshore oil and gas lease sales is characterized by high stakes, enormous uncertainties, and many interrelated decisions. The Lease Bidding Strategy System combined techniques from decision analysis, statistics, and nonlinear optimization to provide information and insights to management responsible for bidding at Gulf Oil Corporation. It was used prior to every major federal lease sale from September 1980 until Gulf was acquired in 1984, during which time Gulf's bids exceeded $1.5 billion. This paper describes the evolution and use of this system, emphasizing its impact on the organization. It describes efforts that gained acceptance for this system under difficult circumstances, and illustrates the importance of adapting methodology to problem changes over time. To our knowledge, this is the first public documentation of the long-term use by a major oil company of a system for constrained multiblock optimization of its bids and partnership shares at U.S. offshore lease sales.

A Temperature Probe Survey on the Louisiana Shelf: Effects of Bottom-Water Temperature Variations: Geologic Note (1)

A survey of temperature gradients in the uppermost sediments of the Louisiana continental shelf was done in 1983 by Gulf Oil Corporation, using a 5-m-long temperature probe. The survey covered 450 sq mi, with an average grid spacing of less than 1 mi. The purpose was to detect heat flow anomalies due to subsurface fluid flow. However, thermal perturbations due to seasonal variation of bottom-water temperature mask the temperature gradients due to geological heat flow. Bottom-water temperature variations similar to those recorded near the survey area in 1963-1965 explain most of the observed spatial and temporal changes in shallow temperature-depth profiles. The data set from this detailed survey has been donated to a publicly accessible scientific database, to spur resear h into heat flow measurement on continental shelves.

A progress report

Environmental ProgressVolume 4, Issue 1 p. F2-F2 Report A progress report Louis R. Roberts, Louis R. Roberts Louis R. Roberts holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Colorado: a M.A. in Physical Chemistry from Rice University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas. He has sixteen years industrial experience with Gulf Oil Corporation, Southwest Research Institute and Allied Chemical Corporation, plus thirteen years with the Texas Air Control Board.Search for more papers by this author Louis R. Roberts, Louis R. Roberts Louis R. Roberts holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Colorado: a M.A. in Physical Chemistry from Rice University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas. He has sixteen years industrial experience with Gulf Oil Corporation, Southwest Research Institute and Allied Chemical Corporation, plus thirteen years with the Texas Air Control Board.Search for more papers by this author First published: February 1985 https://doi.org/10.1002/ep.670040102Citations: 2 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume4, Issue1February 1985Pages F2-F2 RelatedInformation

A Result-Oriented Medical Information System

A result-oriented medical information system at the Gulf Oil Corporation is described. Mortality data acquired mostly from routine company operations have been used to calculate standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) and life expectancy. Results show that male employees at the age of 20 have a life expectancy of 74.8 years. Compared with the U.S. general population at age 20 with a life expectancy of 71.8 years, Gulf employees have an advantage of exactly three years. Such an advantage may seem small, but it is equivalent to the gain that could be achieved if all deaths from cancer were eliminated in the United States, a hypothetical and impossible situation. These life expectancy data have the potential for use by the company to influence insurance premiums traditionally set by life insurance companies as well as to aid in the management of the company's pension fund. The SMR for all causes for the male employees is 0.82, significantly decreased in comparison with that of the U.S. general population. This favorable experience has been referred to as "the healthy worker effect." Cause-specific SMRs show a generalized pattern of deficits, some of which are statistically significant. None showed a significant increase. Seventy-six percent of the male deaths occurred among employees aged 65 years or older. If these annuitants (those alive at the beginning of the study) were not included and only the active workers were studied, an SMR of only 0.54 would be obtained.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

How Gulf Oil deals with uncertainty

THE three paramount goals that govern the overall planning process at Gulf Oil Corporation are:

The impact of competing risks on relative risks in occupational cohort studies.

This paper develops a method for adjustment of competing causes of death in the calculation of relative risk. It has identified three factors determining the significance of competing risks: (1) the magnitude of the overall mortality risk of the study population; (2) differential risk (or the adjustment factor) for mortality other than cause of interest between two populations; and (3) age intervals used in the mortality calculation. Thus, the impact of competing risks is increased if the study cohort has a high mortality risk, if the mortality other than the cause of interest has a large differential risk or if the mortality calculation uses wide age intervals. Two examples from a refinery cohort and the US national population show that among certain age groups unadjusted for competing risks the relative risk is overestimated by 9%. The impact of competing risks in these two particular examples is relatively small. Furthermore, if relative risk is expressed in terms of the ratio of mortality rates, competing risks can be ignored.

Can an English Teacher Contribute to the Energy Debate?

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO CONTRIBUTE? A professor of economics asked me this when I told him I taught English, mainly rhetoric. Rhetoric? Oh, you mean writing? Yes, I meant writing, but I also meant thinking, analyzing and shaping thoughts into language, and criticizing other people's language. We were having lunch together, not at the university dining hall, but at the Sheraton-Denver Tech Center. We were two of the seventeen college professors from various western universities invited to participate in the Company-Faculty Forum on Energy Use and Development sponsored by the Gulf Oil Corporation. What do you hope to contribute? he asked with something of a sneer on his face, or what I interpreted as such. (In rhetoric, we are fond of interpretation.) But maybe I was projecting onto him my own discomfort. So I replied cheerfully that I was unsure myself what I could contribute. After all, I was somewhat dismayed to learn that the professors sent by the various schools mostly came from departments of economics and political science, and some even taught engineering. Few were so remote from the debate as I. There was one professor of ancient Chinese and one taught religious studies, but most were energy experts in some little way. The Gulf Oil representatives as well as other professors sitting at the table assured me that indeed I had a place at the forum, that I could offer a perspective not often available to the company, that opinions from economists, engineers, and other specialists were a dime a dozen in their field. But who ever heard of an oil company getting advice from a professor of Chinese or ethics or rhetoric? My friend the economist stared vacantly into his chef's salad. I guessed he had dismissed the company-faculty forum as another public relations gimmick like those oil company ads supporting conservation. I also guess that's why my contribution, when measured in the only quantifiable way possible-that is, total number of questions and number of actual words blurted out in the heat of debate-outweighed his contribution by a factor of ten. Of course, our contributions cannot be judged by crass quantification. And I'm

The SRC-II process

Extensive laboratory and pilot plant experimental work on the Solvent Refined Coal process by Gulf Oil Corporation over the past 18 years, sponsored by the Fossil Fuel Division of the United States Department of Energy and its predecessor agencies, has led to the development of an improved version of the process known as SRC-II. This work has shown considerable promise in recent years and plans are now being made to demonstrate the SRC-II process with commercial size equipment in a 6000 ton/day (5440 t/day) plant to be located near Morgantown, West Virginia. On the basis of recent economic studies, the products (both liquid and gas) from a future large-scale commercial plant are expected to have an overall selling price of $4.25-4.75/GJ (first quarter 1980 basis). The major product of the primary process is distillate fuel oil of less than 0.3 % sulphur for use largely as a non-polluting fuel for generating electrical power and steam, especially in the east where utilities and industry are currently using petroleum products. In such applications, SRC-II fuel oil is expected to be competitive with petroleum-derived fuels within the next decade. During this period, SRC-II fuel oil should be economically attractive compared with coal combustion with flue gas desulphurization in electric utility and industrial boilers, particularly in the major metropolitan areas. Naphtha produced by the SRC-II process can be upgraded to a high-octane unleaded gasoline to supplement petroleum-derived supplies. Significant quantities of pipeline gas are also produced at a cost that should be competitive with s.n.g. from direct coal gasification. Light hydrocarbons (ethane, propane) from the process may be effectively converted to ethylene. In addition, certain fractions of the fuel oil might also be used in medium-speed diesel engines and automotive gas turbines. For many of these applications, the fuel oil and other products from the SRC-II process would displace high-quality petroleum fractions, which could then be used for production of diesel fuels, jet fuels, home heating oil and gasoline by conventional refinery processes.

Economic and market potential for SRC-II products

The SRC-II process being developed by Gulf Oil Corporation under a contract with the Fossil Fuel Division of the United States Department of Energy has shown considerable promise in pilot plant work, and plans are now being made to demonstrate the process using commercial size equipment in a 6000 tons/day (T/D) plant to be located near Morgantown, West Virginia. the products (both liquid and gas) from a future large-scale commercial plant are expected to have an overall selling price of $3·50-4·00 per million Btu (fourth quarter 1978 basis). The major product of the primary process is distillate fuel oil of less than 0·3 per cent sulphur for use at the outset largely as a non-polluting fuel for generating electrical power and steam, especially in the east where utilities and industry are presently using petroleum products. In such applications, SRC-II fuel oil is expected to become competitive with petroleum-derived fuels within the next decade. During this period, SRC-II fuel oil should be economically attractive compared to coal combustion with flue gas desulphurization in electric utility and industrial boilers, particularly in the major metropolitan areas. For the longer term, the major growth opportunity for SRC-II fuel oil in the generation of electric power will probably be through advanced combustion turbine units with heat recovery boilers (combined cycle units). The light liquid fractions (naphtha and middle distillate) produced by the SRC-II process can be upgraded to a high octane unleaded gasoline blending stock to supplement petroleum-derived supplies. Significant quantities of pipeline gas are also produced at a cost which should be competitive with SNG from direct coal gasification. Light hydrocarbons (ethane, propane) from the process may be effectively converted to ethylene in conventional cracking plants to offset ethylene demand from petroleum-derived naphtha and gas oil, both of which could otherwise be used for other refinery products. In addition, certain fractions of the fuel oil might also be used in medium speed diesel engines and automotive gas turbines. For many of these applications, the fuel oil and other products from the SRC-II process would displace high quality petroleum fractions, which could then be used for production of diesel fuels, jet fuels, home heating oil, and gasoline by conventional refinery processes.

テキサコにおける垂直的統合の経営戦略

Three major questions faced the American Petroleum Industry on the eve of the twentieth century. The first involved the vast new sources of supply of crude oil. After 1900 the Gulf Coast, Mid-Continent, and California oil fields were simultaneously opened up. The second related to the changing composition of consumer demand for petroleum products. The spread of electricity for light was rapidly reducing the demand for kerosene. On the other hand, the new demand for fuel oil and gasoline was sharply expanding. The third was associated with the dissolution of Standard Oil in 1911 by the Supreme Court. As A.D. Chandler, Jr. pointed out, Standard Oil had become a fully integrated enterprise by the early 1890's. In the next two decades challenges to Standard's dominance came from the other integrated enterprises such as the Texas Company, Gulf Oil Corporation organizing after the turn of the century. They had already become large integrated enterprises operating in all basic functions of the oil industry befor 1911. The general incorporation laws of the Texas state did not authorise incorporation for two distinct business purposes. The Texas Company had failed to gain sanction for producing and pipeline activities under one charter, then was organized as a pipeline company. But the Texas Company engaged in integrated operations through control of separetely incorporated producing companies. Within a decade it decided to construct its own refinery, and then moved into marketing. Despite the threat of strictly enforced state incorporation and antitrust laws which might have restricted that relationship, the Texas Company, in a practical sense, was capable of integrated petroleum operations from its inception. In 1917, the state legislature passed the so-called Texas Company Bill, which permitted fully integrated operations.

The use of management science techniques in a corporate strategic planning system

This paper will discuss the role that Management Science has played in the Strategic Planning process in Gulf Oil Corporation. Two levels of planning will be covered: planning at the functional Company level and at the Corporate level. Both the problems and rewards of using Management Science techniques in these areas will be discussed and illustrated through models developed at Gulf. Gulf Oil Corporation is organizationally subdivided into functional companies that are each responsible for long-range planning in their respective business areas. Corporate Headquarters is responsible for allocations of capital, debt control, dividend policy and strategy. Models developed for use at these two levels face different organizational, personnel, technical and data problems and these problems recur as the organization and personnel change. For models to be effective, the perceived benefits ensuing from their use must outweigh the problems encountered in their implementation. Three models will be discussed to illustrate these points; a Corporate model designed to examine capital allocations, debt control, dividend policies, and net cash flow; a model to aid in the formulation of a strategic policy in the Synthetic Fuels area; and, a model to help plan capital improvements or divestments in the petroleum business.

OBSERVATIONS OF COMPLEX DYNAMIC BEHAVIOR IN THE H2—O2 REACTION ON NICKEL*

Annals of the New York Academy of SciencesVolume 316, Issue 1 p. 638-651 OBSERVATIONS OF COMPLEX DYNAMIC BEHAVIOR IN THE H2—O2 REACTION ON NICKEL* R. A. Schmitz, R. A. Schmitz Department of Chemical Engineering University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801Search for more papers by this authorG. T. Renola, G. T. Renola Department of Chemical Engineering University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801Search for more papers by this authorP. C. Garrigan, P. C. Garrigan Department of Chemical Engineering University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801Search for more papers by this author R. A. Schmitz, R. A. Schmitz Department of Chemical Engineering University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801Search for more papers by this authorG. T. Renola, G. T. Renola Department of Chemical Engineering University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801Search for more papers by this authorP. C. Garrigan, P. C. Garrigan Department of Chemical Engineering University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801Search for more papers by this author First published: February 1979 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1979.tb29504.xCitations: 18 † This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Gulf Oil Corporation. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume316, Issue1Bifurcation Theory and Applications in Scientific DisciplinesFebruary 1979Pages 638-651 RelatedInformation

Testimony before the Subcommittees on Africa and International Economic Policy and Trade

On September 25, 1976, the Congressional Black Caucus convened The Black Leadership Conference on Africa. The conference, comprising the leadership of virtually every national black civil rights and social organization, accomplished two noteworthy objectives. It authored the AfricanAmerican Manifesto on Southern Africa which expressed grave concerns with the previous Administration's negotiation initiatives for a Zimbabwe settlement. Secondly, it mandated a task force, chaired by me, to propose and execute an institutional vehicle through which black Americans could express to the Congress and the Administration their views on United States foreign policy vis-a-vis Africa and the Caribbean. TransAfrica, incorporated July 1, 1977, is the fruit of that process. The Board of Directors is chaired by Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana and the organizational membership is drawn from virtually every black community of interest across the country. My personal active involvement in the African thrust for self determination and majority rule is more than a decade old. As a law student at Harvard University in 1967 I helped through the Southern Africa Relief Fund to raise money for refugee assistance to those displaced by the independence wars against Portugal. In 1972 I participated in the challenge to Harvard's Gulf Oil Corporation stockholding and later helped to organize a national campaign against Gulf as a response to its role as the largest corporate supporter of Portugal's war-making capacity in Africa. More recently and just previous to joining TransAfrica, I served for two years as Administrative Assistant to Chairman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., whose interest, concerns and sympathies on African foreign policy issues are well known and appreciated throughout America, particularly black America, and Africa.

The Ocean basins and margins (Volume 3): the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean eds A. E. M. Nairn and F. G. Stehli Plenum Publishing Corporation 706 pages $59.30

Of the seven volumes planned for this series, two were published before this one (South Atlantic, 1973; North Atlantic, 1974) and four are in preparation (Mediterranean, Arctic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean). This third volume follows the general plan in presenting critical and up-to-date reviews of the geological and geophysical data for the region, especially in the context of seafloor spreading and the general theory of plate tectonics. The Caribbean region has had an extremely complex geological history and is critical in a global sense. Its evolution is related to the openings of the North and South Atlantic and to differential movement between the two major parts of the ‘Americas Plate’, but important discrepancies remain between observed geological features and seafloor-spreading models. Fourteen chapters, each by noted authorities, deal with various regional topics embracing the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, the Appalachians and their southern termination, the Andes and their northern termination, Mexico, Central America, the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico), and the Lesser Antilles. A final chapter, by T. W. Donnelly , summarizes the critical problems regarding the geological evolution of the whole region. The coverage in each chapter varies according to the major problems currently under investigation in that region. This ranges from extensive physiographic and geophysical work in the Gulf of Mexico to detailed descriptions of the land stratigraphy and structure of Cuba (chiefly from unpublished data in the Gulf Oil Corporation files). The emphasis throughout the book is on stratigraphy, structure, geophysical observations and tectonic history. The geochemistry of the key magmatic products is hardly considered, with one notable exception (the Lesser Antilles) where the useful analytical data seem almost out of place in view of the book’s bias. Clearly there is much geochemical (including age determination) and petrological work to be done on the igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic suites as an extension of previous, dominantly field geological observations. The book contains a wealth of well-presented and valuable information, provided at a stage when none of the expert contributors can be confident about the evolution of the region as a whole. It provides an excellent framework from which geologists and geophysicsts can plan future research into one of the most complex regions of the Earth’s crust.

Gulf Oil Corporation

Gulf Oil Corporation

Gulf Oil Corporation

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEPREVArticleNEXTGulf Oil CorporationCite this: Anal. Chem. 1975, 47, 12, 1051APublication Date (Print):October 1, 1975Publication History Published online24 May 2012Published inissue 1 October 1975https://doi.org/10.1021/ac60362a720RIGHTS & PERMISSIONSArticle Views4Altmetric-Citations1LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InReddit PDF (88 KB) Get e-Alerts Get e-Alerts