This study considers major challenges surrounding the governance of petroleum resources, and the implications for the economic growth and development of hydrocarbon-abundant countries as a result of ineffective economic, political, and social mechanisms. This study investigates the causal factors that may promote or hinder the effective management of oil and gas resources in the Kurdistan Region as a new oil and gas producing region. The large and growing body of resource curse literature has used either quantitative or qualitative cross-country approaches to investigate the determinant factors contributing to poor economic performance in natural resource-rich countries, especially petroleum-driven economies. Few research studies have used mixed methods to study the resource curse in order to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges facing petroleum-exporting countries that have been unable to convert their petroleum wealth into long-term sustainable development. This research uses different methods to explore the economic, political, and social channels behind the resource curse theory. The study consists of three sequential phases: a quantitative cross-country (econometric) analysis, a qualitative cross-country (comparative) policy analysis, and a qualitative case study (semi-structured interviews). The findings reveal that well-designed governance of the oil and gas sector is a key determinant of the oil and gas producing countries’ success in the management of petroleum resources. The results and research methods contribute to the debate in the literature on the resource curse regarding major explanations for the poor economic performance of natural resource-rich countries by adopting a methodological triangulation approach. The results also contribute to the political economy literature by showing that a well-designed institutional structure for the oil and gas sectors can contribute to greater accountability, transparency, and capacity building in the major petroleum-exporting countries. A petroleum governance model for the Kurdistan Region is proposed, which may be useful for other regions and states with similar circumstances or characteristics.

All fossil fuels contain varying levels of sulfur compounds which are undesirable because they cause environmental pollution, corrosion, acid rain and lead to health problems. There is strict international legislation for the permissible levels of sulfur compounds in fossil fuels. The aim of this research therefore was the biocatalyst development for biodesulfurisation using two approaches. In the first approach, Rhodococcus erythropolis IGTS8-5 and IGTS8-5G were immobilised in porous coke particles and tested in repeated cycles successfully. Both bacterial strains grew well in the chemically defined medium with glucose as the main carbon and energy source and the model sulfur compound dibenzothiophene (DBT) as the sole sulfur source. 0.8 g of cells was immobilized on 250 g of coke particles without refreshing the medium over 72 h while 1.8 g of cells were immobilised on 250 g of coke when the media was refreshed every 24 hours for 120 h after the initial immobilisation batch of 72h. The latter, were used repeatedly in twelve consequtive batch desulfurisation cycles during which the biodesulfurisation activity progressively decreased from over 95% removal of 100 ppm DBT to around 45% removal. DBT removal is often expressed in terms of 2-hydroxybiphenyl which is the end product of biodesulfurisation. The biodesulfurisation activityof immobilised bacteria was equivalent to 310 umol 2-HBP h-1g-1 dry cell weight during the first hour. Freely suspended cells on the other hand exhibited biodesulfurisation activity equivalent to 91 umol 2-HBP h-1g-1 dry cell weight. Unfortunately, after the first 24 h, the activity of the immobilised cells decreased to 12 umol 2-HBP h-1g-1 dry cell weight. Use of plant cell cultures for biodesulfurisation is the other novel aspect of this work. Armoracia rusticana (horse radish) cell culture was chosen as the novel biocatalyst since this plant is a well known source of peroxidase enzyme which is involved in the biodesulfurisation metabolism according to the literature on bacterial biodesulfurisation. Arabidospsis thaliana (thale cress) was also used since its genome is completely sequenced and it is a model organism in genomics studies. Our results indicate that cell suspensions of both plants did show biodesulfurisation activity by reducing the level of sulfur compounds, mainly DBT and other three derivatives from both aqueous and oil phase. When compared to the bacteria, in terms of DBT consumption, the activity of A. rusticana was calculated as 55 umol DBT h-1 g-1 DCW and 65 umol DBT h-1 g-1 DCW for A. thaliana while in bacteria it was 91 umol DBT h-1 g-1 DCW for IGTS8-5 and 73 umol DBT h-1 g-1 DCW for IGTS8-5G. Transcriptomics analysis of the plant cell cultures after exposure to the DBT when compared to control cultures showed alterations in gene expression levels several of which were related to sulfur metabolism and transmembrane transporters of sulfate.

It has been recognised that the oil sector in developing countries is facing challenges from a dynamic environment characterised by rapid technological change and increased demand. As innovation becomes critical to the survival of organisations, organisational context including organisational culture (OC), structure (OS) and information technology (IT) has been found to have an important influence on innovation, leading to increase social relationships among employees and flow knowledge within organisation through face to face employees interaction and information system. Social capital and knowledge sharing are recognised as the most significant resources for competitive advantage and the key to enhancing innovation. It has long been argued that social capital, a concept represented by the value embedded in the social relationships of individuals and collectives constitute strategic resources for individuals and organisations. Social networks perceived by individuals are a key issue in generating and facilitating knowledge sharing among employees to enhance innovation within organizations. It has also been shown that knowledge management and the promotion of knowledge sharing among the members of an organisation are an important part of the learning process as they help to convert the tacit knowledge embedded in individuals into explicit knowledge through interaction. Prior literature has pointed out that organisational context is one of the most important factors affecting social capital and knowledge sharing and enhanced innovation in an organisation. However, there is a lack of models linking organisational context, social capital and knowledge sharing, and innovation within oil sectors in general within developing countries, particularly Libya. Against this background, the thesis investigates the impact of organisational context on innovation. Using social capital and knowledge sharing, the integrative and comprehensive conceptual model are developed in order to reveal the direct and indirect impacts of organisational context on innovation. The model is then tested with a sample of 418 employees from two sectors; namely, public and the private. These were analysed through a IV multivariate analysis using a variance-based statistical technique known as Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling. The findings of this thesis are three-fold. First, with respect to the direct effect of organisational context on innovation, the study finds that both public and private sectors’ innovation are positively affected by organisational context. Second, regarding the indirect impact of organisational context on innovation, the study confirms its indirect nature through the social capital and knowledge sharing in both sectors. Third, the results show that there are significant differences between the public and private oil sectors in terms of the effect of organisational context on social capital, knowledge sharing and innovation, product and process. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications in that the results have provided empirical evidence on the direct and indirect impact of organisational context and can serve as an indication in practice for both firm managers and policy makers who are looking to establish strategies for achieving innovation. These would benefit from expending their efforts on promoting social capital and knowledge-sharing practices among their employees.

The main focus of this study is to improve the profitability, availability and condition monitoring of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Floating Production Storage and Offloading platforms (FPSOs). Propane pre-cooled, mixed refrigerant (C3MR) liquefaction is the key process in the production of LNG on FPSOs. LNG liquefaction system equipment has the highest failure rates among the other FPSO equipment, and thus the highest maintenance cost. Improvements in the profitability, availability and condition monitoring were made in two ways: firstly, by making recommendations for the use of redundancy in order to improve system reliability (and hence availability); and secondly, by developing an effective condition-monitoring algorithm that can be used as part of a condition-based maintenance system. C3MR liquefaction system reliability modelling was undertaken using the time-dependent Markov approach. Four different system options were studied, with varying degrees of redundancy. The results of the reliability analysis indicated that the introduction of a standby liquefaction system could be the best option for liquefaction plants in terms of reliability, availability and profitability; this is because the annual profits of medium-sized FPSOs (3MTPA) were estimated to increase by approximately US$296 million, rising from about US$1,190 million to US$1,485.98 million, if redundancy were implemented. The cost-benefit analysis results were based on the average LNG prices (US$500/ton) in 2013 and 2014. Typically, centrifugal turbines, compressors and blowers are the main items of equipment in LNG liquefaction plants. Because centrifugal equipment tops the FPSO equipment failure list, a Condition Monitoring (CM) system for such equipment was proposed and tested to reduce maintenance and shutdown costs, and also to reduce flaring. The proposed CM system was based on a novel FFT-based segmentation, feature selection and fault identification algorithm. A 20 HP industrial air compressor system with a rotational speed of 15,650 RPM was utilised to experimentally emulate five different typical centrifugal equipment machine conditions in the laboratory; this involved training and testing the proposed algorithm with a total of 105 datasets. The fault diagnosis performance of the algorithm was compared with other methods, namely standard FFT classifiers and Neural Network. A sensitivity analysis was performed in order to determine the effect of the time length and position of the signals on the diagnostic performance of the proposed fault identification algorithm. The algorithm was also checked for its ability to identify machine degradation using datasets for which the algorithm was not trained. Moreover, a characterisation table that prioritises the different fault detection techniques and signal features for the diagnosis of centrifugal equipment faults, was introduced to determine the best fault identification technique and signal feature. The results suggested that the proposed automated feature selection and fault identification algorithm is effective and competitive as it yielded a fault identification performance of 100% in 3.5 seconds only in comparison to 57.2 seconds for NN. The sensitivity analysis showed that the algorithm is robust as its fault identification performance was affected by neither the time length nor the position of signals. The characterisation study demonstrated the effectiveness of the AE spectral feature technique over the fault identification techniques and signal features tested in the course of diagnosing centrifugal equipment faults. Moreover, the algorithm performed well in the identification of machine degradation. In summary, the results of this study indicate that the proposed two-pronged approach has the potential to yield a highly reliable LNG liquefaction system with significantly improved availability and profitability profiles.

Through the Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) initiative a substantial amount of effort and international attention has been focused on the reduction of gas flaring since 2002 (Elvidge et al., 2009). Nigeria is rated as the second country in the world for gas flaring, after Russia. In an attempt to reduce and eliminate gas flaring the federal government of Nigeria has implemented a number of gas flaring reduction projects, but poor governmental regulatory policies have been mostly unsuccessful in phasing it out. This study examines the effects of pollution from gas flaring using multiple satellite based sensors (Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 7 ETM+) with a focus on vegetation health in the Niger Delta. Over 131 flaring sites in all 9 states (Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers) of the Niger Delta region have been identified, out of which 11 sites in Rivers State were examined using a case study approach. Land Surface Temperature data were derived using a novel procedure drawing in visible band information to mask out clouds and identify appropriate emissivity values for different land cover types. In 2503 out of 3001 Landsat subscenes analysed, Land Surface Temperature was elevated by at least 1 ℃ within 450 m of the flare. The results from fieldwork, carried out at the Eleme Refinery II Petroleum Company and Onne Flow Station, are compared to the Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 7 ETM+ data. Results indicate that Landsat data can detect gas flares and their associated pollution on vegetation health with acceptable accuracy for both Land Surface Temperature (range: 0.120 to 1.907 K) and Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (sd ± 0.004). Available environmental factors such as size of facility, height of stack, and time were considered. Finally, the assessment of the impact of pollution on a time series analysis (1984 to 2013) of vegetation health shows a decrease in NDVI annually within 120 m from the flare and that the spatio-temporal variability of NDVI for each site is influenced by local factors. This research demonstrated that only 5 % of the variability in δLST and only 12 % of the variability in δNDVI, with distance from the flare stack, could be accounted for by the available variables considered in this study. This suggests that other missing factors (the gas flaring volume and vegetation speciation) play a significant role in the variability in δLST and δNDVI respectively.

Die Broschüre beschreibt Möglichkeiten der Wärmeversorgung von sächsischen Gartenbaubetrieben mit Geothermie in Abhängigkeit von geologischen Standortfaktoren und Betriebsstrukturen/ Nutzungskonzepten. Ziel des Projektes war, für die Beheizung von Gewächshäusern den Einsatz von Geothermie zur Grundlastversorgung zu untersuchen. Hervorzuheben ist hierbei die Verknüpfung der geologischen/geothermisch und gärtnereitechnischen Komponente. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, welches geothermische System die wirtschaftlichste Variante für Gewächshäuser und deren Nutzung ist. Das Projekt stellt eine Entscheidungsgrundlage für die Nutzung von Geothermie in sächsischen Gartenbaubetrieben dar.

Associated natural gas is produced as a by-product from crude oil exploration and production. When perceived as a non-desirable product, it is wasted during gas flaring. Globally, about 100 Billion Cubic Meters (BCM) of gas is flared annually, leading to release of about 300 million tons of carbon dioxide yearly into the environment. Russia and Nigeria flare more than other countries to the tune of 35.5 and 18.27 BCM, respectively. The consequence of gas flaring has continued to pose significant threats to the environment as well as the economy of oil and gas producing countries. Therefore, this research is aimed at developing a sustainable framework that could enable management of flared gas in an oil and gas environment by generating energy and also minimise environmental impact that arises from gas flaring process. Three major research gaps were identified and they include lack of existing gas flare management framework in Nigeria, lack of economic evaluation of gas to wire (GTW) technology for flared gas reduction and, lack of cordial relationship and understanding between oil and gas producing/flaring companies and electricity producing sectors towards gas flare management. A qualitative research strategy was employed – utilising the single case study approach with embedded units of analysis. Three case study companies were used - one oil and gas producing company, and two electricity-generating companies. Data collection involved semi structured interviews, documentation, observation, and review of relevant literature. Data was analysed using QSR Nvivo version 10. A framework for flared gas reduction was developed based on literature review and also from information made available by experts operating in the oil and gas and electricity sectors. The framework shows inputs from various stakeholders, as well as an evaluation of volume of gas produced, utilized and flared. An economic assessment of GTW technology was carried out to determine the cost effectiveness of the framework. Findings from the study showed that GTW is a viable means of management, and could reduce the total volume of flared gas in Nigeria to 7.1%. This reduces environmental, health and safety hazards. It is also economically profitable. A total capital investment of £1.64b is required in the Nigerian context, with a net profit of £1.26b/year, and has a rate of return of investment of 16.3%. This study has demonstrated that GTW is a sustainable technology for reducing flared gas in Nigeria and other countries facing similar challenges as Nigeria; and capable of minimising adverse environmental and health impact associated with gas flaring. Therefore, the developed framework is also recommended for effective management of flared gas in such countries.

Les impacts causés par la crise des terres rares en 2010 mettent en évidence l’importance des matériaux et ont conduit en un intérêt accru dans la recherche sur leur criticité. Cette thèse s’ouvre par un état de l’art qui présente et évalue les travaux existants dans ce domaine et met en évidence trois lacunes de la recherche sur la criticité des matériaux (l’absence d’un véritable diagnostic de criticité; l’absence d’une méthodologie d’évaluation de la criticité au niveau produit; le défaut de lien bien établi entre mécanisme de criticité, méthode d’évaluation et solutions proposées). En conséquence, la thèse comble les deux premières lacunes et offre plusieurs pistes à l’égard de la troisième. Concernant le diagnostic de la criticité d’un matériau, la thèse propose d’illustrer le mécanisme de criticité par quatre dimensions : le déséquilibre entre offre et demande ; l’importance du matériau pour le produit ; l’accessibilité de l’approvisionnement ; et les facteurs dynamiques. Une définition de la criticité est proposée. Le mécanisme de criticité étant au centre de la recherche, une méthodologie permettant de déterminer la criticité matérielle à l’échelle « produit » est développée et complétée par un modèle applicatif quantitatif. La méthodologie offre un raisonnement général pour conduire une étude de la criticité ; le modèle illustre une de ses possibilités d’être appliqué à des cas réels pour déterminer quantitativement la criticité. A la fin, l’application du modèle à deux produits (l’aimant permanent et la diode électroluminescente) est présentée / Rare earth crisis in 2010 showed the importance of some materials and whipped up interest in the research on material criticality. A review work was first conducted in order to get a better understanding of the existing work in this research area and to see where more work is needed. Based on this review, three research gaps were identified (lack of a comprehensive diagnosis of criticality; lack of evaluation methodology at the product level; lack of links between the mechanism of criticality, the evaluation methodology and the solutions offered. This thesis focuses on the two first research gaps and offers several ideas for the last one. Regarding diagnosis of criticality, the mechanism is illustrated under four dimensions: imbalance between supply and demand, importance of the material to product, supply accessibility and dynamic factors. A definition of criticality is also put forward. Considering the established mechanism as research core, a methodology to evaluate the criticality of materials at the product level has been developed and is completed with a concrete and quantitative model. The methodology offers guidance on how to assess criticality and sets a framework for evaluation. The model illustrates a way to use this methodology through a tool that assigns a ‘criticality score’ to materials and shows how the score is contributed. The calculations were automated in Excel. Two applications, one for permanent magnet and the other for light emitting diode, were conducted to demonstrate and improve the methodology and the model

Die Broschüre beschreibt Möglichkeiten der Wärmeversorgung von sächsischen Gartenbaubetrieben mit Geothermie in Abhängigkeit von geologischen Standortfaktoren und Betriebsstrukturen/ Nutzungskonzepten. Ziel des Projektes war, für die Beheizung von Gewächshäusern den Einsatz von Geothermie zur Grundlastversorgung zu untersuchen. Hervorzuheben ist hierbei die Verknüpfung der geologischen/geothermisch und gärtnereitechnischen Komponente. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, welches geothermische System die wirtschaftlichste Variante für Gewächshäuser und deren Nutzung ist. Das Projekt stellt eine Entscheidungsgrundlage für die Nutzung von Geothermie in sächsischen Gartenbaubetrieben dar.

Les marchés futures de matières premières existent depuis des siècles. Néanmoins, depuis le début du 21e siècle, le développement en parallèle de la financiarisation et de marchés futures sur une matière première non-stockable (l’électricité) a bouleversé leur fonctionnement.Les trois essais de cette thèse étudient théoriquement et empiriquement les marchés futures de matières premières dans différentes conditions de fonctionnement.Le premier essai est une étude empirique qui montre l’existence de l’effet Samuelson sur les marchés futures d’électricité. Ce faisant, il montre que le stockage n’est pas une condition nécessaire à l’existence d’un tel effet.Le second essai est un modèle qui montre comment le comportement dynamique des prix d’une matière première stockable sur un marché futures segmenté du reste de l’économie est impacté par ses caractéristiques physiques, et notamment par le coût de stockage.Enfin, le troisième essai est un modèle qui montre que la financiarisation modifie la fonction de partage des risques des marchés futures de matières premières, et ce, quelle que soit la maturité concernée. / Commodity futures markets have a long history. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, both the financialization process and the development of futures markets on a non-storable commodity (the electricity) have shake up their functioning.The three essays of this thesis study theoretically and empirically commodity futures markets in different situations of functioning.The first essay is an empirical study that shows that the Samuelson effect exists on electricity derivative markets. As a consequence, it shows that storage is not a necessary condition for such an effect.The second essay is a model that shows how the dynamic behavior of storable commodity prices on a segmented futures market is affected by its physical characteristics, and more precisely by the cost of storage.Further, the third essay is a model that shows that financialization changes the risk sharing function of commodity futures markets, whatever the concerned maturity.