Caspian Region Challenges1

1999 ◽  
Vol 1999 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-89
Author(s):  
Kit Tennant

ABSTRACT The Caspian Region is to all intents and purposes the birth place of the oil industry. Following the break up of the USSR and the ensuing conflicts much of the production facilities and infrastructure were not afforded a comprehensive maintenance and monitoring programme. With the independence of the oil producing states, the impetus of oil exploration and production has again gathered pace with many alliances being established between oil companies and between the oil industry and governments. The increase in production due to new fields and the improved production of existing fields has dictated that the methods of bulk crude oil transportation have had to be improved or put in place. Much of the focus on the oil transportation infrastructure has been on the renewal and repair of existing pipeline systems and proposals for new pipeline routes. Writing or updating existing contingency plans for pipeline routes as well as the coastline surrounding the Caspian Sea is also an area of great importance when considering the pristine nature of the aquatic environment. Further development in the Caspian Region is bringing together more oil industry players and governments. The contingency planning for such developments is in the fore of everyone's mind.

2001 ◽  
Vol 2001 (2) ◽  
pp. 1449-1454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Hazelton ◽  
Robert M. Sargent ◽  
Erich R. Gundlach ◽  
Mohamed Anis Boussetta ◽  
Ahmed Ben Djebara ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT In addition to having ports that ship and receive oil and other commercial products by sea, the Republic of Tunisia is exposed to potential spills from vessels that are routed close to shore as they transit the Mediterranean. This paper summarizes a study that was conducted to evaluate Tunisia's commercial ports' oil spill contingency plans, response equipment, and response management systems, for the purposes of increasing the spill response capability of the Tunisian Office of the Merchant Marine and Ports (OMMP) and bringing each plan up to criteria established by Tunisia's 1996 oil spill legislation and international standards. The four ports evaluated were Bizerte, Tunis-Goulette-Radès (TGR), Sfax, and Zarzis. Interviews and discussions were conducted with representatives of the OMMP, the Agency for Environmental Protection (ANPE), the Tunisian Petroleum Activities Enterprise (ETAP), the Tunisian Navy and Merchant Marine, the Directorate General of Energy, the state-owned oil transportation company (TRAPSA), and selected private sector oil companies. The equipment review entailed analysis of existing equipment in each port, potential spill size and location, time to respond, and environmentally sensitive areas needing protection. Specific recommendations were made for improving the readiness posture of Tunisia's commercial ports and for the purchase of additional spill-response equipment and services. Implementation of these recommendations will result in a significantly improved capability on the part of the private and public sector users of Tunisia's commercial ports to respond effectively to marine oil spills, should one occur. This paper highlights the readiness capability of each port and the extent of oil transportation activities, and provides recommendations to improve response via equipment purchases, improvement of the existing response management system, implementation of a training and exercise program, and changes to the port contingency plans.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2003 (1) ◽  
pp. 1189-1198
Author(s):  
Darío Miranda ◽  
Ana María Betancur ◽  
Guillermo Gutiérrez

ABSTRACT Up to a few years ago, contingency planning in the Colombian oil industry treated contingency plans for oil spills, fires and explosions as independent contingency plans. Strategies, operational procedures and equipment were selected for each type of emergency response. This condition reduced overall performance for different types of emergencies and restricted an emergency brigade's responsibility and commitment when facing an emergency. The members of a fire brigade, for example, did not have enough experience to control an oil spill and simply felt that they were not responsible for such work. In 1989, new legislation in Colombia established an approach for emergency response in which local, regional and national committees were created at municipal, departmental and national levels. These committees were responsible for emergency response coordination that depended on the emergency type and size, and on the resources involved. It soon became evident that individual contingency plans should be incorporated into a single comprehensive document. However, there were no guidelines available to provide contingency planners with the tools necessary to develop such integrated plans. The Colombian Petroleum Institute's new approach for designing and structuring Contingency Plans for the Colombian oil industry is presented in this document. New schemes for comprehensive emergency response are discussed, considering strategic, operational and data processing issues. Master Contingency Plans provide Local Contingency Plan developers with suitable tools that will enable them to develop their own plans in a comprehensive way, while coordinating the plans with the Colombian National System for Disaster Prevention and Response considered in Colombian law.


1991 ◽  
Vol 1991 (1) ◽  
pp. 695-697
Author(s):  
David M. Bovet ◽  
Charles R. Corbett

ABSTRACT The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 establishes a system of oil spill liability, compensation and financial responsibility at levels not contemplated prior to the Exxon Valdez incident. Furthermore, it does so while preserving states’ prerogatives and rejects the international solution embodied in the 1984 Protocols to the 1969 Civil Liability and 1971 Fund Conventions. The act requires new contingency planning by both industry and government and sets new construction, manning, and licensing requirements. It increases penalties, broadens enforcement responsibilities of the federal government, and enhances states’ participation in the national response program. It also establishes a billion dollar federal trust fund to supplement the liability of responsible parties. The act is likely to result in safer tanker operations and to reduce the threat of oil spills in U.S. waters. These environmental improvements will be paid for by U.S. oil consumers. Other implications include the following:Reassessment of involvement in U.S. oil transportation by both independents and oil majorsEnhanced preparedness by responsible partiesA gradual rise in freight ratesCorporate restructuring to shield liabilityFewer small oil companies and independent carriers in U.S. tradesPotential disruptions linked to new certificates of financial responsibilityPotential shortages of Alaskan trade tonnageHeightened presence of state governments in oil spill incidents, oil spill legislation, and enforcement


Author(s):  
Araz O. Mursaliev

In 2018, the legal status of the Caspian Sea was clearly defined. Hence, the issue of sustainable development takes the centre stage. Regional legal regime of environmental protection may develop through the transfer of executive functions provided for in the intergovernmental convention and entrusted to the national authorities of the Caspian States to a single competent authority in order to improve their efficiency. The article is aimed at studying the issues of correlation between international legal rules on the Caspian Sea environmental protection and Russian national legislation in order to identify the optimal scope of executive functions that can be transferred to a regional intergovernmental organization, as well as to identify promising directions for further development of the applicable national legislation. The author shows that for a more efficient environmental protection of the Caspian region the Caspian states need a single regional intergovernmental body that coordinates their environmental activities, collects data and information on pollution on a centralized and timely basis, and regularly performs assessment of the Caspian region environment. Further, the author also shows the need for further development of applicable national legislation in the context of the concept of integrated coastal management


The oil industry has made contingency plans from the earliest operations to clean up any spills due to accidents during exploration and production. The Oil Industry International Exploration and Production Forum (E & P Forum) was established in 1974 to coordinate oil industry opinion with governments and intergovernmental agencies. The United Nations Environment Programme and the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization are working together to organize regional oil spill clean-up arrangements both on the apparatus and on the financial side. The E & P Forum member companies have formulated a computer program to estimate the cost of clean-up following any hypothetical blow-out in the North Sea. This program is applicable, provided the appropriate meteorological data are available, to other areas of the world such as the Mediterranean, the Persian/Arabian Gulf, the Gulf of Mexico, the Malacca Straits, etc., where U.N.E.P./I.M.C.O. are proposing to set up multi-national conventions. In places such as the North Sea, the oil companies have mutual aid organizations which maintain stocks of dispersant, suitable vessels and spreaders, skimmers and booms to minimize any oil that may be driven to the shore. Looking to the future, there may be some problems associated with harvesting manganese nodules or mining the Red Sea mineral-rich lands. However, conservation is today part of any general planning of an operation and new processes that are developed will take into consideration adequate anti-pollution measures.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-216
Author(s):  
Ayodele Morocco-Clarke

The oil industry drives the Nigerian economy as oil can be credited for most of Nigeria's foreign earnings. The exploration and production activities by operators in the Nigerian oil industry have for numerous decades resulted massive pollution of land, water and air within the jurisdiction of Nigeria and consequently there have been bitter complaints about the degradation of the environment. Though there are scores of legislations, regulations and policies governing the oil industry, it is clear that the multinational oil companies operating in Nigeria do not conduct their operations on the high levels they do in developed countries. However, the problem does not basically lie with the issue of ‘sub-standard’ legislations, but with the fact that the legislations in place are not routinely and uniformly enforced by the regulatory authorities and are often not complied with by the oil companies. This paper examines the twin problems of enforcement and compliance and tries to find a path out of the regulatory quagmire in Nigeria.


2020 ◽  
pp. 28-43
Author(s):  
A. S. Kaukin ◽  
E. М. Miller

The paper analyzes the consequences of the abolition of the export duty on oil and oil products as a necessary step to stimulate energy efficiency of Russia’s economy and eliminate underdevelopment provoked by a long-term subsidizing of inefficient oil refining sector in Russia. The calculation results have shown that even taking into account several deviations from the planned scenarios of changing the parameters of tax regulation of the oil industry in 2014— 2019, the tax maneuver brought over 3.5 trillion rubles (in 2019 — 148 billion rubles) to the state budget in 2014—2017, mainly due to an increase in the base mineral extraction tax rate, and contributed to an increase in the depth of oil refining from 72% to 85%. In addition, the article analyzes possible risks associated with the current plan for reforming the taxation of the industry until 2024 and proposes an alternative that could level some of them. A comparative analysis of the effects of the tax maneuver under the current reform plan and the alternative variant suggests that the latter will allow to achieve a greater total budgetary effect in four years, reduce the cost of subsidizing domestic oil refining, increase the efficiency of Russian vertically integrated oil companies, and reduce the growth rate of oil products prices in the retail market.


1973 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 480
Author(s):  
J. M. Killey

As onshore oil and gas deposits are becoming more difficult to locate, and as the world demands for energy continue to increase at an alarming rate, oil companies are channeling much of their exploration activities towards offshore operations, and in particular, towards operations centered off Canada's coast lines. Because of the environment, offshore drilling presents problems which are novel to the onshore-geared oil industry. J. M. Killey discusses in detail many of the considerations involved in drafting the offshore drilling contract, concentrating on problems such as the liability of the various parties; costs; scheduling; pollution; conflict of laws; etc. Similarly, he discusses service contracts (such as supply boat charters; towing services; helicopter services; etc.^ which are necessity to the operation of an offshore drilling rig. To complement his paper, the author has included number of appendices which list the various considerations lawyer must keep in mind when drafting contracts for offshore operations.


Author(s):  
Mahmood Monshipouri

The relationship between Iran, Turkey and the South Caucasus states have been influenced by an array of geopolitical, strategic, cultural, and economic factors. The competition between Iran and Turkey and their roles in the South Caucasus are best defined by traditional balance-of-power relations and the broader context of the post-Soviet era. This chapter unpacks the complex dynamics of pipeline politics in the South Caucasus region by underlying the need to understand the “Great Power Game” involving geostrategic and geo-economic interests of local governments, regional actors, global powers, and international oil companies. The larger focus turns on underscoring the importance of the region’s large oil and gas reserves; its land connection between the Caspian Sea, South Caucasus, and Europe; and its long-standing territorial conflicts in the post-Soviet era. Iran and Turkey have fought for influence in the South Caucasus while maintaining relatively good bilateral relationships in the region.


Author(s):  
Angela Penrose

After her husband’s death in 1984 and retirement from INSEAD Edith enjoyed the resurgence of interest in her work and its increasing influence on aspects of economic, business, and management theory and on a younger generation of economists, many of whom visited her at her home near Cambridge. The chapter examines the influence of her seminal ideas on some key protagonists of the ‘resource-based view of the firm’, e.g. David Teece, Birger Wernerfelt, J. C. Spender, and Jay Barney. Due to her understanding of the international firm, in particular the oil industry, she undertook consultancies pertaining to arbitration between oil companies and national governments.


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