ExxonMobil in Europe’s Shale Gas Fields: Quitting Early or Fighting It Out?

This article focuses on the oil and gas supermajor, ExxonMobil, and its business in the unconventional gas field in Europe. The purpose was to investigate whether and how ExxonMobil runs its natural gas operations differently among European countries and possible reasons for divergent strategies. After a brief introduction of the firm, ExxonMobil’s approach in Europe in general will be discussed. Two countries are in focus: Poland and Germany. The key finding is that the firm indeed has shown different approaches and strategies. In Poland, ExxonMobil faced a supportive, positive environment but quit quickly when its small investment resulted only in disappointing results. The firm, however, was a newcomer which had not much to lose. In contrast, its German unconventional gas operations are connected to broad conventional activities and are being defended by an extensive effort to win back public support

Integrated Strategic Planning of Global Production Networks and Financial Hedging under Uncertain Demands and Exchange Rates

In this paper, we present a multi-stage stochastic programming model that integrates financial hedging decisions into the planning of strategic production networks under uncertain exchange rates and product demands. This model considers the expenses of production plants and the revenues of markets in different currency areas. Financial portfolio planning decisions for two types of financial instruments, forward contracts and options, are represented explicitly by multi-period decision variables and a multi-stage scenario tree. Using an illustrative example, we analyze the impact of exchange-rate and demand volatility, the level of investment expenses and interest rate spreads on capacity location and dimensioning decisions. In particular, we show that, in the illustrative example, the exchange-rate uncertainty cannot be completely eliminated by financial hedging in the presence of demand uncertainty. In this situation, we find that the integrated model can result in better strategic planning decisions for a risk-averse decision maker compared to traditional modeling approaches

Robust planning in scheduled passenger traffic with applied stochastic programming and integrated risk management

Der Planungsprozess im fahrplanbasierten Passagierverkehr ist eine sehr komplexe Aufgabe und viele Entscheidungen im Planungsprozess müssen unter Unsicherheit getroffen werden. In der langfristigen Planung müssen Fluggesellschaften und Unternehmen des ÖPNVs beispielsweise mit einer Nachfrage-und Treibstoffpreisunsicherheit umgehen. In der kurzfristigen Planung verursachen unvorhersehbare Störungen aufgrund von Wetterbedingungen oder Verkehrsaufkommen Abweichungen vom Plan. Daher ist der Gewinn der Unternehmen in hohem Maße abhängig von der Entwicklung unsicher Parameter. Zum Begrenzen des Risikos in schlechten Szenarien müssen robustere Pläne erstellt werden. Die Robustheit der Pläne kann durch die Integration von Risikomanagement in den Planungsprozess verbessert werden. Die Risiken können mit operativen Methoden, wie z. B. dem Wechsel eines Flugzeugtyps oder der Erhöhung der Pufferzeit zwischen zwei Busfahrten sowie mit kontraktuellen Methoden, wie Hedging der Treibstoffpreise verringert werden. Das Ziel ist, robustere Lösungen für den Planungsprozess im fahrplanbasierten Passagierverkehr zu finden. Bestehende Optimierungsmodelle wurden weiterentwickelt oder neue Modelle wurden von Grund auf entwickelt. Eine integrierte Risikomanagementstrategie wurde in diese Modelle integriert und Fallstudien wurden verwendet, um die Vorteile der robusten Planung nachzuweisen.The planning process in scheduled passenger traffic is a very complex task and many decisions in the planning process have to be fixed under uncertainty. In long-term planning airlines and public transport companies have to cope with demand and fuel price uncertainty, for example. In short-term planning unforeseeable disruptions due to weather conditions or traffic density cause deviations from the plan. As a result, the profit of companies operating in scheduled passenger traffic highly depends on the development of uncertain parameters. To manage and limit the risk of bad scenarios, more robust plans have to be created. The robustness of the plans can be increased by integrating risk management into the planning process. The risks can be decreased with operational methods, such as changing the aircraft type of a flight or increasing the buffer time between two bus trips, as well as with contractual methods, such as hedging fuel prices. The objective is to find more robust solutions for the planning process in scheduled passenger traffic. Existing optimization models are re-developed or new models are developed from scratch, an integrated risk management strategy is integrated into these models, and case studies are used to show the advantages for robust planning.Tag der Verteidigung: 26.09.2012Paderborn, Univ., Diss., 201

ExxonMobil in Europe’s Shale Gas Fields: Quitting Early or Fighting It Out?

This article focuses on the oil and gas supermajor, ExxonMobil, and its business in the unconventional gas field in Europe. The purpose was to investigate whether and how ExxonMobil runs its natural gas operations differently among European countries and possible reasons for divergent strategies. After a brief introduction of the firm, ExxonMobil’s approach in Europe in general will be discussed. Two countries are in focus: Poland and Germany. The key finding is that the firm indeed has shown different approaches and strategies. In Poland, ExxonMobil faced a supportive, positive environment but quit quickly when its small investment resulted only in disappointing results. The firm, however, was a newcomer which had not much to lose. In contrast, its German unconventional gas operations are connected to broad conventional activities and are being defended by an extensive effort to win back public support.Keywords: energy, energy policy, ExxonMobil, fracking, Germany, hydraulic fracturing, Poland, public acceptance, regulatory politics, shale gas, unconventional gas, US

Morphology‐Dependent Influences on the Performance of Battery Cells with a Hierarchically Structured Positive Electrode**

The rising demand for high-performing batteries requires new technological concepts. To facilitate fast charge and discharge, hierarchically structured electrodes offer short diffusion paths in the active material. However, there are still gaps in understanding the influences on the cell performance of such electrodes. Here, we employed a cell model to demonstrate that the morphology of the hierarchically structured electrode determines which electrochemical processes dictate the cell performance. The potentially limiting processes include electronic conductivity within the porous secondary particles, solid diffusion within the primary particles, and ionic transport in the electrolyte surrounding the secondary particles. Mitigating these limits requires an electronic conductivity in the active material of at least 10−4 S m−1 and a primary particle radius below 100 nm. Our insights enable a goal-oriented tailoring of hierarchically structured electrodes for high-power applications

Libraries Across the Sea: Using a Virtual Presence and Skilled Student Assistants to Serve Students Abroad

The authors discuss methods and challenges of supporting branch academic libraries overseas that are not staffed onsite by librarians or permanent staff. The authors present their two-pronged approach of creating a virtual presence carefully customized to the needs of the students studying abroad along with specially and highly trained student workers. The new program, grounded partly in theories from education and business management, is shown to have substantially improved both library services for our study abroad students as well as library student workers’ performance

Morphology-Dependent Influences on the Performance of Battery Cells with a Hierarchically Structured Positive Electrode

The rising demand for high-performing batteries requires new technological concepts. To facilitate fast charge and discharge, hierarchically structured electrodes offer short diffusion paths in the active material. However, there are still gaps in understanding the influences on the cell performance of such electrodes. Here, we employed a cell model to demonstrate that the morphology of the hierarchically structured electrode determines which electrochemical processes dictate the cell performance. The potentially limiting processes include electronic conductivity within the porous secondary particles, solid diffusion within the primary particles, and ionic transport in the electrolyte surrounding the secondary particles. Our insights enable a goal-oriented tailoring of hierarchically structured electrodes for high-power applications

4DMRI-based investigation on the interplay effect for pencil beam scanning proton therapy of pancreatic cancer patients

Background: Time-resolved volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (4DMRI) offers the potential to analyze 3D motion with high soft-tissue contrast without additional imaging dose. We use 4DMRI to investigate the interplay effect for pencil beam scanning (PBS) proton therapy of pancreatic cancer and to quantify the dependency of residual interplay effects on the number of treatment fractions. Methods: Based on repeated 4DMRI datasets for nine pancreatic cancer patients, synthetic 4DCTs were generated by warping static 3DCTs with 4DMRI deformation vector fields. 4D dose calculations for scanned proton therapy were performed to quantify the interplay effect by CTV coverage (v95) and dose homogeneity (d5/d95) for incrementally up to 28 fractions. The interplay effect was further correlated to CTV motion characteristics. For quality assurance, volume and mass conservation were evaluated by Jacobian determinants and volume-density comparisons. Results: For the underlying patient cohort with CTV motion amplitudes < 15 mm, we observed significant correlations between CTV motion amplitudes and both the length of breathing cycles and the interplay effect. For individual fractions, tumor underdosage down to v95 = 70% was observed with pronounced dose heterogeneity (d5/d95 = 1.3). For full × 28 fractionated treatments, we observed a mitigation of the interplay effect with increasing fraction numbers. On average, after seven fractions, a CTV coverage with 95–107% of the prescribed dose was reached with sufficient dose homogeneity. For organs at risk, no significant differences were found between the static and accumulated dose plans for 28 fractions. Conclusion: Intrafractional organ motion exhibits a large interplay effect for PBS proton therapy of pancreatic cancer. The interplay effect correlates with CTV motion, but can be mitigated efficiently by fractionation, mainly due to different breathing starting phases in fractionated treatments. For hypofractionated treatments, a further restriction of motion may be required. Repeated 4DMRI measurements are a viable tool for pre- and post-treatment evaluations of the interplay effect