Enterprise Risk Management In The Oil And Gas Industry: An Analysis Of Selected Fortune 500 Oil And Gas Companies Reaction In 2009 And 2010

In 2009, four of the top ten Fortune 500 companies were classified within the oil and gas industry. Organizations of this size typically have an advanced Enterprise Risk Management system in place to mitigate risk and to achieve their corporations\u27 objectives. The companies and the article utilize the Enterprise Risk Management Integrated Framework developed by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) as a guide to organize their risk management and reporting. The authors used the framework to analyze reporting years 2009 and 2010 for Fortune 500 oil and gas companies. After gathering and examining information from 2009 and 2010 annual reports, 10-K filings, and proxy statements, the article examines how the selected companies are implementing requirements identified in the previously mentioned publications. Each section examines the companies Enterprise Risk Management system, risk appetite, and any other notable information regarding risk management. One observation was the existence or non-existence of a Chief Risk Officer or other Senior Level Manager in charge of risk management. Other observations included identified risks, such as changes in economic, regulatory, and political environments in the different countries where the corporations do business. Still others identify risks, such as increases in certain costs that exceed natural inflation, volatility and instability of market conditions. Fortune 500 oil and gas companies included in this analysis are ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Baker Hughes, Valero Energy, and Frontier Oil Corporation. An analysis revealed a sophisticated understanding and reporting of many types of risks, including those associated with increasing production capacity. Specific risks identified by companies included start-up timing, operational outages, weather events, regulatory changes, geo-political and cyber security risks, among others. Mitigation efforts included portfolio management and financial strength. There is evidence that companies in later reports (2013) are more comprehensive in their risk management and reports as evidenced by their 10-K and Proxy Statements (Marathon Oil Corporation, 2013)

Be-10/Be-7 tracer of atmospheric transport and stratosphere-troposphere exchange

The 10Be/7Be ratio is a sensitive tracer of atmospheric transport and stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE). Data from five NASA aircraft field missions (PEM: West A and B, Tropics A; SONEX; and SUCCESS) have been assembled to produce the largest data set of 10Be,7Be, and their ratio collected to date (\u3e300 samples). Ratios near 0.60 are indicative of tropospheric air with little stratospheric influence, while higher ratios are found in stratospheric air. Samples from the lower stratosphere were all collected within 2.5 km of the tropopause and had ratios \u3e1.27. Of these lower stratosphere samples only 16% had ratios in excess of 3.0, suggesting that higher ratio air resides away from the tropopause. Seasonality observed in the10Be/7Be ratios results from the downwelling of air with elevated ratios from higher in the stratosphere in the spring and summer (midlatitudes) and from the decay of 7Be during descent in the winter polar vortex (high latitudes). Our results illustrate the complexity of STE and some of the mechanisms through which it occurs, including tropopause folding, mixing associated with subtropical jets, and the effect of synoptic systems such as hurricanes and northeasters. The10Be/7Be ratio provides important information beyond that which can be derived from studies that rely on chemical mixing ratios alone

Subdiffusive motion in kinetically constrained models

We discuss a kinetically constrained model in which real-valued local densities fluctuate in time, as introduced recently by Bertin, Bouchaud and Lequeux. We show how the phenomenology of this model can be reproduced by an effective theory of mobility excitations propagating in a disordered environment. Both excitations and probe particles have subdiffusive motion, characterised by different exponents and operating on different time scales. We derive these exponents, showing that they depend continuously on one of the parameters of the model.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Duality symmetries and effective dynamics in disordered hopping models

We identify a duality transformation in one-dimensional hopping models that relates propagators in general disordered potentials linked by an up-down inversion of the energy landscape. This significantly generalises previous results for a duality between trap and barrier models. We use the resulting insights into the symmetries of these models to develop a real-space renormalisation scheme that can be implemented computationally and allows rather accurate prediction of propagation in these models. We also discuss the relation of this renormalisation scheme to earlier analytical treatments.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figs. Final version, some extra context and references adde

Observations of atmospheric water vapor with the SAGE 2 instrument

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment 2 (SAGE 2) is discussed. The SAGE 2 instrument was a multichannel spectrometer that inferred the vertical distribution of water vapor, aerosols, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone by measuring the extinction of solar radiation at spacecraft sunrise/sunset. At altitudes above 20 km, the SAGE 2 and LIMS (Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere) data are in close agreement. The discrepancies below this altitude may be attributed to differences in the instruments' field of view and time of data acquisition

Fluctuation-dissipation ratios in the dynamics of self-assembly

We consider two seemingly very different self-assembly processes: formation of viral capsids, and crystallization of sticky discs. At low temperatures, assembly is ineffective, since there are many metastable disordered states, which are a source of kinetic frustration. We use fluctuation-dissipation ratios to extract information about the degree of this frustration. We show that our analysis is a useful indicator of the long term fate of the system, based on the early stages of assembly.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Keystone XL Pipeline

The Keystone Pipeline and everything it entails has taken over the news and the majority of North America. Most people around the United States did not know the Keystone Pipeline already existed before all of the uproar and protesting began back at the end of 2011. The part of the pipeline that does not exist is the additional expansion, the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was proposed in 2008. Since the approval of the project in March 2010, the Keystone XL Pipeline has been a problematic proposition ever since the idea was introduced by the TransCanada Energy Company. While the project was originally developed as a partnership between TransCanada and ConocoPhillips, TransCanada is now the sole owner of the Keystone Pipeline System, as TransCanada received regulatory approval on August 12, 2009 to purchase ConocoPhillips' interest. TransCanada attempted to get a permit for the new pipeline for more than three years. Since the pipeline crosses international borders, TransCanada had to obtain a Presidential Permit through the State Department for construction of the portion of the pipeline that goes from Canada to the U.S. To this day, even though a substantial amount of the project is complete, protesters are still against the idea of transporting tar sands throughout Canada and the United States to refineries in Houston, Texas so that we will have additional sources of oil and fuel to supply our needs. The paper discusses the controversy, the accounting implications, the legal implications, and local press. Pictures Included