of environmental demands, using the saving of the nation as a premise, will be allowed to resurrect the Oil supply. It was also clear that many nations would have to change the tax regime, to allow for lower taxes and therefore losses for the Oil companies until the Oil price situation could be stabilised and a re-organisation effective.
The corona virus was used in highly creative ways to give excuses for problems for which there would be aid given, it became a general catchphrase or catch all, thus avoiding subsidy laws. National Oil companies (NOCs) are generally government owned puppets and investment vehicles, with very few technical staff, those they have are used to oversee the work done by the multinational operators on their behalf, in partnerships from a financial rather than technical point of view. The Trouble with an NOC, is that they are run by governments and therefore run for the best interests of the government politically not necessarily the company or the state that they represent. Corruption is endemic in these organisations and accountability extremely low, they are therefore not as attractive to invest in as the multinational Oil companies, which means that they tend to grow less and don’t become such major corporations perpetuating the Stranglehold on Energy by the large supermajors.
The effect of all of the customs cultures and governance within the Oil Supermajors, is that they form a structure similar to a nation within themselves, and definitely hold a set of objectives and opinions, most of which are to continue to grow and develop morphing into whatever kind of structure is required to get to their goals and push out opposition competition and rivals. The Oil companies can perceive rivalry from governments, international law, taxation, national Oil companies, other Energy companies and even changing market conditions, they plan and act against all these threats. In the end because of the speciality of the subject the Oil companies are opaque organisations. Many people are not aware of the extent of their activity, most people think of the upstream when they talk about the Oil industry, that is the operation of going out and finding then producing the Oil and Gas, that is obviously a major activity and very visible but it is probably only less than one quarter of their operational expenditure.
The earnings are also differently spread than most think, the petrol and diesel produced are a large volume of liquids and money, but not the most profitable part of their organisation. The most profitable part of their organisation is all of the products that they produced from it which have diffused into the daily life of every person on the planet. The most famous of which are plastics, which have created such an environmental problem but also an immense step ahead in the ease of life of people. The full gambit of products that come from petroleum industry are sometimes surprising search as all kinds of dyes fabrics many of which are involved in the fabrication of clothes as well as any other cloth material that is in our daily life like curtains sofa covers carpets and all the linen, even houses. Another surprise is the fact that Oil is heavily involved in the manufacture of fertilisers which are used on many of the farms, which have increased the production and fertility of the land no end in fact if one examines modern life most things we have and do involve hydrocarbons in various ways not just the Energy component of them.
The European Oilfield was born really in the 1970s and the companies encouraged in order to create an alternative supply of Oil to that from the Middle East then try to control (financially rather than with militarily force) the world Oil market. The reason was the powerful set of Oil producing countries, which were not aligned with the UK Europe or the West in general were seen as an extreme threat unless that happened. The Multinational Oil company personnel have grown a swaggering arrogance believing themselves to be a part of an elite and identifying the power of the company with some kind of privileged existence themselves, they feel a great superiority that the know secrets and truths that others don’t, feeling that they are much more in the deal flow and knowledge than the public could ever know, to some extent that is correct but it is no longer entirely the case. It is no longer the case that Oil company personnel will be kept employed during downturns and continue a privileged life to act, in a voluntary fashion like the Western world’s ambassadors whilst being the exploitation method of the third world, as used to be the case. The current struggle is to dismantle the European and US control of Oil.
Because of the pressures of modern business to serve the shareholders more, be more ethical environmental and less likely to persecute people, giving more equal rights across race and gender as well as the fact that there are many more threatening factors. not least of which being the vigorous enforcement of the foreign corrupt practises act which is could a swathe through many business practises that were considered normal and reasonable only a few years ago. The spirit of the act is still regularly broken and largely circumvented as the worlds business is routinely conducted in ways not according to the act and applying it vigorously would rule out the West from many trade deals if not all non-western trade deals in that sector. Regularly Individuals are thrown to the dogs because of this or companies incur big fines or both, of course the pressure comes to the employee who must deliver telling the company that they are doing everything by the book both in spirit and the methods that he has been taught and signed off to agree on.
Of course, one must remember the first priority of any country will be to have Energy and basic needs for the citizens. As many countries can attest, the lack basic power and facilities at homes or to run the infrastructure continuously, is extremely stressful worrying and dangerous. There will always be a privileged place for Energy companies especially multinationals that can chose where and when they serve, importantly, bringing significant investment then know how and then income to any country they work in. Many Oil and Gas fields around the world are much too expensive and difficult for an individual sovereign state to attempt to do themselves. Most of the North Sea Oil and Gas was discovered and developed using American money and know how initially.
Some of the super major (Oil and Gas) companies, have operating budgets cash flows and even total assets and earnings, greater than governments of individual countries that they trade with. Also to be remembered is that the overall Oil business is a vast business alone and very specialised knowledge is required to be able to understand it in any way. Concentrated involvement for decades worldwide is needed with the right exposure to become even reasonably knowledgeable of how, why, when, and with what, it operates.
Another little known or understood Part of the Oil business, is that there are companies called service companies, these are the companies that do the manual part of the work and offer services to the Oil company. The Oil company themselves used to do a great deal of the work and own drilling rigs but from the 1940s onward they did less and less of the actual work and owned less and less of the rigs. In the modern day, none of the major Oil companies own a significant amount of drilling rigs or service equipment or personnel, they hire it in various contract modes, depending on the area of work from mostly the major service companies.
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