The
oil and gas industry
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The largest volume products ...
is usually divided into three major sectors: upstream (also called exploration and production or E&P), ''
midstream
The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major components: upstream, midstream and downstream. The midstream sector involves the transportation (by pipeline, rail, barge, oil tanker or truck), storage, and wholesale marketing of cr ...
'' and ''
downstream''. The upstream sector includes searching for potential underground or underwater
crude oil
Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...
and
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
fields, drilling exploratory wells, and subsequently operating the wells that recover and bring the crude oil or raw natural gas to the surface.
The upstream industry has traditionally experienced the highest number of Mergers, Acquisitions (M&A) and Divestitures. M&A activity for upstream oil and gas deals in 2012 totaled $254 billion in 679 deals. A large chunk of this M&A, 33% in 2012, was driven by the unconventional/shale boom especially in the US followed by Russia and then Canada.
The aggregate value of Upstream E&P assets available for sale (Deals in Play) reached a record-high of $135 billion in Q3 2013. The value of Deals in Play doubled from $46 billion in 2009 to $90 billion in 2010. With ongoing M&A activity, the level remained almost the same, reaching $85 billion in December 2012. However, the first half of 2013 saw approximately $48 billion of net new assets coming on the market. Remarkably, the total value of Deals in Play in Q3 2013 nearly tripled over 2009 to $46 billion, in less than four years.
Business
This categorization comes from value chain concepts, even before formal development of Value Chain Management.
*Drilling Contractor Company
A company that owns and operates drilling rigs that are contracted by an operator to drill wells. Examples include Patterson UTI, Trans-ocean, Nabors, Independence Contract Drilling and Cactus.
*Integrated Oil & Gas Company:
American Petroleum Institute
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent nearly 600 corporations involved in extraction of petroleum, production, oil refinery, refinement, pipeline ...
Definition Of Upstream Company and description
A company that has upstream as well as downstream operations. Examples include
Saudi Aramco
Saudi Aramco ( ') or Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. , it is the fourth- l ...
,
ExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...
,
BP,
Shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...
,
ChevronTexaco and
SOCAR
The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (), largely known by its abbreviation SOCAR, is a fully state-owned national oil and gas company headquartered in Baku, Azerbaijan. The company produces oil and natural gas from onshore and o ...
.
*Independent Oil & Gas Company:
A company that has either upstream or downstream operations, but not both.
Examples include
Anadarko Petroleum
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation was a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration. It was organized in Delaware and headquartered in two skyscrapers in The Woodlands, Texas: the Allison Tower and the Hackett Tower, both named after former CEOs of ...
,
Sunoco
Sunoco LP is an American master limited partnership organized under Delaware General Corporation Law, Delaware state law and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dating back to 1886, the company has transformed from a vertically integrated energy ...
,
Phillips 66
The Phillips 66 Company is an American Multinational corporation, multinational energy company headquartered in Westchase, Houston, Texas. Its name, dating back to 1927 as a trademark of the Phillips Petroleum Company, assisted in establishing ...
,
ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production. It is based in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas.
The company has operations in 15 countries and has production in t ...
and
Murphy Oil
Murphy Oil Corporation is an American energy company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration headquartered in Houston, Texas.
The company is ranked 625th on the Fortune 500 and 1860th on the Forbes Global 2000.
As of December 31, 2020, the company ...
.
*Oil Service Company:
A company that provides products and/or services to the oil and gas industry. Usually a combination of labor, equipment, and/or other support services. Examples include
Schlumberger
Schlumberger (), doing business as SLB, is a global multinational oilfield services company. Founded in France in 1926, the company is now incorporated as Schlumberger NV in Willemstad, Curaçao, with principal executive offices in Houston ...
,
Halliburton
Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation and the world's second-largest oil service company which is responsible for most of the world's fracking operations. It employs approximately 55,000 people through its hundreds of su ...
,
Saipem
Saipem S.p.A. (Società Azionaria Italiana Perforazioni E Montaggi lit. ''Drilling and Assembly Italian Public Limited Company'') is an Italian multinational oilfield services company and one of the largest in the world. Until 2016 it was a sub ...
and
Baker Hughes
Baker Hughes Company is an American global energy technology company co-headquartered in Houston, Texas and London, UK. As one of the world's largest oil field services, industrial and energy technology companies, it provides products and serv ...
.
*Oil Equipment Manufacturer:
A company that specializes in the sale and distribution of equipment to the oil and gas industry. Examples include
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...
,
Schneider Electric
Schneider Electric SE is a French multinational corporation that specializes in digital automation and energy management.
Registered as a Societas Europaea, Schneider Electric is a ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, publicly traded on the Euronex ...
and
ABB
ABB Group is a Swedish-Swiss multinational electrical engineering corporation. Incorporated in Switzerland as ABB Ltd., and headquartered in Zurich, it is dual-listed on the Nasdaq Nordic exchange in Stockholm, Sweden, and the SIX Swiss Excha ...
.
*Security
Many major security companies take part in securing the industry.
Upstream in ISO
ISO 14224
ISO 14224 ''Petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries -- Collection and exchange of reliability and maintenance data for equipment'' is the International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardiz ...
defines "Upstream" in its definition section as:
3.98 upstream
ISO
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries.
Me ...
14224
business category of the petroleum industry involving
exploration
Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...
and
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stat ...
.
::''Example: Offshore oil/gas production facilities, drilling rigs, intervention vessel.''
See also
*
Coal bed methane
''Coalbed methane'' (CBM or coal-bed methane), coalbed gas, or coal seam gas (CSG) is a form of natural gas extracted from coal beds. In recent decades it has become an important source of energy in United States, Canada, Australia, and other co ...
*
Downstream (petroleum industry)
Downstream may refer to:
* Downstream (hydrology), the direction towards the mouth of a stream, i.e. the direction the current flows
* Downstream (bioprocess), when a cell mass from an upstream process (isolated, grown and harvested) is further p ...
*
Extraction of petroleum
Petroleum is a fossil fuel that can be drawn from beneath the Earth's surface. Reservoirs of petroleum are formed through the mixture of plants, algae, and sediments in shallow seas under high pressure. Petroleum is mostly recovered from oil ...
*
Gas field
A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presenc ...
*
Hydrocarbon exploration
Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for hydrocarbon deposits, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth's crust using petroleum geology.
Exploration methods
...
*
List of oil exploration and production companies
The following is a list of notable companies in the petroleum industry that are engaged in petroleum exploration and production. The list is in alphabetical order by continent and then by country. This list does not include companies only involved ...
*
Midstream
The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major components: upstream, midstream and downstream. The midstream sector involves the transportation (by pipeline, rail, barge, oil tanker or truck), storage, and wholesale marketing of cr ...
*
Natural Gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
*
Natural gas condensate
Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natura ...
*
Natural-gas processing
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
*
Petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...
*
Oil production plant
An oil production plant is a facility which processes production fluids from oil wells in order to separate out key components and prepare them for export. Typical oil well production fluids are a mixture of crude oil, oil, natural gas, gas and pr ...
*
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial processes, industrial process Factory, plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refining, refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, Bitumen, asphalt base, ...
*
Oil well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas m ...
References
{{Petroleum industry
External links
Upstream innovations
Natural gas
Petroleum production