World Petroleum Industry Research Articles

Indonesia’s New Petroleum Fiscal Regime: Fiscal Changes, Impacts and Future Trends

Indonesia has its special influence on the world petroleum industry not only due to its relatively abundant resources but also to its historical influence on world petroleum fiscal regimes. The newly enacted EMER regulation on Gross Split PSC in 2017 was the biggest structural change of Indonesia’s petroleum fiscal regime in a decade and will have profound influence on Indonesia’s Petroleum Industry. This research compares the detailed fiscal terms between Indonesia’s standard PSC and Gross Split PSC and further analyse the possible negative impacts based on model economic evaluation analysis as well as qualitative analysis. In conclusion, the Gross split PSC has negative impacts on contractor economics and may deter new investments in oil and gas exploration and development. Although the gross split PSC brings the simpler administration and better structure of fiscal progressivity. The change to Gross Split PSC reflects Indonesia’s long fiscal policy trend of increasing government take and strengthening government control. However, Indonesia’s government will also bring more incentives to offset the negative impacts of fiscal regime change and thrive to balance between improving government benefits and attracting foreign investments to revitalize oil and gas exploration and development.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF MAJOR OIL COMPANIES ON CREW SELECTION CRITERIA FOR TANKER OPERATING SHIP MANAGEMENT COMPANIES

Tanker shipping which is a special sub-sector of maritime transportation industry plays an important role for the world trade. As oil and its derivatives transported by tankers is the fundamental component for developing industries, its transportation becomes an indispensable issue. Though petroleum and chemical transportation is important for all industries, due to its structural properties, these cargoes include major risks for the environment. There have been some enforcement and impositions to the tanker operating ship management companies to minimize these risks. Herein, MOC (Major Oil Companies), the most important players in the world petroleum industry, has made such impositions on tanker operating ship management companies. Enforcement and impositions on human factor which is the most significant element in a business has a critical importance to minimize these risks. Thus, this study aims to reveal the effects of MOC on the personnel selection criteria of the ship management companies that operate tankers. To achieve this aim, a total of 12 companies operating in Turkey and having largest fleet were selected. An interview was conducted through these companies and the data obtained were analyzed by content analysis of qualitative research methods. As a result, it is revealed that major oil companies have an impact on personnel selection process and activities. Generally, these effects have been about duration of the contract, the number of crew required to be on board, company internal promotion procedures, recruitment process of new employees to the company, and crew training.

Modified design for vacuum residue processing

The world petroleum industry shows a decreasing in the oil reserves, specially the light kind. For this reason is very important to implement process schemes that give the possibility to improve the recuperation of valuable products of heavy oil. In this case the bottom processing in each one of the petroleum refining stages earns great importance with the purpose of maximizing the quantity of fuel by barrel of raw processed. Therefore, it has been proposed the modification of the currently vacuum residues process scheme in the Ecopetrol`s Barrancabermeja refinery (DEMEX-Visbreaking-Hydroprocessing). That modification consists in the incorporation of an additional Visbreaking stage, previous at DEMEX extraction stage.
 This investigation was developed with plant pilot tests combined with statistical models that predict the yield and the quality of the products obtained in the industrial plants. These models were developed by the Instituto Colombiano de Petróleo (ICP).
 The modified scheme Visbreaking I-DEMEX- Visbreaking II- Hydroprocessing, gives the possibility to increase the yield of middle distillates. Besides decrease the quantity of demetalized oil produced in DEMEX stage. This reduction is very favorable since environmental point of view, because it allows have a percentage of free capacity in the Hydroprocessing unit in order to removed sulfur of valuable products like Diesel and in this way to respect the environment law to this kind of fuel.

Review: The Tar Sands Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent

THE TAR SANDS Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent Andrew Nikiforuk Vancouver: Grey stone and the David Suzuki Foundation, 2008. 214pp, $20 paper ISBN 978-1-55362-407-0When it was published in 2008, Andrew Nikiforuk's latest book, The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, co-published by Greystone and the David Suzuki Foundation, caused a sensation. Hailed in some quarters as a wakeup call to Canadians and the world about the social, economic, and political perils of oil sands development, Nikiforuk's book lambasted federal and provincial politicians and institutions alike for their perceived laxity and complicity in creating an environmental, social, economic, and political disaster. Nikiforuk's harsher critics, on the other hand, derided The Tar Sands as little more than environmental agitprop whose preconceived political and social agenda distorted facts and produced, at best, a misleading and incomplete picture of the industry.To be sure, The Tar Sands is not an academic piece, nor does it aspire to be one. Nikiforuk is animated by the same impulses that drove Ida Tarbell, the infamous muckracker for McClure's Magazine, to tackle John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Unlike Rockefeller's creation, which effectively dominated the world's petroleum industry at the beginning ofthe 20th century, however, Alberta's modern oil sands industry operates on the margins of an international petroleum order as a capital-intensive player dependent on economies of scale for profitability. While daily production reached 1.3 million barrels per day in 2008, this represents approximately 1.5 percent ofthe world's daily demand of 85 million barrels per day. Nevertheless, oil sands projects and investments have grown dramatically since 2005 and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers estimates that total investment will reach $10 billion in 2009 - one quarter of the total investment in the province of Alberta.Despite claims by the provincial government that it is effectively managing development, Nikiforuk asserts that Alberta's unconventional oil deposits are being recklessly developed by an uncaring oil industry while government agencies and officials at both the federal and provincial levels turn a blind eye to what is taking place in northern Alberta. In places, the analysis is sharp and penetrating and the issues he raises deserve careful consideration. In a province where tar sands-derived royalties and revenues top billions of dollars, deficiencies in funding for social services, health care, and education raise troubling questions about provincial management. So too does the moribund status of vital infrastructure projects, such as the twinning of provincial highway 63 from Edmonton to Fort McMurray, a topic Nikiforuk tackles in a chapter that metaphorically and literally suggests tar sands development is like travelling down a highway to hell. The Tar Sands is intended to provoke a visceral reaction to tar sands development: Nikiforuk is mad as hell and wants everyone to know it.But this passion, which is so clearly evident on every page ofthe book, occasionally leads him astray. He presents energy politics as a zero-sum game in which development proceeds at the expense of every other social, political, economic, and environmental goal. Without a trace of irony, Nikiforuk concludes that Canada's natural resource wealth has imperilled freedom of speech and democratic institutions, and leads him to draw a lazy - and highly suspect - analogy between Canadian public policies and those of other petro-dictatorships, including Vladimir Putin's Russia, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran. …

MODELING AND SIMULATION OF INDUSTRIAL FCC RISERS

Risers are considered vital parts in Fluidized Catalytic Cracking (FCC) conversion units. It is inside the riser reactor that the heavy hydrocarbon molecules are cracked into lighter petroleum fractions such as liquified Petroleum gas (LPG) and gasoline. The FCC process is considered a key process in the world petroleum industry, since it is the main responsible for the profitable conversion of heavy gasoil into commercial valuable products. This work presents a simplified transient model to predict the response of a FCC riser reactor, i.e., the fluid flow, temperature and concentrations of the mixture components throughout the riser and at the exit. A bi-dimensional fluid flow field combined with a 6 lumps kinetic model and two energy equations are used to model the gasoil mixture flow and the cracking process inside the riser reactor. The numerical results are in good agreement with experimental data, as a result, the model can be utilized for design, and optimization of FCC units. The simulation herein presented shows the applicability of the proposed method for the numerical simulation and control of industrial riser’s units.

Strategic Responses to Advances in Seismic Technology in the Petroleum Industry

The world petroleum industry has been revolutionized by a change in exploration technology from two‐dimensional (2D) to three‐dimensional (3D) seismic mapping. One of the main effects of the newer technology has been to decrease the cost of finding oil, particularly in offshore fields. We examine the impact of the new technology on the exploration activities of the major international petroleum companies and find that they have aggressively increased petroleum exploration expenditures. As a result, we suggest that the companies have achieved a prisoner's dilemma outcome, where they are collectively worse off in terms of profits, providing a possible explanation for the recent wave of large‐scale mergers in the industry.

Weathering Downturns - Survival Strategies for Tough Markets

Published in Oil & Gas Executive Report, Volume 2, Number 2, 1999, pages 26-27. Few industries have experienced the profound economic swings that have saddled the world petroleum industry since the mid-1980's. In fact, few other commodities have experienced the unusual roller-coaster ride of crude oil. As the 1980's opened, economists were predicting that crude oil prices would surge to U.S. $30/bbl and higher over the rest of the century. Instead, the opposite happened. Today, when inflation is taken into account, crude oil is priced below 1956 levels. The phenomenon of oil prices staying well below overall inflation levels began in January 1986. Even in nominal terms, or without the effects of inflation, today's yearly average price of a barrel of the benchmark West Texas intermediate crude is lower than at any time since 1978. Bust/Boom/Bust Cycles In 1986, the industry began one of its most severe and extended downturns ever as world crude oil prices plummeted overnight into the single digits and decreased year to year more than 40% (in nominal, or noninflation-adjusted, terms). Except for a brief hiatus during the 1990 Persian Gulf war, prices were on a downtrend for the better part of 10 years. Then followed 3 good years, 1994 to 1997, when per-barrel prices seemed to steady in the high teens to the low twenties. The industry was beginning to enjoy a rebound. A combination of technological advances and more tight-fisted management helped companies profit at oil prices of U.S. $15/bbl and higher. Most companies enjoyed rising profitability. Last year, just as the industry was feeling cautiously optimistic about stronger prices and healthy drilling, prices dropped again, falling more than30% - by far, the largest year-to-year decline since 1986. The crash turned out to be real and lasting. Nearly 1 year later, the industry is battening down anew to weather another extended economic storm. It's a story nobody in this industry wanted to hear again, but here we are. What happens now? What did we learn, collectively, from previous downturns? There is a silver lining in the proverbial dark cloud. But before discussing this, let's survey the damage to date in the current downturn.

Financing energy development in the 1990s

Energy finance has resurfaced as a major issue in energy and energy policy debates. These concerns arise from the recent dismal performance of the private oil industry, and the growing financial demands of the former Soviet Union and other emerging markets. These growing financial imbalances are seen as jeopardizing the continued smooth growth of the world's petroleum industry. However, this paper stresses that the financial difficulties being experienced by publicly held oil companies are due, primarily, to the current economic recession. As economic growth recovers, and owing to recent substantial cost reductions, the balance sheets of the private oil industry will improve. Among state energy companies, recent structural and financial reforms mean that such companies will be able to retain more cash flow than was true historically. Moreover, many national oil companies are again able to access funds on international financial markets and generally at increasingly attractive spreads. And finally, there is the growing importance of financial innovation that is already having a positive impact on the level and pace of petroleum development worldwide.

第二次大戦期のニュージャージー・スタンダード石油会社

Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) -the present name is Exxon Corporation-has been the biggest company in the world petroleum industry since the late 19th century. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of business activities of the Company during World War II.The main characteristics were as follows : (1) The Company maintained and shored up the fundamental structure of operations which had been established during the 1920s and 1930s : the crude oil production department played a most important part in dominating other companies; the cartel continued to be effective in crude oil production, especially in the U.S.A.; the range of operations was worldwide in wartime as well as before the war.(2) The Company manufactured strategic munitions, that is, aviation gasoline (100-octane), butadiene and synthetic toluene. I think this was an important beginning for petroleum chemical operations by the Company. But it was small in scale in contrast to other operations. I estimate that it didn't provide profits of any importance.(3) The Company made use of government finances, which were essential. But it used them chiefly for operations which had little validity in peacetime. The main operations, for instance, crude oil production, were carried out using the company's own capital.

Oil-Futures Markets

The book is divided into four parts: I. Commodity Futures Markets; II. International Petroleum; Traders and Markets; III. Oil Futures Markets; IV. International Issues; with 16 chapters and 10 appendices covering prices and specimen futures contracts. It is an introduction to the ways of the world petroleum industry and the ins and outs of the commodities trading systems. It is designed to introduce the theory and practice of oil future to a wide audience. The chapters are detailed descriptions of the institutions, the processes and the consequences of futures trading with historical descriptions of the emergence of the activity and the strategy behind it. There are chapters on multinational oil firms and on the formation of OPEC, and a chapter on why are there Futures Markets. In addition, there are chapters on each of the principal exchanges, government stockpiling and the international energy agency.

Relationships Between East Texas Field Region and Sabine Uplift in Texas

The discoveries of Spindletop field near Beaumont, Texas, on January 10, 1901, and the East Texas field, located between the cities of Longview and Tyler, Texas, on October 5, 1930, are probably the two most important events in the exploration history of the American petroleum industry. Spindletop revolutionized both the American and world petroleum industry and created the need for petroleum geologists. The East Texas field had a profound and beneficial effect on depressed economic conditions of the time, and it brought to the attention of geologists the great productive possibilities of stratigraphic-type traps. The East Texas field has two outstanding features: its tremendous size and the simplicity of its geologic trap. It has produced 4,651,000,000 bbl through January 1, 1980, and probably will produce another billion barrels. The trap occurs where the truncated edge of the productive Woodbine sand crosses regional nosing on the west flank of the Sabine uplift. Although this discussion is based principally on a single 75 mi (120.7 km) long east-west dip electric-log cross section, conclusions were derived from studies that made use of several regional cross sections and maps. These studies indicate that a major rise of the Sabine uplift occurred after Buda deposition and before Woodbine deposition. The Woodbine apparently was deposited on a Lower Cretaceous peneplane, which resulted from uplift and severe erosion of Lower Cretaceous strata. Woodbine sediments were deposited over the present crestal and flank areas of the Sabine uplift on this eroded surface. A later major rise of the Sabine uplift occurred during upper Woodbine and Eagle Ford deposition and the resulting erosion removed all Woodbine strata from the higher reaches of the Sabine uplift. These eroded Woodbine sediments were redeposited as reworked Woodbine beds in Texas, and they were probably, in part, a source of Eagle Ford sands in Texas and of Tuscaloosa sands in Louisiana. At the end of Early Cretaceous deposition, the East Texas field region was structurally higher than the Texas-Louisiana border area now occupied by the Sabine uplift. Since that time, the rise of the Sabine uplift has changed that relationship so that the East Texas field area now lies downdip from and on the west flank of the Sabine uplift.

Oil and Gas in People's Republic of China: ABSTRACT

China has recently become a focal point of interest of the world petroleum industry for several reasons. 1. Enormous reserves have been predicted for the country (on the order of Saudi Arabia) as well as a significant future potential as a world supplier of oil. 2. The Chinese political situation has improved markedly and American technology now is at the top of China's industrial shopping list. 3. United States and European oil companies have held discussions with China concerning future joint-interest offshore ventures in Chinese waters. 4. Some drilling contractors have had at least informal discussions concerning future operations in the country. 5. Many Chinese petroleum delegations have been visiting the United States in recent months, holding far-reaching technical discussions with United States oil companies and suppliers. China considers information about its petroleum operations (reserves, drilling and production statistics, potential, etc) to be a state secret and little or no hard data have been made available for many years. However, on the basis of visits over the past year to China's two largest oil-producing areas and its most active offshore area, plus extensive discussions with several hundred engineers, geologists, and production supervisors, it has been possible to draw some basic conclusions about state-of-the-art of China's petroleum industry. These judgments, which stem from the collective observations of two technical petroleum delegations to the People's Republic of China, do not agree with some published U.S. government statements concerning China's potential, nor with some of the co clusions drawn by other outside observers. End_of_Article - Last_Page 524------------

Cartel Rivalry and the World Price of Oil

The title of this paper emphasizes collusion rather than competition in crude oil pricing and is in contrast to the orientation of Professor Adelman [1; 2; 3]. Since Adelman's analyses are based upon a theory of oligopoly and cartel behavior which is widely known and generally accepted, it is not surprising that arguments and conclusions similar to his dominate the thought of academic economists and public authorities. Nevertheless, the dominant theory is inadequate because it considers neither the possibility that one cartel may supplant another nor the fact that cartel formation takes place in an historical context and over an extended period of time. Furthermore, a rather naive version of the dominant theory of cartel behavior has been applied to the world petroleum industry: Adelman has argued the international corporate cartel broke down through chiseling and that the OPEC cartel would succumb to similiar endogenous pressures [1, 8]; more recently he has argued the OPEC cartel will succeed because the consuming countries have a vested interest in high oil prices [3, 59-60]. It will be shown that the theory of cartel behavior admits the possibility of either extreme or an intermediate solution. Thus Adelman's conclusions do not derive directly and exclusively from the theory. The purpose of this paper is two fold: the first is to extend the received theory of cartel behavior to include cartel rivalry; and the second is to apply the extended model to the experience of the world petroleum industry. The ultimate aim is to determine the probable stability of world oil prices. Adelman's analysis of world oil prices is deficient because competition is assumed to predominate over collusion. It is also deficient because the theory of cartel behavior is underdeveloped. In the case of world oil one should consider the rise of OPEC and the decline of the international corporate cartel as coincident phenomena. But the theory of oligopoly and of cartel behavior is formulated so that the analyst is prone to treat the decline of one cartel and the emer-

The Large International Firm in Developing Countries. The International Petroleum Industry.

The economics of the world's petroleum industry are outlined, the nature and significance of the large international firm are described, and the history of the oil industry, the operation of the major oil companies, prices in the industry, and the economics of developing countries are all covered.

A Twenty-Year Look at Free World Petroleum Requirements-A 300 Billion Barrel Challenge

Abstract Special attention to the future is more important today than it ever has been before because of the enormity and difficulty of the challenge facing the Free World petroleum industry over the next 20 years-one of satisfying an ever-increasing demand for petroleum under conditions where new supply is increasingly difficult and expensive to find. Based on a forecast of energy requirements through 1985 and an evaluation of the roles to be played by the various energy components, the author concludes that the industry must add 250 to 300 billion bbl of proven crude oil reserves in order to meet the production goals forecast. As far as geological and engineering factors are concerned. the goal appears to be within reach of the industry. This belief, however, is strongly dependent on the assumption that the profitability of conventional exploration and production in the free foreign area will not decline substantially below its present level. Introduction The interest in projected world petroleum requirements is direct evidence of the increasing importance that oil people everywhere are attaching to planning for the future. Too often in the past we have concerned ourselves primarily with the current technical, operating and management aspects of the business. A stronger interest in future energy trends and petroleum's part is overdue. and it is an encouraging sign to see the industry giving more attention to this subject. The result will be improved effectiveness for the entire petroleum industry. Special attention to the future is more important today than it ever has been before because of the enormity and difficulty of the job that lies ahead-satisfying an ever- increasing demand for petroleum under conditions where new supply is increasingly difficult and expensive to find. One expression of the magnitude of this job is indicated in part of the title to this paper-that this is "a 300- billion-bbl challenge". If this number of "300 billion" is not sufficiently impressive by itself, let me point out that this is more than twice the amount produced in the Free World area in the last 100 years and is about equal to what the Free World industry can currently claim as proved remaining reserves. Before starting the detailed discussion, I want to point out some general qualifications that apply to the information that will be presented. First of all, it is inevitable that projections 20 years into the future involve a considerable amount of speculation. A forecast of energy requirements over such a period and an evaluation of the roles to be played by the various energy components depend, for example, upon population projections and on the interplay of political, economic and technological factors. Errors of estimation and differences in assumptions in these areas sometimes tend to compound and give rise to an increasingly divergent range of estimates as the forecast period is extended. Energy Demand Because our main interest lies in over-all petroleum requirements. I have intentionally included in the forecast some non-energy uses for petroleum such as lubes, asphalts. petrochemical feed stocks. etc. The volume of these materials is currently about 2 million B/D, and is expected to at least double in the forecast period. Including these volumes under the petroleum results in a slight overstatement of the role predicted for petroleum in a strict, primary-energy-market sense. In the period since 1950, Free World energy demand has been increasing at an average annual rate of about 4 per cent, from 30.7 million BOPD equivalent in 1950 to an expected 55.5 million B/D in 1965, as shown in Table 1. In the 20 years ahead. we expect, that with improved efficiency in fuel conversion and energy usage. the percentage rate of growth will decline slightly to an average of about 3.8 per cent per annum. Because of the constantly expanding energy base, however, the annual increments to energy demands will become progressively higher, and we estimate that the total energy demand by 1985 will reach a level of about 116 million bbl of oil equivalent daily. For perspective. let me add that, at this latter rate of consumption, today's proved oil and gas liquids reserves in the U. S. would satisfy the Free World's total appetite for energy for less than a full year.

Glances at the International Petroleum Industry

Abstract The world petroleum industry faces an increasing demand which will require increasing reserves and production. Although the position of the U. S. in the world petroleum industry is declining because of the rapid growth of less sophisticated economies, the U. S. is in good shape to take part ill the expansion of the industry. Russian and Middle Eastern oil will continue to be of major importance. New areas will come to the front, once the exploration for petroleum has begun to keep pace with the increased demand. The continental shelf, deep water and deep land possibilities are becoming more important in long-range plans. Natural gas is becoming more important, although it is not being utilized elsewhere as much as in the U. S. Oil import policies will continue to evolve ill an attempt to maintain equilibrium. Introduction The future of the international petroleum industry, of course, will depend on the kind of world we are going to have tomorrow in respect to political and economic stability to support the expected growth in demand for petroleum. Will there be political and economic stability comparable to the past? By this I mean will we be subjected only to minor changes and no disruptions which would cause a world war. If the answer is "yes", then we may predict the growth of the international petroleum industry based on past trends and performance. The long-range forecasts of demand in this paper are a consensus of forecasts prepared by oil companies and supported by past trends. Aside from the above, the principal factors which will influence the demand for petroleum in the next 10 years are: population growth rate; technical progress in the utilization of petroleum; growth rate of world economy; desire for better living standards throughout the world which is directly related to the per capita consumption of petroleum; and possible substitutes for petroleum from oil shales and tar sands. Demand and Production The future looks very bright for the petroleum industry. It appears that we have an expanding industry which will require, in the year 1975, approximately 50 million BOPD to meet demand. With this expected growth rate we will have produced more than half our present known reserves of approximately 300 billion bbl of oil by that time. It will, indeed, take considerable exploration effort to find oil to supply this ever-increasing demand. Present oversupply conditions will be erased in a few years unless there is a large amount of oil discovered. The growth in demand for crude oil and natural gas products for the last 10-year period and the next 10-year period is indicated in Table 1, which indicates that the United States demand is increasing at a much lower rate than the rest of the world and, as a result, the United States portion of total demand is diminishing. During 1953, the United States demand was 55.8 per cent of total world demand. During 1963, this had been reduced to 39 per cent, and in 1973 it is estimated that the United States demand will only be 31.9 per cent of the total world demand. This definitely shows the trend in the use of petroleum and the importance for American operators to develop crude sources outside the United States to supply this increasing demand. U.S. and Free World Table 2 shows the per capita consumption of crude oil and natural gas liquids for 10 countries. In Table 2, note that the barrels per year per capita consumption in the United States is 20.7, with Canada a close second at 18.4; whereas, for Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy, the per capita consumption is respectively 8.2, 6.9, 6.1 and 5.5. These countries of Europe have a very high percentage increase in demand, which can be explained by the fact that their per capita consumption is much lower than either the United States or Canada. The per capita consumption for Japan is 4.1 bbl/year and it can be expected the demand rate will rise sharply until it approaches at least double the present consumption. Communist Bloc In the Communist bloc the average per capita consumption is 6 bbl/year, which is approximately the average of Western Europe. In Africa and China there is room for enormous expansion in demand because the per capita consumption is very low. We believe that Table 2, in part, shows why the percentage increase in demand outside the United States is so much larger than the increase in demand in the United States. Fig. 1 shows the past trends together with the expected future trend for the next 10 years for the world, the United States and outside the United States. In addition, it shows the crude oil production of the United States and of Russia and the Russian exports. JPT P. 973ˆ

Current Topics in the Field of World Petroleum Industry

The author attended the 6th World Petroleum Congress held in Frankfurt during June 19-26, 1963.This paper describes some interesting topics given at the Congress, e.g., (1) oil men have very optimistic opinion as to the future of world petroleum resources; (2) hydro-treating techniques in the petroleum industry are advancing towards the hydrodesulfurization of heavier fraction and the hydrocracking aiming at the manufacture of both petroleum products and petrochemical raw materials;and (3) deve-lopment stndies for the new and unusual uses of petroleum are being actively conducted, such as preparation of protein and vitamin from petroleum by use of micro-organisms.

Oil — Canada's New Wealth

This article traces the birth and early growth of a major industry. Before Imperial Leduc No. 1 brought in the Edmonton field in 1947, Canadian oil producing operations had been sporadic. The Edmonton and subsequent discoveries in western Canada created an industrial giant overnight, providing historians and economists with a remarkable, documented, accessible case study of the process of industrial growth. Imperial Leduc No. 1 generated economic impulses that surged through a nation. The immediate effects were felt by the Canadian oil industry itself, which crystallized into a new pattern of integration. The domestic consumer of petroleum products was vitally affected, and his counter-reactions created new necessities. Canadian economic development in general was immediately and largely influenced; the flow of oil touched off a chain reaction in state and national fiscal affairs, in agriculture, in population trends, in education, in public expenditures, and in Dominion politics. Nor was the end here. The impulse for change swept across international boundaries, affecting monetary exchange and the competitive alignments of the world petroleum industry.

Petroleum and Petroleum Products

THE group of papers on conservation of petroleum and natural gas given at the third World Power Conference forms the subject of a report by H. C. Fowler (Section IV, Paper No. 12). Mr. Fowler stressed the principle enunciated by Sir John Cadman that petroleum should not be produced without adequate need, having regard to the vital part played by crude petroleum in the life of civilized communities to-day, and the view held by technicians that resources of crude petroleum are not unlimited. The problem of conservation presents a different aspect in each oil-producing country, and it is difficult to assess it from the point of view of world resources. In the case of the United States of America, the problem is unique and the ultimate policy adopted there will probably have a greater influence on the world petroleum industry as a whole than that of all other oil-producing countries combined.