The price of crude oil in the U.S. never exceeded $40 per barrel until mid-2004. By 2006 it reached $70, and in July 2008 it peaked at $145. By late 2008 it had plummeted to about $30 before increasing to $110 in 2011. Are speculators at least partly to blame for these sharp price changes? We clarify the effects of speculators on commodity prices. We focus on crude oil, but our approach can be ...

today’s competition is promoted from firm against firm to supply chain versus supply chain, globalization and competition is a common phenomenon so each organization should make its supply chain as a weapon against the others, in doing so this paper presented a conceptual, graphical, step by step methodology to construct supply chain strategies by integrating strategic management’s theories, ap...

the acute toxicity of a malaysian crude oil to red snapper, lutjanus argentimaculatus, blacktiger shrimp and penaeus monodon were investigated. the animals were exposed to water solublefractions (wsf) of crude oil in a flow-through bioassay system and the toxicants were analyzed by gaschromatography (gc) and gas chromatography and mass spectrometer (gc-ms). the 96 h lc50 valuesof the wsf of cru...

A series of phthalic acid derivatives (P) with a carbon-chain tail was designed and synthesized as single-component gelators. A combination of the single-component gelator P and a non-gelling additive n-alkylamine A through acid-base interaction brought about a series of novel phase-selective two-component gelators PA. The gelation capabilities of P and PA, and the structural, morphological, th...

Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) is a potential technology for residual heavy oil recovery. Many heavy oil fields in Oman and elsewhere have difficulty in crude oil recovery because it is expensive due to its high viscosity. Indigenous microbes are capable of improving the fluidity of heavy oil, by changing its high viscosity and producing lighter oil fractions. Many spore-forming bacteri...

We report here the draft genome sequence of Arthrobacter sp. MWB30 strain, isolated from a crude oil-contaminated seashore in Tae-an, South Korea, which is able to degrade the crude oil and its derivatives. The draft genome sequence of 4,647,008 bp provides a resource for the identification of crude oil-degrading mechanisms in strain MWB30.

In this globalization era, petroleum companies are one of the dynamic supply chain entities, which require a dynamic process of capabilities. Companies may encounter problems related to the dynamic process in firm’s capabilities. Such dynamic process requires simultaneous acquisition and continuous re-evaluation of partners, technologies and organizational structures. However, the more flexible...

The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of crude oil price on global fertilizer prices in both the mean and volatility. The endogenous structural breakpoint unit root test, ARDL model, and alternative volatility models, including GARCH, EGARCH, and GJR models, are used to investigate the relationship between crude oil price and six global fertilizer prices. The empirical result...

Crude oil pricing is commonly expressed as a formula referenced to Brent or WTI crude oil. The final price of these two qualities and the spread between WTI and Brent can drive the decision when the purchase of a crude oil cargo is evaluated. A crude oil price-forecasting model is presented. It is based on past data, inventory level and volatility index and it is derived with a neuro fuzzy infe...