This empirical study is concerned with whether the oil and gas reserve value data reported by petroleum producers have been utilized by investors. Reporting reserve value data based on a present value approach is the initial step toward the development of the Securities and Exchange Commission's new accounting method called "Reserve Recognition Accounting" (RRA) for oil and gas producers. Experimentation with this new accounting concept in the oil and gas industry has been adopted as a tentative resolution of the long-standing controversy over valuation of oil and gas reserves and the measure of income from oil and gas exploration. Evidence gathered in this research will be valuable to the SEC in its efforts to assess the usefulness of RRA. This dissertation assumes capital market efficiency and address two specific questions. First, do investors behave as if the reported end-of-year reserve value data are effective signals for pricing securities of oil and gas producers? Second, has the SEC-mandated reserve value disclosures induced any response in the capital market? Two research designs were employed to permit extensive investigation of these two questions.

This study was made of the school districts in the East Texas oil field in Rusk and Gregg Counties. These school districts have a dense rural population, the majority of whom are engaged in some type of oil field work. Financially, these school districts are considered the wealthiest in the state, and in general are similar to most oil field sections in the South. A total of twelve different transportation systems, operating sixty-five buses, transporting 8,758 school children were studied. In this study, efficient methods of transporting school children, methods of administering transportation, contracting, types of roads, qualifications of drivers, equipment, and cost in these oil field districts were considered.

[pt] As vantagens de incluir a flexibilidade gerencial e a analogia às opções financeiras nos critérios de avaliação de projetos têm sido alvo de discussões teóricas no ramo das finanças. Diversos autores criticam os métodos de análise de investimentos utilizados correntemente, que têm como principal representante o fluxo de caixa descontado (FCD), apoiando-se na noção de que os gerentes ao tomarem decisões devem utilizar técnicas que reflitam as flexibilidades disponíveis. Nesse sentido, a presente dissertação tem por finalidade validar as vantagens sugeridas na utilização da teoria de Opções Reais através de um back-testing, que tem como objeto campos de petróleo com características representativas da indústria petrolífera brasileira. Estes testes serão realizados para o período de 1970 a 1990, sendo contemplada a incerteza econômica e excluindo-se as incertezas técnicas. O modelo desenvolvido em Excel e VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) para decisões de investimento considera as opções de espera de até dois anos e de escolha entre três intensidades de produção. O Movimento Geométrico Browniano foi assumido como o processo estocástico para representar a evolução dos preços reais do petróleo em dólares americanos ao longo do tempo, e sua volatilidade foi variada a título de análise de sensibilidade. Por fim, cabe ressaltar que os resultados obtidos não devem ser aceitos como definitivos, e sim como base de futuros trabalhos na linha de estudos empíricos para verificar e validar as vantagens teóricas das Opções Reais em relação aos demais critérios utilizados na prática. / [en] Financial researchers have discussed a lot about the theoretical advantages of including the managerial flexibility and the financial options analogy in projects valuation criteria. Plenty of authors criticize the currently used investment analysis methods, mainly represented by the discounted cash flow, supported by the notion that the managers should use techniques that better reflect the available flexibility to take their decisions. In this sense, the present dissertation has the objective of validating the suggested advantages of using the Real Options theory through a back-testing focused on oil fields with Brazilian oil industry representative characteristics. Those tests will be carried out for the 1970-1990 period, considering the economic uncertainty and excluding the technical uncertainties. The investment decisions model developed in Excel and VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) contemplates the options of waiting till two years and of choosing among three exploitation intensities. The Geometric Brownian Motion was assumed as the stochastic process to represent the real oil prices time evolution, and its volatility was varied to generate a sensibility analysis. Finally it is worthy to state that the results shall not be accepted as definitive, and just as a foundation to future studies on the empirical research line of verifying and validating the theoretical advantages of the Real Options with regard to others currently used criteria.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:08:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MariaVMMpdf.pdf: 1276052 bytes, checksum: 2a1c6384ed87c24c3ab5a2346947a35d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-07-24 / The main objective of this study is to apply recently developed methods of physical-statistic to time series analysis, particularly in electrical induction s profiles of oil wells data, to study the petrophysical similarity of those wells in a spatial distribution. For this, we used the DFA method in order to know if we can or not use this technique to characterize spatially the fields. After obtain the DFA values for all wells, we applied clustering analysis. To do these tests we used the non-hierarchical method called K-means. Usually based on the Euclidean distance, the K-means consists in dividing the elements of a data matrix N in k groups, so that the similarities among elements belonging to different groups are the smallest possible. In order to test if a dataset generated by the K-means method or randomly generated datasets form spatial patterns, we created the parameter Ω (index of neighborhood). High values of Ω reveals more aggregated data and low values of Ω show scattered data or data without spatial correlation. Thus we concluded that data from the DFA of 54 wells are grouped and can be used to characterize spatial fields. Applying contour level technique we confirm the results obtained by the K-means, confirming that DFA is effective to perform spatial analysis / O principal objetivo do presente trabalho foi aplicar m?todos recentemente desenvolvidos em f?sica-estat?stica ?s s?ries temporais, em especial a dados de perfis el?tricos de indu??o de 54 po?os de petr?leo localizados no Campo de Namorado Bacia de Campos - RJ, para estudar a similaridade petrof?sica dos po?os numa distribui??o espacial. Para isto, utilizamos o m?todo do DFA com o intuito de saber se podemos, ou n?o, utilizar esta t?cnica para caracterizar espacialmente o campo. Depois de obtidos os valores de DFA para todos os po?os, fizemos uma an?lise de agrupamento com rela??o a estas caracter?sticas; para tanto, utilizamos o m?todo de agrupamento n?o-hier?rquico chamado m?todo K-m?dia. Geralmente baseado na dist?ncia euclidiana, o K-m?dia consiste em dividir os elementos de uma matriz n de dados em k grupos bem definidos, de maneira que as semelhan?as existentes entre elementos pertencentes a grupos distintos sejam as menores poss?veis. Com o objetivo de verificar se um conjunto de dados gerados pelo m?todo do K-m?dia ou gerado aleatoriamente forma padr?es espaciais, criamos o par?metro Ω (?ndice de vizinhan?a). Altos valores de Ω implicam em dados mais agregados e baixos valores de Ω em dados dispersos ou sem correla??o espacial. Com aux?lio do m?todo de Monte Carlo observamos que dados agrupados aleatoriamente apresentam uma distribui??o de Ω inferior ao valor emp?rico. Desta forma conclu?mos que os dados de DFA obtidos nos 54 po?os est?o agrupados e podem ser usados na caracteriza??o espacial de campos. Ao cruzar os dados das curvas de n?vel com os resultados obtidos pelo K-m?dia, confirmamos a efici?ncia do mesmo para correlacionar po?os em distribui??o espacial

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:55:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CarlosML.pdf: 1974392 bytes, checksum: 7dc32733a49e5db708c65fe1d883a3ae (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-11-28 / In the recovering process of oil, rock heterogeneity has a huge impact on how fluids move in the field, defining how much oil can be recovered. In order to study this variability, percolation theory, which describes phenomena involving geometry and connectivity are the bases, is a very useful model. Result of percolation is tridimensional data and have no physical meaning until visualized in form of images or animations. Although a lot of powerful and sophisticated visualization tools have been developed, they focus on generation of planar 2D images. In order to interpret data as they would be in the real world, virtual reality techniques using stereo images could be used. In this work we propose an interactive and helpful tool, named ZSweepVR, based on virtual reality techniques that allows a better comprehension of volumetric data generated by simulation of dynamic percolation. The developed system has the ability to render images using two different techniques: surface rendering and volume rendering. Surface rendering is accomplished by OpenGL directives and volume rendering is accomplished by the Zsweep direct volume rendering engine. In the case of volumetric rendering, we implemented an algorithm to generate stereo images. We also propose enhancements in the original percolation algorithm in order to get a better performance. We applied our developed tools to a mature field database, obtaining satisfactory results. The use of stereoscopic and volumetric images brought valuable contributions for the interpretation and clustering formation analysis in percolation, what certainly could lead to better decisions about the exploration and recovery process in oil fields / No processo da recupera??o do petr?leo, a heterogeneidade das rochas exerce um impacto enorme na forma como os l?quidos se movem no reservat?rio, definindo quanto petr?leo pode ser recuperado. A fim de estudar esta variabilidade, a teoria da percola??o, que descreve fen?menos envolvendo geometria e conectividade ? um modelo muito ?til. Os resultados da simula??o de percola??o s?o de car?ter tridimensional e n?o t?m nenhum significado f?sico at? que sejam visualizados em imagens ou anima??es. Embora ferramentas poderosas e sofisticadas de visualiza??o tenham sido desenvolvidas, estas transformam grandes volumes de dados em imagens 2D. A fim de interpretarmos os dados como eles aparecem no mundo real, t?cnicas de realidade virtual baseadas principalmente em estereoscopia podem ser usadas. Neste trabalho, propomos uma ferramenta interativa, denominada ZSweepVR, baseada em t?cnicas de realidade virtual, que permite uma melhor compreens?o dos dados volum?tricos gerados por simula??es de percola??o din?mica. O sistema desenvolvido tem a capacidade de renderizar imagens utilizando duas t?cnicas diferentes: renderiza??o de superf?cie e renderiza??o de volumes. A renderiza??o de superf?cie ? realizada utilizando diretivas OpenGL, enquanto que a renderiza??o volum?trica ? realizada pelo algoritmo de renderiza??o volum?trica direta ZSweep. No caso da renderiza??o volum?trica, implementamos algoritmo para gerar imagens est?reo. N?s tamb?m propomos melhorias no algoritmo original de percola??o din?mica visando melhorar sua efici?ncia. Aplicamos as ferramentas desenvolvidas a dados de campos maduros, obtendo resultados satisfat?rios. O uso de imagens estereosc?picas e volum?tricas trouxe contribui??es valiosas para a interpreta??o e analise da forma??o dos aglomerados na percola??o, o que certamente pode levar a decis?es melhores sobre a explora??o e recupera??o de petr?leo

[pt] Neste trabalho são analisadas junções entre guias coaxiais não homogêneos com perdas. A expansão modal dos campos eletromagnéticos em um guia coaxial com duas camadas radiais é detalhadamente deduzida, e posteriormente a formulação é generalizada para guias com multicamadas radiais. As constantes de propagação para guias com perdas são determinadas pelo método do winding number, garantindo que todos os autovalores possam ser encontrados. O método do casamento de modos é aplicado na análise e projeto de estruturas coaxiais. A formulação é aplicada na otimização de estruturas de acoplamento e cornetas radiantes com carregamento dielétrico não homogêneo. O preenchimento não homogêneo é empregado nas estruturas radiantes a fim de minimizar a perda de retorno, e principalmente controlar e melhorar o formato do diagrama de radiação para operação em banda larga. Adicionalmente, a formulação é utilizada para analisar a propagação eletromagnética em sistemas de telemetria sem fio para poços de petróleo. / [en] In this work, we analyzed junctions between coaxial waveguides heterogeneously filled with lossy dielectrics. The modal expansion of the electromagnetic fields in a coaxial waveguide with two radial layers is derived in detail, and afterward the formulation is generalized for a multilayer waveguide. The propagation constants for lossy waveguides are determined through the method of winding number, ensuring that all eigenvalues can be found. The mode matching technique is applied in the analysis and design of coaxial structures. The formulation is applied in the optimization of coupling structures and radiating horns with heterogeneous dielectric loading. The heterogeneous filling is used in radiating structures in order to reduce the return loss, and especially to control and improve the shape of the radiation pattern for broadband operation. Additionally, the formulation is used to analyze the electromagnetic propagation in wireless telemetry systems for oil wells.

D.Litt.et. Phil. (Historical Studies) / This thesis focuses on Oil and the Ijaw people of Niger Delta States: 1956 to 1998. The rationale and motivating factor is to trace the general environmental problems associated with oil production in the Ijaw village communities that have impacted on the livelihood of the Ijaw people. The thesis is the product of research conducted into the Ijaw environment before the discovery of crude oil, to determine whether their socio-economic and political activities impacted on it through conflict as a result of oil-related pollution and degradation in the 1990s. Oil was discovered in commercially viable quantities in 1956 in the Oloibiri Ijaw community. Extraction by Shell-BP and Chevron started soon afterwards. It examines the complexities of the operations, management and control strategy employed by the federal government under a joint venture agreement with the oil multinationals, particularly through the various regulatory laws passed to protect the Ijaw inhabitants and their environment. This thesis explores and investigates the impact of oil production, particularly of the perennial pollution and flaring of gas, on the soil, vegetation and climate in areas allocated to major oil producers in the Ijaw community. It contributes to existing knowledge on the responses of the federal government and the oil multinationals to pollution and its impact on the traditional fishing and farming of most Ijaws. It explains the main reason the Ijaws demanded greater control of oil resources and a fair share of revenue in the 1990s. The government’s repressive responses exacerbated the environmental struggle by the local protesters against both government and oil companies. This thesis explores the various steps undertaken by the federal government to resolve the conflict associated with environmental problems in Oloibiri, Nembe, Otuasega, Imiringi, Anyama, Kolo-Creeks, which constitute some Ijaw oil-producing communities. The performances and functioning of government agencies, such as NDDB (1961), FEPA (1988) and OMPADEC (1992), at local level are investigated. The main reason for survival strategy in adapting to the environmental problems associated with oil pollution by the Ijaws, and why they were unsuccessful, is also examined.