To the casual observer, the oil business seems constant and unchanging. Most gasoline stations have done away with attendant services, and credit cards are accepted directly at the pump, but drive-in access and brand names remain largely as they have been for generations. The faade, however, is just that; it is like the false front of a Western town put in place to make everything seem bigger and grander than it really is. The familiarity of the oil industry's retail outlets masks extraordinary changes in how the industry engages in its four primary sectors of activity: finding and producing crude oil, transportation, refining, and marketing.

Project management for oil and gas projects comes with a unique set of challenges that include the management of science, technology, and engineering aspects. Underlining the specific issues involved in projects in this field, Project Management for the Oil and Gas Industry: A World System Approach presents step-by-step application of project manag

This book is a product of investigations conducted within the Global Utility Research Unit (Guru) of Agici Corporate Finance (Milan, Italy). More specifically, it is the result of a project developed by the Observatory on Alliances and Strategies in the Pan-European Utility Market set-up seven years ago with the contribution of Accenture. The project, entitled “Pan-European Gas Industry Scenario – Truth and Lies”, was presented at the 2008 Milan annual international conference (www. agici. it). I would therefore like to thank Luca Cesari, Claudio Arcudi and Massimo Pagella from Accenture for their continued support. The scope of this book is to shed some light on a market, that of natural gas, which is highly complex and at the same time of fundamental importance for Europe for at least the next 20 years. We do not intend to build a theory but only to develop a better understanding of the key factors. We fully recognise that the each of the issues we cover deserves further investigation and we are also well aware that we may have omitted a number of important considerations and topics. These shortcomings are - at least in part - justified by the desire to keep the book to a r- sonable size for editorial reasons.

The Global Oil & Gas Industry: Stories from the Fieldrelates specific examples of challenges in decision making, changing business practices, and the difficulties in executing complex projects across the global industry. From contentious border disputes over mineral rights to the emergence of industry disrupters shaking the status quo, each story presents contemporary issues to distill lessons that are transferable to management challenges both inside and outside of the global oil and gas industry. Bestselling PennWell authors Andrew Inkpen and Michael Moffett join with industry expert Kannan Ramaswamy to provide a narrative of 18 stories, each highlighting a different aspect of the industry. This collection provides an enriching, thought-provoking look into a business that many believe to be globally mature, but as these stories intimate, are increasingly local, emerging, and evolving with the global economy. Features and Benefits: Examples of the complex business situations in oil and gas and how excellent (and sometimes less-than-excellent) leaders navigate these difficult circumstances. Insights into the decision making of oil and gas companies from around the world Different themes that span the entire industry value chain: upstream, midstream, and downstream Timeless truths for the hydrocarbon sector and for many other businesses

The history of the European oil and gas industry reflects local as well as global political events, economic constraints and the personal endeavours of individual petroleum geoscientists as much as it does the development of technologies and the underlying geology of the region. The first commercial oil wells in Europe were drilled in Poland in 1853, Romania in 1857, Germany in 1859 and Italy in 1860. The 23 papers in this volume focus on the history and heritage of the oil and gas industry in the key European oil-producing countries from the earliest onshore drilling to its development into the modern industry that we know today. The contributors chronicle the main events and some of the major players that shaped the industry in Europe. The volume also marks several important anniversaries, including 150 years of oil exploration in Poland and Romania, the centenary of the drilling of the first oil well in the UK and 50 years of oil production from onshore Spain.