Can U.S. oil production survive the 20th century?

The plunge in world oil prices has brought further difficulties to U.S. oil production, which has been declining in recent years. At the current low prices, most domestic oil wells are not profitable. This calls into question the long-run viability of oil production in the United States. Whether oil production remains a viable part of the U.S. economy in the next century will depend on how long oil prices remain at their current low levels.> Lamb and Wilkerson show how the recent low prices for oil on world markets reflect a combination of demand and supply effects, with both short-run and long-run forces at work. For example, sluggish demand growth reflects both milder weather in some parts of the world (a short-run phenomenon) and the impacts of the Asian financial crisis, which could persist for some time. Meanwhile, supply has mushroomed, in part due to the short-run effect of Iraq's return to higher levels of oil production. In the main, however, the increase in supply reflects sharp declines in the cost of discovering and extracting oil reserves. On balance, the current low prices appear to be mainly the result of longer run demand and supply forces, suggesting that prices are likely to remain low for some time to come. If world oil prices do remain low, U.S. oil is unlikely to be competitive in world markets. Therefore, the domestic oil sector is likely to continue to lose market share for the foreseeable future.Petroleum industry and trade ; Prices

Conservation Value and Permeability of Neotropical Oil Palm Landscapes for Orchid Bees

The proliferation of oil palm plantations has led to dramatic changes in tropical landscapes across the globe. However, relatively little is known about the effects of oil palm expansion on biodiversity, especially in key ecosystem-service providing organisms like pollinators. Rapid land use change is exacerbated by limited knowledge of the mechanisms causing biodiversity decline in the tropics, particularly those involving landscape features. We examined these mechanisms by undertaking a survey of orchid bees, a well-known group of Neotropical pollinators, across forest and oil palm plantations in Costa Rica. We used chemical baits to survey the community in four regions: continuous forest sites, oil palm sites immediately adjacent to forest, oil palm sites 2km from forest, and oil palm sites greater than 5km from forest. We found that although orchid bees are present in all environments, orchid bee communities diverged across the gradient, and community richness, abundance, and similarity to forest declined as distance from forest increased. In addition, mean phylogenetic distance of the orchid bee community declined and was more clustered in oil palm. Community traits also differed with individuals in oil palm having shorter average tongue length and larger average geographic range size than those in the forest. Our results indicate two key features about Neotropical landscapes that contain oil palm: 1) oil palm is selectively permeable to orchid bees and 2) orchid bee communities in oil palm have distinct phylogenetic and trait structure compared to communities in forest. These results suggest that conservation and management efforts in oil palm-cultivating regions should focus on landscape features.This work was supported by a Hosteling International-Austin Travel Fellowship (http://www.hiusa.org/austin) and a grant from the Graduate Program in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Texas (http://www.biosci.utexas.edu/graduate/ee​b/default.aspx) to GL. GL was supported by a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Integrative BiologyEmail: [email protected]

BLACK SEA: A GEOPOLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE EASTERN BORDER OF THE EURO-ATLANTIC STRUCTURES

The Black Sea is a crossing space between worlds, different cultures and global interests. Political, economic and social shifts occurred over time within the states in the area, with major consequences in the game of power and in exercising control in the game. The new realities of the international political scene have highlighted the crucial nature of the Black Sea Region for European security, being known as the new eastern frontier of Europe. The full European security can not be achieved as long as the Black Sea area remains unstableregional security, regional cooperation, asymmetric risk, regional risk, energy security

Towards dealing with multinationals

Paper on dealing with multinational corporations as a key strategy for escaping Africa's crisis

Analysis of Oil and Gas Industry in Asia with Reference to Investment and Expansion Strategies of Asian National Oil Companies (ANOC’s)

Demand for crude oil and natural gas in the Asian region has increased over the past few years at a rate of 1.3% during 2000-2012 and the demand for natural gas is likely to increase at an average annual growth rate of 6.8% during 2009-2020. Scarcity of resources forced many Asian National Oil Companies (ANOCs) to explore the opportunities in various corners of the world looking for prospective lands and partnerships which led them to aggressively invest in global acquisition of oil and gas assets. This paper deals with the strategies adopted by the ANOCs to secure their energy needs and conducts an in-depth analysis of Asian Oil and Gas industry. It also analyses the investments, mergers & acquisitions and growth strategies of major ANOCs. Results of the study show that increasing domestic needs have driven ANOCs’ decision to expand overseas. It can be concluded that acquiring of assets internationally will play a prominent role in ANOCs’ future operations. Key words: Crude oil, Natural gas, Energy needs, Mergers, Acquisitions