The industry of Oil and gas are considered to
be the largest one in the sphere as far as market capitalization is concerned.
With revenues of around $4 trillion in the previous fiscal year, this industry experienced
7.23% of an average growth.
Within oil, gas and consumable fuels
industry, integrated oil and gas sector is one of the major sub sectors. The
sub-industry comprises companies that are engaged in upstream as well as
downstream activities. Oil
companies are also known as ‘Majors’ as they have spread themselves around
the globe to explore, extract, refine and market oil and gas. The majors,
because of their vast global network and highest revenues among all firms, face
strong headwinds from environmental groups to alter their heartless practices
as well as experience grave setbacks due to geo political unrest. Upstream
activity includes the exploration of a site, to extraction of crude oil and/or
natural gas and downstream activity includes Refining of the upstream
extractions and marketing them to end users.
The key players in integrated oil includes: Chevron, Exxon, British petroleum and Royal Dutch shell. These
‘Big Four’ oil super-majors own around 20.3% - calculated using last FY figures
- of the total developed oil and gas reserves held by the top 33 firms falling
in the sub-industry, including state-owned integrated oil and gas companies
such as Petrobras of Brazil. From production and exploration perspective, oil
and gas integrated companies are faced with the pressure of replacing their
energy reserves for sustaining future production. The techniques of EOR have
drastically altered energy background in this regard.
The two key players in the industry includes Chevron
and Exxon, ExxonMobil Fuels & Lubricants is one of the leading companies in
the marketing of the finished asphalts, lubricants, and other special products.
The company also specializes in the supply of base stocks. The global brands of
the company actually recognize the ExxonMobil product, which are distributed
all around the world. The company has a huge customer base in which most of the
large industries come up front.
The California-based oil
company named chevron is considered
to be the one of the largest oil companies in the world traded in NYSE as “CVX”. It is founded in
1984, having total numbers of employees of around 64,600 as on December
2013.The operations of chevron have been divided into the upstream (related to
exploration and production) and downstream (related to oil marketing)
activities.
Because of their energy extraction yield the
methods of EOR which are being employed by oil and gas companies. Using
conventional methods, the energy extracted was around 20% to 40% of the overall
en deposit of energy in a specific field, while new innovations in EOR techniques
have increased it to 30% to 60%. North Sea was the main source of Oil
production in a Brent, is a mature field on which oil extraction started. With
the number of easy oil fields (conventional source) decreasing, companies of
oil and gas need to search for other unconventional sources in order to
increase their reserves. In this case as well, EOR techniques have played a
major role. Unconventional sources such oil shales and oil sands which are
developed by the oil firms in order to increase their reducing reserves.
The US has a pro-stance towards the EOR
methods whereas in Europe, especially in the UK, there are ongoing protests
related to the use of such kind of techniques.
Fracking and hydraulic are the technique that is employed in shale oil
and gas extraction had faced severe criticism on part of the strain it puts on
the surrounding environment. This is the reason that shale been exclusively
been in the US.
Taking this into account, oil and gas
integrated companies has been required to raise their exposure relatively
towards natural gas, even though the prices of natural gas have declined while
the prices of crude are on the rising
side. This is so because carbon emissions from burning natural gas are 30% less
as compared to the amount of oil burned to produce the same amount of energy.
The prices of crude oil are the key drivers
of revenue for the upstream segment of the oil and gas integrated companies.
Benchmark price of crude oils are utilized as reference against which the price
of the oil extracted is calculated, judging on the differences in the quality
Natural gas prices in Europe (as indicated by
the Heren NBP index) increased in FY12 to lure supply away from Asia, even
though natural gas demand decreased in Europe. On the other hand, Henry Hub prices have fallen
as shale gas production has rebounded after declining in 2007.Refining margins
reflect the value addition in the crude oil after it has gone through the refining
process. Therefore, it heavily depends on various input costs.