05.07.2009

Fresh air at ambient conditions is drawn into the compressor, where the temperature and pressure are raised. The high-pressure air proceeds into the combustion chamber, where the fuel is burned at constant pressure. The resulting high-pressure gases then enter the turbine where they expand to the atmospheric pressure through a row of nozzle vanes. The expansion causes the turbine blade to spin, which then turns a shaft inside a magnetic coil. When the shaft is rotating inside the magnetic coil, electrical current is produced. The exhaust gases leaving the turbine in the open cycle are not re-circulated

As prices of oil tumble from a high of $147.2 in July 2008 to a low of $40 by the end of the same year, OPEC has been debating to cut production of between 1-2 million barrels per day

As oil prices increase, the US and Europe are putting pressure on OPEC to increase production in the hope that it will decrease the price of oil. OPEC, however, is mostly resisting the trend to increase production, saying that speculators and a weak dollar are responsible for the price of oil climbing to nearly $120 a barrel in the beginning of 2008 rather than a tight oil market

The more moderate and pro-Western states within OPEC like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates understand that high energy costs are hurting demand and might push consumers to seek alternatives to oil and are thus keen to keep oil at around or even below $100 a barrel, in order to also ease the political backlash against the cartel. Another group, composed of OPEC’s traditional price hawks, such as Iran and Venezuela increasingly need high prices to finance a wide range of social and political policies and to maintain their power play and influence in their respective regions.

A market condition in which sellers are so few that the actions of any one of them will materially affect price and have a measurable impact on competitors. While cartel is often used in place of oligopoly, cartels don’t necessarily have the ability to control the market, and they aren’t necessarily created for the purpose of exerting control, while the primary function of an oligopoly is to preserve its own power by exerting influence over markets when they feel it is in the interest of members to do so. > >

Any of a class of unsaturated open-chain hydrocarbons such as ethylene, having the general formula CnH2n

Crude oil development and production in oil reservoirs can include up to three distinct phases: primary, secondary and tertiary (or enhanced) recovery. During primary recovery, the natural pressure of the reservoir or gravity is what drives oil into the wellbore, combined with artificial lift techniques (such as pumps) which bring the oil to the surface. But only about 10 percent of a reservoir’s original oil in place is typically produced during primary recovery. Secondary recovery techniques add to the field’s productive life generally by injecting water or gas to displace oil and drive it to a production wellbore, resulting in the recovery of 20 to 40 percent of the original oil in place. However, with much of the easy-to-produce oil already recovered from many oil fields, producers have attempted several tertiary, or enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques that offer prospects for ultimately producing 30 to 60 percent, or more, of the reservoir’s original oil in place.