Reproduced with permission from Law Business Research. This article was first published in Getting the Deal Through - Oil Regulation 2012 (published in June 2012; contributing editor Bob Palmer, CMS Cameron McKenna).

General

1 Describe, in general terms, the key commercial aspects of the oil sector in your country.

The US oil industry is divided into three sectors: upstream (exploration and production), midstream (processing, storage and transportation) and downstream (refining, distribution and marketing).

Industry participants are categorised as ‘supermajors’, ‘majors’ and ‘independents’. ‘Supermajors’ are the handful of very large companies integrated across all sectors that account for most of the US oil industry revenues. US-based supermajors include ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, whereas the overseas-based supermajors, BP and Shell, have substantial US operations. Smaller-scale integrated firms include Marathon, Hess and Murphy Oil.

A larger number of companies specialise in particular sectors.

The ‘independents’ engage predominantly in upstream activities and include Occidental, Devon, Anadarko and Apache. Midstream specialists include Kinder Morgan. Refining and marketing operations are conducted by Valero, Sunoco, Tesoro and Western. The industry is supported by oil service companies led by Schlumberger, Halliburton and Baker Hughes, and by a variety of trade associations including the American Petroleum Institute (API).