The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major sectors: upstream (also called exploration and production or E&P), '' midstream'' 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. *Independent Oil & Gas Company: A company that has either upstream or downstream operations, but not both. Examples include Anadarko Petroleum, Sunoco, Phillips 66, ConocoPhillips and Murphy Oil. *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 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 and ABB. *Security Many major security companies take part in securing the industry.

Upstream in ISO

ISO 14224 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. ::''Example: Offshore oil/gas production facilities, drilling rigs, intervention vessel.''

References

{{Petroleum industry

External links

Upstream innovations
Natural gas Petroleum production

Business

Upstream in ISO

See also

References

External links