Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Issues of Pollution in the Oil Industry

The purpose of this research is to examine issues of pollution in the oil industry. The plan of the research will be to set forth the background and context in which pollution-related concerns have arisen in the modern period and then to discuss key factors of analysis that must be included in any comprehensive understanding of the connection between oil-industry activity and environmental pollution.

Understanding how and why pollution is at issue in the modern period requires first understanding the structure of the oil industry. The producers of oil at every stage of its movement through the marketplace, from the driller-explorers to the shippers to the refiners, are relatively few in number. They are interdependent inasmuch as they are rivals reacting to one another, but not necessarily to the consuming market. To the extent that rival companies have a virtually identical product--in the case of the oil industry, crude oil, gasoline or ancillary products--a high cross-elasticity of demand may be inferred; price to consumers at any level of distribution is the only differentiating factor.

The level of response to the changes in the market occurs among companies or between companies as a group and governmental regulatory or legislative bodies, not between consumers and companies. Issues of energy availability, generation, cost, and use of natural resources have been a persistent feature of discussion in the United States since the early 1970s, when the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) quadrupled the price of crude oil and ostensibly put oil-consuming countries such as the United States in a defensive position. The issue of the extent and kind of government involvement in and regulation of private utilities and energy providers has surfaced persistently since that time, as has the question of energy conservation.

During the oil crises of the 1970s, when the nations of OPEC quadrupled oil prices, record profits...

Page 1 of 23 Next >

More on Issues of Pollution in the Oil Industry...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Issues of Pollution in the Oil Industry. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 03:43, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1712143.html