Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 273-288). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 97 p. : ill. (some col.), col. map. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universität Berlin, 2005. / "Juli 2005"--P. [2] of cover. Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-118). Also available via the World Wide Web.

This thesis examines the emerging health and safety regulatory regime in Ghana's nascent upstream petroleum industry putting it in context with the approaches that have evolved in the United Kingdom Continental Shelf and the United States Outer Continental Shelf. The thesis analyses the existing regulatory framework in Ghana in terms both of the architecture and of the orientation of health and safety regulation. As regards the regulatory architecture, it concludes that it is characterised by fragmented agencies under piecemeal legislation. This has resulted in regulatory overlap and lacunae. Also, the regulatory agencies including the emerging upstream regulator are saddled with conflicting missions of resource exploitation and oversight of health and safety. The thesis further demonstrates that these agencies lack decision making independence and therefore cannot provide the independence and visibility required for a robust health and safety regime. Whereas the current regulatory challenge faced by Ghana has been experienced previously in the UKCS and the US OCS, and steps have been taken there to resolve the problem of conflicting functions, the precise approach differs in each case. But the degree to which the principle of separating functions has been observed in each case may be said to correlate with the robustness of the regime in question. As regards regulatory orientation, the thesis concludes that each of the three jurisdictions examined adopts a different approach: Ghana's is basically self-regulatory while the US OCS approach is prescriptive and the UKCS framework is characterised by goal-setting and process regulation. The thesis evaluates the three approaches and concludes that the management-based approach built in to the safety case of the UKCS has proved to be robust against the prescriptive performance-based approach of the US. The thesis therefore proceeds to recommend the adoption of the UK's approach for Ghana so that all the fragmented industry specific agencies and legislation would be replaced with a single independent and visible authority and a single goal setting legislation for occupational health and safety.

No description available.

Canadian natural gas deregulation has terminated government price setting in favour of prices determined by market forces. However, the transportation of the commodity remains regulated due to the monopolistic nature of the distribution system and the Canadian economies of scale which preclude business rivalry. This paper attempts to discern whether the transition to a new regime is following the legal principles underlying public utility regulation. Promotion of the public interest is therefore a pervasive theme of this paper. While regulatory law allows certain forms of discrimination in the setting of rates and the provision of services, it prohibits undue or unjust discrimination. The thesis proposed herein focuses on regulatory theory and the possibility that incidents of undue discrimination may have been exacerbated by the deregulation process. The examination begins with a review of the discrimination provisions of section 92A of the Constitution Act 1867, the so-called "Resource Amendment". More attention is directed to public utilities theory given its compelling application to the natural gas industry. Deregulation is then discussed including an analysis of "direct sale" contracts involving the commodity as well as the "bypass" of the local pipeline distribution systems. Some conclusions are then made concerning competition and changing commercial conditions. Grave doubts are voiced as to whether the National Energy Board is properly applying the principles of public utility regulation during the transition to a more market oriented natural gas environment. One important conclusion is that direct sale contracts should be encouraged in the core market as well as in the industrial market by the National Energy Board in order to promote upstream competition among gas producers in the public interest. Finally, it is hoped that these doubts will be resolved by the Board in its new (RH-1-88) public hearing which will address issues related to deregulation, including direct sales and the ancillary self-displacement and operating demand volume (ODV) methodology. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

Only recently has the Canadian federal government become involved in the regulation of energy prices. Since 1973 the federal government has imposed an export tax on crude oil, set the wellhead price of crude oil, implemented a one-price policy for domestic crude oil, regulated the Toronto city-gate price of natural gas, and increased the export price of natural gas. The federal government has also been involved in restricting the flow of energy quantities, mostly in the export market. The lack of rigorous economic analysis of the implications of these and other policy recommendations, as contained in various reports by the Department of Energy Mines and Resources and the National Energy Board, motivated me to build an economic policy-oriented model describing some aspects of Canadian energy demand and supply. The demand part of the model contains a set of estimated equations that describe the demand for crude oil, natural gas, electricity and coal within each of the five major consuming regions - Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairies, and B.C. A change in any energy price through government regulation will induce interfuel substitution and alter the mix of energy fuels demanded. To forecast future energy demand, the parameters estimated from historical experience are used in conjunction with forecasts of the exogenous variables, the latter usually obtained from government sources. The resulting "base-case" forecast of energy demand is compared with the forecasts by the National Energy Board and the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The supply side of the model considers only the supply of crude oil and natural gas. The output of these fuels can be affected through any policy which affects either the amount of fuel demanded by Canadians or the amount of fuel demanded in the export market. An interesting component embedded in the supply -model for crude oil is the Sarnia-Montreal pipeline. The flow through the Sarnia-Montreal oil pipeline can be altered in the model to examine certain trade-off possibilities between imports and exports of crude oil. The supply model for both crude oil and natural gas contains details relating to production, exploration, development, costs, taxes, royalties, and the distribution of economic rents among producers, consumers and governments. The complete model is used to provide results of some sensitivity experiments and some policy experiments. The sensitivity experiments Involve altering the basic assumptions with regard to the growth of real gross national expenditure, the offshore oil price and the efficiency factors for oil and gas use. The policy experiments focus on three main areas: the pricing of oil and gas, the trading of oil and gas, and the eastward flow through the Sarnia-Montreal oil pipeline. I believe that the dissertation provides three main contributions I believe that the specification and estimation of the aggregate demand system is a useful contribution. I believe that the process of building a model which, integrates the supply and demand relationships, and details the costs, rents and trade flows for both crude oil and natural gas has been successful. And I have been successful in using the integrated energy system to generate quantitative results under alternative policies. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

This study develops a method for estimating confidence intervals surrounding futures based forecasts of natural gas prices. The method utilizes the Barone-Adesi and Whaley model for option valuation to "back-out" the market's assessment of the annualized standard deviation of natural gas futures prices. The various implied standard deviations are then weighted and combined to form a single weighted implied standard deviation following the procedures outlined by Chiras and Manaster. This option implied weighted standard deviation is then tested against the more traditional "historical" measure of the standard deviation. The paper then develops the procedure to transform the weighted standard deviation and futures price into a price range at the option expiration date. The accuracy of this forecast is then tested against 15 and 30 day average forecasts. / Master of Arts