PATHS TO DEEPWATER IN THE INTERNATIONAL PETROLEUM INDSUTRY 1

This paper presents an analysis of recent developments among a subset of companies active in the world’s upstream petroleum industry. The changes are due to these companies undertaking exploration and some production of hydrocarbon reserves offshore, in deepwater. The change is profound, and recognised among industry participants through “deepwater” becoming a signified term for the activity. This paper draws on our study of the different paths that companies have developed in undertaking deepwater exploration, and in some cases production. Of critical importance to our explanation is a recognition that some processes have been specific to companies, whereas others can be accounted for in terms of an industry, extending to services companies, consultancies and governments. The development of deepwater exploration and production has involved iterations across processes that are company and industry-specific.

[1]  J. Finch,et al.  Transferring exploration and production activities within the UK's upstream oil and gas industry: a capabilities perspective , 2002 .

[2]  Steve Robertson,et al.  Deep water: How West Africa compares with Gulf of Mexico , 2003 .

[3]  Nicolai J. Foss,et al.  Edith Penrose, Economics and Strategic Management , 1999 .

[4]  E. Penrose.  The theory of the growth of the firm twenty-five years after , 1960 .

[5]  D. Foray,et al.  The Economics of Codification and the Diffusion of Knowledge , 1997 .

[6]  G. Richardson.  Mrs Penrose and neoclassical theory , 1999 .

[7]  Brian J. Loasby,et al.  The Significance of Penrose's Theory for the Development of Economics , 1999 .

[8]  B. Loasby.  Knowledge, institutions, and evolution in economics , 1999 .

[9]  D. Leonard-Barton.  CORE CAPABILITIES AND CORE RIGIDITIES: A PARADOX IN MANAGING NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT , 1992 .

[10]  A. Rhodes.  VASTAR USES TECHNOLOGY, STRATEGY TO COMPETE WITH MAJORS IN DEEP WATER , 1998 .

[11]  G. S. Simpson,et al.  On the diffusion of probabilistic investment appraisal and decision-making procedures in the UK's upstream oil and gas industry , 2002 .

[12]  J. Brown,et al.  Knowledge and Organization: A Social-Practice Perspective , 2001 .

[13]  G. Richardson,et al.  The Organisation of Industry , 1972 .

[14]  P. Cohendet,et al.  The theoretical and policy implications of knowledge codification , 2001 .

[15]  Robert M. Grant,et al.  Knowledge and Organization , 2001 .

[16]  R. Langlois.  Transaction-cost Economics in Real Time , 1992 .

[17]  M. Jones-Lee,et al.  Choice, Complexity and Ignorance. , 1977 .

[18]  D. Teece,et al.  Information and Investment , 1964 .

[19]  D. Leonard-Barton,et al.  Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation , 1995 .

[20]  P. Cohendet,et al.  The Economics Of Knowledge: The Debate About Codification And Tacit Knowledge , 2000 .

[21]  R. Langlois.  Modularity in technology and organization , 2002 .

[22]  Robin Cowan,et al.  Expert systems: aspects of and limitations to the codifiability of knowledge , 2001 .

[23]  K. Pavitt.  Technologies, Products and Organization in the Innovating Firm: What Adam Smith Tells Us and Joseph Schumpeter Doesn't , 1998 .

[24]  Alfred D. Chandler.  Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise , 1962 .

[25]  D. Teece,et al.  Information and Investment , 1962 .

[26]  G. Richardson.  Imperfect Knowledge And Economic Efficiency , 1953 .

[27]  Paul A. David,et al.  The explicit economics of knowledge codification and tacitness , 2000 .

[28]  W. Scott,et al.  Tracking the Giant Corporation@@@Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. , 1991 .