The oil and gas industry is involved in a global supply-chain that includes domestic and international transportation, ordering  and inventory visibility and control, materials handling, import/export facilitation and information technology. Thus, the industry offers a classic model for implementing supply-chain management techniques. In a supply-chain, a company is linked to its upstream suppliers and downstream distributors as materials, information, and capital flow through the supply-chain.  The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of supply-chain management in the oil and gas industry. This paper also discusses the application of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) to supply-chain management issues. Then, several strategies are examined for improving supply-chains in the oil and gas industry. Finally, two case studies are introduced to show how improving supply-chain logistics in the oil and gas industry can improve efficiency and the bottom line.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The particular role that energy plays in the economy of a country, and the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth are of interest to researchers, analysts, and policymakers. Energy consumption can be seen as either a cause of, or a symptom of economic growth. Therefore, understanding the nature of the interactions between energy consumption and gross domestic product (GDP) can help guide energy policies. This paper examines the energy-GDP relationship in the U.S.A. One common method used in analyzing the energy-GDP relationship is energy intensity (also called the intensity of energy use (IEU)), which is the amount of energy required to produce a unit of income (GDP). The paper begins with a substantial literature review of energy intensity studies from around the world. A summary of the findings is discussed, including the factors that were found to directly influence the intensity of energy use. The Kuznets environmental curve is then presented and used in developing a model for the IEU. The model is then tested with data for the U.S.A. from 1949 &ndash; to 2003. The results show that energy consumption is very sensitive to energy prices, which in turn impacts the GDP, and that the IEU has declined in the U.S.A. for the period tested, fitting the downward slopping segment of the Kuznets curve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>These results imply that energy conservation policies are desirable. </span></span></p>

The role of energy in the economy is an important issue. There is a general belief and agreement amongst economists, researchers, analysts, and policymakers, that energy consumption is related to economic activity and plays a key role in the process of economic development. However, the precise nature of this relationship between energy consumption and economic growth remains debatable. While some ambiguity has remained regarding the direction of causation--- whether from energy to economy or from economy to energy --- the importance of the energy GDP interaction is well recognized. Energy use is a necessary input to economic growth and is also a function of growth. This paper begins with a literature review of the work that has been done to date on the energy-GDP relationship in several countries. Then, an analysis of the historical data for the U.S.A. from 1949 2003 is presented along with mathematical models. The contributions from this paper are that first, we clarify that energy conservation policies will not harm the U.S. economy. Second, we employed a macroeconomic model based on Multiple Model Estimation to determine the relationship between energy consumption and GDP in the United States for the stated time period. Our model suggests that the causation goes both ways: from energy to the components of GDP, and from GDP to energy consumption.