Thesis (M.B.A)--Boston University

This thesis presents a two-stage economic and policy analysis of the impact of European Union (EU) accession upon crude oil production and transportation policy in Lithuania. The first stage provides the theoretical framework for the research. The analysis begins with the overview of the Russian oil industry, as for over 50 years Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union and thus its oil industry was largely controlled by Russian interests. Although Lithuania became independent in 1991, the dependency on Russia in terms of energy remains until today. The following chapters introduce Lithuania's development since its independence, outline the relationship with the EU and present Lithuania's intentions to become a member of the European Union. More specific issues discussed include the interdependence between Russia and the European Union in terms of crude oil and natural gas supplies and the impact of this phenomenon upon the Lithuanian oil industry. Particular emphasis is placed upon the political significance of oil in Lithuania including the ramifications of the sale of the state-owned oil transit and refining interest to USA investors and the consequences in terms of reaction from Russian crude oil suppliers. The second stage centers upon two techniques - content analysis and a scaling approach. The former was used to derive a set of the important issues within the Lithuanian oil industry, whilst the latter employed these issues in order to construct a scale for assessing the opinion of the industry's leading experts. The results of the Likert scale questionnaire were analyzed using a number of techniques and this identified a series of policies relating to crude oil and oil production in Lithuania. These policies take into account the experts' opinion, the process of EU accession and the politico-economic context of the research period, which places particular emphasis on relations between Lithuania and Russia. The final part of this thesis concludes the analysis, presents the implications as well as provides a number of suggestions for further research possibilities in this field.

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This thesis investigates the retention of the knowledge and skills on the Basic Offshore Safety and Emergency Training (B.O.S.E.T) which is compulsory for offshore professionals. Another aim is to identify the effectiveness of the B.O.S.E.T course. To identify the knowledge retention, test questionnaires were sent out to 119 respondents, including both first time and refresher trainees of the training programme. The questionnaire revolves around topics on Offshore Safety and Induction, Sea Survival and Helicopter Underwater Egress training (H.U.E.T). The questionnaires, designed to quantify the retention rate, were repeatedly administered every two (2) months over a period of six (6) months. The research also used role-play scenarios to identify skills retention among 38 participants. Analysis of the test data suggests that both the knowledge and skills retentions depreciate with time. However, the depreciation rate for skills (24%) is less significant than that for the knowledge (27%). Following this, it was established that knowledge and skills retention are associated with logarithmic function. Interestingly, the complexity of knowledge retention also demonstrates exponential function characteristics. This research has verified that the knowledge retention rates for Fresher and Refresher trainees are similar. The research concludes that the current B.O.S.E.T refresher system is not sufficed to ensure B.O.S.E.T knowledge is sustained at an acceptable level; hence more effort is needed to enhance B.O.S.E.T knowledge retention. A web-based solution was among several solutions proposed to enhance retention of B.O.S.E.T knowledge and skills.

This thesis explores the relationship of collaboration and conflict between France's state-owned oil group, the Societe Nationale Elf Aquitaine, and successive governments during the critical decade, 1976-1986, before wide-scale privatisation was initiated. The group's development reflects the broader trend in government - industry relations away from dirigisme to market economics by both senior managers and politicians alike. Created as an instrument of government with a "national interest" mission, the group was expected to work for and with governments. This partnership was conditioned by the international nature of the oil industry. Directly exposed to the impact of the oil crisis, the group suffered from the switch made in France from oil to nuclear energy as the main source of power. This development accelerated not only the diversification of the group's product range and multinationalisation of its activities but also modified its relations with government. It remained in public ownership, but became financially independent and acted increasingly like a private company. Governments were also affected by the economic crises of the 1970s, and by France's closer integration into Europe. While Elf maximised its profits, governments relied on the oil group's wealth. This confusing combination of dependence and governments' use of their powers of ownership produced many conflicts. Yet Elf's leaders could also exploit the state link through grand corps networks to achieve their own goals. These ambiguities were sharpened during the decade because Elf was shifting between two modes of relationship; an instrument of government enjoying privileged links with the state and an independent private multinational. Partial privatisation in 1986 somewhat resolved the contradictions but heralded new challenges. Under the impact of the Single Market programme and GATT agreements, French governments divested themselves of powers they could no longer exercise, French firms shifted partnership with the state to partnership with foreign firms and the development of each individual firm became subject to its performance in the market.

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Orientador: Fernando Sarti / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T22:48:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ruas_JoseAugustoGaspar_D.pdf: 4470321 bytes, checksum: c691e9c4afc9d211f35e0952db4c6dc5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: A descoberta de petróleo na camada Pré-Sal brasileira trouxe novos desafios para o país, tanto em âmbito macroeconômico, quanto microeconômico e energético/ambiental. Estes desafios, por sua vez, conduzem a uma necessária reorganização de instituições e políticas para o desenvolvimento econômico nacional. No âmbito microeconômico, a compreensão dos determinantes da dinâmica de concorrência na indústria parapetrolífera é um dos elementos indispensáveis para construção de políticas de desenvolvimento industrial. Esta tese apresenta como a coevolução das trajetórias tecnológicas e de acumulação de capitais condicionam as dinâmicas de concorrência nos diversos e heterogêneos segmentos da indústria parapetrolífera. A análise destas trajetórias e de suas características aponta para a dinâmica de investimentos na indústria petrolífera e para as políticas de Estado como determinantes fundamentais em sua constituição. Estes fatores também determinam, em conjunto com as estratégias de empresas parapetrolíferas, o perfil da inserção setorial dos agentes líderes e a composição regional da produção desta indústria. Por sua vez, o perfil desta inserção, da formação dos grandes players, guarda relação direta com sua capacidade de acumular e participar ativamente nas redes de aprendizado e de constituição de projetos dominantes em cada segmento. A partir destes pontos de vista esta tese analisa a indústria de equipamentos subsea, um dos segmentos de maior destaque na indústria parapetrolífera brasileira, seja pelo elevado volume de encomendas no país, seja pela participação nacional no desenvolvimento tecnológico do setor. Em âmbito mundial, a emergência desta indústria está relacionada à evolução histórica e investimentos da indústria petrolífera offshore. Esta evolução conduz à formação redes para desenvolvimento de produtos e serviços, ao progressivo crescimento das possibilidades de acumulação nestes mercados e, especialmente nas últimas décadas, à internacionalização produtiva destes agentes. Este movimento condiciona um processo de concentração setorial, seja através de investimentos greenfield, seja através de fusões e aquisições, que progressivamente promove redução das possibilidades de entrada de novos players e condiciona as estratégias de desenvolvimento local. O Brasil, que esteve diretamente associado ao desenvolvimento histórico desta indústria, mesmo tendo atuação decisiva na formação dos projetos dominantes, grande volume de encomendas e capacidade produtiva construída desde a década de 1980, perde espaço na estrutura patrimonial no último ciclo da indústria. Ao contrário de outros países, não houve uma política de formação de grandes grupos nacionais no setor, permitindo uma atuação mais ativa na dinâmica de concorrência global recente. Essas características de sua formação histórica explicam as potencialidades e limitações deste conjunto de segmentos industriais para os próximos anos e indicam os quais os desafios para uma nova estratégia no setor / Abstract: The discovery of Brazilian's Pre-Salt brought up challenges to deal with forthcoming macroeconomic, microeconomic and environment/energetic new contexts. These challenges, on their turn, leads to necessary reorganizations of institutions and national development policies. At the microeconomic level, the understanding of oil supply industry competitive dynamics is a vital element in building new industry development policies. This thesis shows how the coevolution of technological and capital accumulation paths affects the competitive dynamics of numerous and heterogeneous oil supply industry segments. The analysis of those pathways and their features indicate oil industry investment and state policies as their vital determinants. These factors also determine, together with oil supply companies strategies, the leading supplier positioning and regional composition of industry production. On the other hand, firm positioning and the development of leading suppliers are related with their ability to accumulate capital and to become actively involved in learning networks and dominant design product development. The subsea equipment industry, a distinguished segment of Brazilian oil supply industry, is studied here based on this set of working premises. First of all, worldwide, the emergence of this industry can be related to the offshore oil industry investment history. This investment evolution explains equipment and services research and development networks emergence, possibilities of capital accumulation on those market segments and, especially in the past decade, to internationalization of companies and their production. These movements, on their turn, determines a process of sectorial concentration, carried out through greenfield investments, mergers and acquisitions. Finally, as a result of this concentration, higher entry barriers to newcomers and restricted scope of national policy instruments characterize current subsea biggest segments. Historically, Brazilian subsea industry played a great role in equipment and subsea operation technology development, and also had a large proportion of world market since 1980?s. Despite these features, Brazilian companies couldn?t play similar role in the last years. Unlike other pioneer countries, Brazil have not promoted its indigenous companies consolidation, especially during 1990?s and 2000?s industry internationalization process. This absence favored foreign groups, which enlarged their investment in Brazil since mid nineties. This process increased national production capacity and sectorial efficiency, but reduced national companies share in large segments. These features explains current Brazilian subsea industry strengths and weakness, and indicates which challenges need to be addressed in a Pre-Salt new sectorial strategy / Doutorado / Teoria Economica / Doutor em Ciências Econômicas

by Fung Wai-kan, Kai Siu-lung. / Abstract also in Chinese / Bibliography : leaves 106-108 / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1982

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