Strategic Responses to Advances in Seismic Technology in the Petroleum Industry

H. Bloch, Jo Voola

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    2 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The world petroleum industry has been revolutionized by a change inexploration technology from two-dimensional (2D) to three-dimensional (3D) seismicmapping. One of the main effects of the newer technology has been to decrease the cost offinding oil, particularly in offshore fields. We examine the impact of the new technologyon the exploration activities of the major international petroleum companies and find thatthey have aggressively increased petroleum exploration expenditures. As a result, wesuggest that the companies have achieved a prisoner’s dilemma outcome, where they arecollectively worse off in terms of profits, providing a possible explanation for the recentwave of large-scale mergers in the industry.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)27-36
    JournalInternational Journal of the Economics of Business
    Volume11
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2004

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Strategic Responses to Advances in Seismic Technology in the Petroleum Industry'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this