Fossil Fuels: Oil

This lesson provides an introduction to the world oil market and the United States' dependence on it. Topics include our current usage, sources, and the political implications of acquiring oil from an international market. There is also discussion of how petroleum is created and trapped in reservoirs, and how oil companies find it. The lesson includes an activity in which students use an online game that simulates the exploration and production of petroleum. To win, they must actually 'produce' commercial quantities of oil or gas by drilling in the ground in a 8-by-8 mile plot of land with a budget of $2 million dollars. Educational levels: Undergraduate lower division, High school

Approaches of Russian oil companies to optimal capital structure

Oil companies play a vital role in Russian economy. Demand for hydrocarbon products will be increasing for the nearest decades simultaneously with the population growth and social needs. Change of raw-material orientation of Russian economy and the transition to the innovative way of the development do not exclude the development of oil industry in future. Moreover, society believes that this sector must bring the Russian economy on to the road of innovative development due to neo-industrialization. To achieve this, the government power as well as capital management of companies are required. To make their optimal capital structure, it is necessary to minimize the capital cost, decrease definite risks under existing limits, and maximize profitability. The capital structure analysis of Russian and foreign oil companies shows different approaches, reasons, as well as conditions and, consequently, equity capital and debt capital relationship and their cost, which demands the effective capital management strategy

How does stock market volatility react to oil shocks?

We study the impact of oil price shocks on the U.S. stock market volatility. We jointly analyze three different structural oil market shocks (i.e., aggregate demand, oil supply, and oil-specific demand shocks) and stock market volatility using a structural vector autoregressive model. Identification is achieved by assuming that the price of crude oil reacts to stock market volatility only with delay. This implies that innovations to the price of crude oil are not strictly exogenous, but predetermined with respect to the stock market. We show that volatility responds significantly to oil price shocks caused by unexpected changes in aggregate and oil-specific demand, whereas the impact of supply-side shocks is negligible

How Wikipedia Can Overcome the Great Firewall of China

Oil is the main insulation in power transformers and over long time of ageing its insulation properties can change. In this paper ageing of oil due to the exposure to electric discharges was investigated. The effect of high energy discharges (complete arc) and low energy discharges (partial discharges) on oil properties such as breakdown strength and oil conductivity was investigated. An experimental setup consisting of two spherical electrodes was designed. The adjustable distance between the two electrodes made it possible to have PD with different magnitude. The oil conductivity and breakdown strength was measured for three sets of experiments. The first group of experiments was performed on new oil in order to have a reference for comparison. In the second group of experiments the new oil samples was exposed to 1000 and 3000 lightning impulses. In the third group of experiments new oil samples was exposed to partial discharge for different duration of time. Oil conductivity and breakdown strength of these aged samples were compared with new oil. The results show that after exposure to lightning impulse oil conductivity increases and breakdown strength decreases, However PD activity for short time does not change the oil conductivity but it reduces the breakdown strength.QC 20140107</p

The impact of oil price fluctuations on stock markets in developed and emerging economies

This study examines the response of stock markets to oil price volatilities in Japan, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia by applying the generalized impulse response and variance decomposition analyses to the monthly data spanning 1986:01 – 2011:02. The results suggest that the reaction of stock markets to oil price shocks varies significantly across markets. Specifically, the stock market responds positively in Japan while negatively in Malaysia; the signal in Singapore and South Korea is unclear. We find that the stock market inefficiency, among others, appeared to have slowed the responses of the stock market to aggregate shocks such as oil price surges.oil price fluctuation, stock return, exchange rate, emerging market, VAR model.

Oil price shocks and their consequences on Sudan's GDP growth and unemployment rates

Since the advent of oil production and export in late 1999, Sudan economy became more reliant on oil exports proceeds. This situation has exposed the economy to the negative effect of oil price fluctuations. In general, oil exporting countries exhibit positive impact on their economy to oil price increase, while oil importing economies suffer. Unlike developing economies, there is a paucity of research in developing countries with regards to the relationship between the macro-economy and oil price shocks. In this regard, Sudan has been neglected from serious studies related to oil price shocks. This research attempts to contribute towards filling this gap. In doing so, Vector Auto-Regression model is employed to investigate the impact of oil price shocks on the real GDP growth and unemployment rates over the period 2000 - 2014. The Granger causality test suggests that unemployment has statistically and significantly influenced real GDP growth. Results from the Impulse Response Functions and Forecast Error Variance Decomposition analysis suggest that increase in real oil price has greater influence on GDP growth. Interestingly, real oil price decrease has a significant positive impact on unemployment rate

Use of bamboo fiber in oil water separation

One of the environmental issues facing the society is the separation of oil from water in emulsions. Oily wastewater enters into the environment through many ways such as oil spill as well as from the industry. Natural fibers are a viable alternative to synthetic fibers in separating oil from the water. The oil physical characteristics and sorbents made from the fiber influences the sorption of oil onto the fiber. This work uses the naturally available bamboo fibers for separation of oil from water. Very high adsorption capacities were obtained for vegetable oil. Furthermore, recovery of oil was also tested and 90% recovery was obtained. Bamboo fiber has thus great advantage in treating oil-water mixture

High Oil Prices Give Alaskans a Second Chance: How Will We Use this Opportunity?

Think about this: 10 years ago, it looked as if Alaska was on the brink of a tough transition to a post-Prudhoe Bay economy. Oil production was half of what it had once been, the state’s oil revenues were about $2 billion, financial reserves were falling, and employment in the oil industry was down. The price of Alaska oil, adjusted to today’s buying power, was$27 a barrel—and that was high by historical standards. Things have changed dramatically since then: a combination of much higher oil prices—about $115 a barrel as this paper is being written—and revisions in the way the state calculates production taxes have caused state oil revenues to skyrocket, even though oil production is down 40% since 2002. We now find ourselves in a second huge oil-revenue boom, comparable to the one in the early 1980s (Figure 1 ).Northrim Ban