Health impact assessments (HIAs) across the globe may be used by governments and industries to secure approval for unconventional gas extraction developments. HIA is an umbrella term that covers an array of health review and assessment practices, ranging from the very general to quite specific and technical health studies. Our concern in this paper is principally with the specialist end of the ...

Shale gas proponents argue this unconventional fossil fuel offers a ―bridge‖ towards a cleaner energy system by offsetting higher-carbon fuels such as coal. The technical feasibility of reconciling shale gas development with climate action remains contested. However, we here argue that governance challenges are both more pressing and more profound. Reconciling shale gas and climate action requi...

The objective of this paper is to present some of the key challenges faced when defining and building virtual workspaces for oil & gas Exploration & Production (E&P) activities. First, we present the main E&P processes that can benefit from the VR technology. Secondly, we classify and describe the different challenges.

Russia, with total production of 581 bcm (billion of cubic meters), is the world’s leading producer of gas. Despite that, however, the problems currently faced by its gas industry are many and significant. On one hand, questions are still being asked on the capacity of Gazprom, the national company, to face up to the considerable financial needs to renew the major gas deposits developed under t...

Demonstrations of cognitive bias in expert decision makers are often criticised on the basis of their content being irrelevant to the participants. Herein two cognitive biases, anchoring and overconfidence, are shown to occur in batteries designed with questions relevant to the participants’ domains of expertise. Results suggest that neither industry experience nor risk training removes the bia...

Since natural gas reserves in North America and Europe are declining, energy companies there can no longer create value by just drilling more wells; they must create value by better managing their current production assets, and by better leveraging technology. In this paper, we analyze the real option to pause production from a well (better management) along with the real option to scale produc...

Men engaged in breaking or reinstating road surfaces are exposed to vibration from mechanical tools. In view of the lack of epidemiological information on vibration white finger in such a population, a survey was carried out to identify the prevalence of symptoms of white finger in a sample of men using these tools in the gas industry and to compare the prevalence with that found in a control g...

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