Petroleum Business Review (PBR)

This paper explores the impact of crude oil futures prices on risk premium volatilities in the NYMEX futures market. For this purpose, the ARCH and GARCH methods are used to model risk premium volatilities and explore how crude oil futures prices influence the risk premium volatilities in futures contract with a maturity of one-month, two-month and three-month over 1990-2014. In addition, it examines the impact of various maturities for futures contracts. The results indicate positive and statistically significant relationship between risk premium volatility and crude oil futures prices, and this relationship varies across the maturity length with change in maturity length. The longer the futures maturities, the higher the impact of futures crude oil prices on risk premium volatility is anticipated.

Recent theories of firm dynamics emphasize on the role of financial variables as determinants of firm growth. Most of the technical literature shows that there is a positive relationship between financial leverage and firm growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether such relationship exists among oil and gas companies within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Data were collected from the selected members of the OPEC. The collected data was then analyzed using the Arellano and Bond (1991) GMM method and Sargan test. The results showed a significant and positive relationship between financial leverage and firm growth which is in line with the technical literature. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by examining a specific and important sector within several different countries. It shows the current theory is not affected by industry or country.

Nowadays, using appropriate technologies in order to increase productivity of production factors can be resulted in optimal factors employment and production enhancement in factories. Technological change is considered as one of the main sources of productivity growth. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the various aspects of technological change and their relationship with total factor productivity in Iran’s petroleum refineries. In order to achieve this goal, we used the econometric method to estimate the cost function. This method seems useful to estimate the structure of factors demand, considering changes in factors prices and technology status. We estimated a translog cost function as well as equations system of cost share, using Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) approach from 1982 to 2012. The results show that the average rate of technological change was -0.482 percent over the study period. It means that over time, the cost growth rate of production units was decreased mainly due to technological change. Furthermore, the results indicate that technological change was biased towards the use of more labor and material, while it saved more capital and energy. Also, based on the estimation results, we decomposed total factor productivity growth rate into the contributions of technological change and economies of scale. Decomposition results show that the share of technological change in the productivity growth is greater than that of scale economies.

The enforced international limitations and sanctions against Iran have affected all stages of natural gas extraction from gas reservoirs. In this study, the effects of various situations on natural gas extraction from the Iranian operating oil reservoirs have been examined. Thus, this study aimed to study the role and effects of imposed international sanctions on Iran’s gas extraction and production. Outcome of the study provides appropriate solutions to recognize such situation and cope with the resulting circumstances. Regarding methodology of the research, quantitative data were collected and analyzed by using the statistical panel model. Results show that gas extraction from natural gas reservoirs has been decreased significantly in the period of international sanctions and limitations were imposed. To achieve the previous desired gas extraction level according to the initial developing plans and the existing potentials as well as to be able to cope with hardship of international circumstances, it is necessary to improve implementation system of the respective projects, attain technological knowledge and take serious steps towards resilient economy to enhance the domestic abilities through knowledge-based advancement especially in producing strategic equipment and goods required by such a large scale projects while the existing internal rules and regulations should be reformed and be more flexible.

In this research we try to investigate impact of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation on the effectiveness of financial processes in PETROPARS Ltd as a case study in petroleum industry. In this regard, three indicators of Ahituv and Neumann model containing time, content, and format have been utilized to compare traditional systems used in PETROPARS Ltd before implementation of ERP/SAP system. For this purpose, four hypothesis related to financial processes were developed and data collected from 101 employees related to financial processes in PETROPARS Ltd. There were 10 research questions related to the three indicators of Ahituv and Neumann model. Research findings show that ERP/SAP implementation has a positive and significant impact on financial processes effectiveness compared to the traditional systems previously used (before ERP/SAP system) in PETROPARS Ltd. This research contributes to the body of knowledge for investigation and documentation of actual results of ERP implementation in the petroleum industry of Iran. A phenomenon that has not been previously touched.

The organizational capital is one of the important components of the intellectual capital. the organizational capital is an infrastructure in term of organizational successes so that it plays a vital role in achieving the goals of organization. Managing and directing “Organizational Capital” entails identification and measurement of its attributes. Although the literature on the intellectual capital is rich, the review shows that few researches have studied the organizational capital models and the related attributes. Hence, at first, this study aims to collect the organizational capital attributes through reviewing the literature and classify them as a comprehensive model. Then, a Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) approach in uncertanity situation has been utilized in order to prioritize and rank the classified attributes by gathering the opinions of experts. In this study, the Grey systems theory has been used for the first time as a method to deal with uncertainty inherent in the in the organizational capital measurement. Whereas the presented comprehensive model can be applied in different situations and industries, it seems that this model may have different attribute weights with regard to the nature of organizations’ activity and internal and external conditions of the specified industry. Finally, the proposed methodology has been utilized in the petroleum industry in Iran and prioritization procedure and ranking results have been illustrated step by step.