The company recreated itself from a low-margin, commodity-driven, regional oil refiner into a less-cyclical, higher-margin, global specialty chemicals company.
It accounts for 15% of the U.S.'s crude-oil imports, less than half the amount the U.S. imports from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.
The world economy is much less oil-intensive than it used to be.
The Saudis had 1.5 million bpd of spare production capacity--oil spigots on standby--and it was less desirable heavy crude.
Its enterprise multiple of 11 is a tad less than the oil-service segment's median of 12.
And according to the American government's own numbers, the world's oil output has been more-or-less flat since 2005.
Using less electricity, using less oil or using less water helps keep operating costs lower which allows Wal-Mart to keep prices down.
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Natural gas emits 29% less carbon dioxide than oil and 45% less than coal, and it can be used in high-efficiency combined cycle power stations.
Expect future cars to help motorists garner maximum mileage by leveraging technology like the eco-tutoring systems found in many hybrids, wider use of tire-pressure, oil life and engine-tuning monitoring systems and more-sophisticated GPS guidance that can select less-congested routes.
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However, the SNP government is talking rather less about a Norwegian-style oil fund these days.
Sensible policies on nukes and oil exploration would make us less dependent on imports--a plus for national security.
The more -- the less we rely on foreign oil, the less dependence we have, the more energy security we have.
The spending of petrodollars also helps the dollar less than the euro, because oil-producing countries tend to import more from Europe than America.
Since 1999, Europe has increased oil imports more than 20%--just slightly less than the amount consumed by Germany in 2007--to compensate for declining domestic production.
Mining this bitumen (the lowest-value molecule in the oil business) that lies less than 150 feet underground with big shovels and trucks is one way to go.
Shale, along with new finds of conventional gas, will allow many more countries to produce their own gas and make available gas for export from a lot more places, many of which are less difficult to deal with than some oil-producing countries.
By concentrating on areas where considerable progress is possible (rather than on such neuralgic issues as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or increased CAFE fuel-efficiency standards), America - and in particular its gas-guzzling transportation sector - could be made significantly less reliant on oil supplied by unstable or hostile regimes.
But another, less discussed factor--one familiar to oil companies--is also crucial: developing in the best places.
Life is less easy than might be expected in an oil-rich state with a government that subsidises food, health and education.
The company's shares trade in lockstep with the price of oil and at a discount to more well-rounded (but less profitable) competitors Jacobs Engineering and Fluor.
Also a problem is the considerable cost of extracting deep water reserves from the remote South Atlantic -- although this becomes less of an issue as oil prices continue to climb.
Extracting the bitumen from the clay and sand and upgrading it into crude oil--by breaking its big hydrocarbon molecules into smaller, less viscous ones--is an expensive, energy-intensive process that consumes 650 cubic feet of natural gas for every barrel.
Outside of oil and gas projects and a few specific infrastructure projects (ports like Jebel Ali and airports like Dubai), far less real economic development has happened in the oil-rich parts of the Arab world than would be expected based on their great endowment of human and natural resources.
Just remember that although olive oil is very healthy, it is also very high in calories, so it is important to watch your serving sizes and to consume olive oil in place of, not in addition to, less-healthy foods to avoid weight gain, which may negate some of its beneficial health effects.
Stripper wells are marginal, low-volume wells that produce less than 10 barrels of oil per day.
In my view, Google is no more or less evil than a multi-national bank or oil company.
The more energy we produce at home, the less vulnerable we are to disruptions in politically unstable oil-exporting countries.
Last year, China accounted for no less than one-third of the increase in world oil consumption.
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The region holds less oil than Iraq's south, but the production-sharing agreements on offer to investors are far more enticing.
We should not be thrown any red-herrings that we need not press-on toward a future that is far less dependent on oil, and indeed a better planned use of energy in all its forms.
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