Leonardo Maugeri | |
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Born | |
Died | July 10, 2017 53) | (aged
Nationality | ![]() |
Occupation | Oil businessman |
Leonardo Maugeri (10 April 1964 – 10 July 2017) [1] was an Italian oil and gas expert, [2] who was a top manager at Eni from 1994 to 2011. [3] At the time of his death, he was Chairman & CEO of Investment firm Romulus Asset Management and a Senior Fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. [2]
Maugeri sat on the Energy Advisory Board of Accenture. He previously sat on the boards of Saipem, Italgas and Polimeri Europa. Maugeri was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as a member of the Institute's Energy Advisory Board. He also served as an International Counselor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS – Washington, DC).
Maugeri became Eni’s youngest director in 2000, [3] when at 36 he was named Director of Strategy and Development (2000-2010). In 2010 Maugeri was named Executive Chairman of Polimeri Europa (formerly known as Enimont and currently renamed Versalis), the company managing Eni’s petrochemical activities (2010-2011). The appointment of Maugeri as Eni ’s head of strategy coincided with the development of aggressive plans for growth that resulted in the period of greatest development for the company: from 2000 to 2005 Eni increased its hydrocarbons production by 50 per cent while corporate profits reached their highest level in history. [4]
In 2007 Maugeri launched a new strategy for renewable energy. [3] He engineered the relaunch of the historic Istituto Donegani (a research center), [5] with a new focus on renewable energy and a strategic alliance between Eni and MIT - concluded by Maugeri with the then U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. [6] During his chairmanship of Polimeri Europa Maugeri conceived and engineered (in association with Novamont) the largest green chemistry project in the world – the industrial reconversion of the Porto Torres site. Whereas Eni’s petrochemical activities had been operating at a loss for several decades (630 M€ and 513 M€ in 2008 and 2009 respectively), Maugeri’s strategy of radical discontinuity allowed it to obtain a modest but significant positive cash flow from operating activities (25 M€ in 2011, with losses cut to 71 M€). [7]
Maugeri’s views and predictions have been expressed in a series of articles for several major international newspapers and magazines – including The New York Times , International Herald Tribune (currently International New York Times), Foreign Affairs , Newsweek , Science , Scientific American , The Wall Street Journal , Forbes , and The National Interest . In particular, Maugeri is one of the leading supporters of the view according to which the world does not run the risk of running out of oil (See: “Not in Oil’s Name” – Foreign Affairs, July–August 2003 – and “Oil, Never Cry Wolf: Why the Petroleum Age is Far from Over” – Science, 21–27 May 2004), and for this reason he has been attacked on many occasions by proponents of the “peak oil” thesis .
In his book The Age of Oil: the Mythology, History, and Future of the World’s Most Controversial Resource (Praeger, 2006) Maugeri predicted an imminent collapse of oil prices, which occurred in the second half of 2008. In the same book he predicted the development of unconventional oil and gas resources thanks to the advent of new technologies – including hydraulic fracturing. In Beyond the Age of Oil: The Myths, Realities, and Future of Fossil Fuels and Their Alternatives (Praeger, 2010) Maugeri argues that by 2020 a technological breakthrough will shake the solar industry and permanently alter the energy landscape.
Two essays published by Maugeri during his stay at Harvard have sparked a heated debate at the international level. In these essays, Maugeri argues that the incessant growth of global oil production capacity is generally underestimated, and this – combined with modest growth in oil demand – could lead to an oil price collapse in the course of this decade. The second of these studies – “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon” (2013), based on an unprecedented analysis of 4,000 shale oil wells, concludes that the United States could become the world's biggest oil producer by 2017. At the same time, however, the study indicates that the shale oil and gas revolution will not be replicable in the rest of the world – let alone in Europe – due to the high drilling intensity required.
Petroleum is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture. It consists mainly of hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The term petroleum refers both to naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil, as well as to petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil.
Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitutes inorganic substance and bitumens. Based on their deposition environment, oil shales are classified as marine, lacustrine and terrestrial oil shales. Oil shales differ from oil-bearing shales, shale deposits that contain petroleum that is sometimes produced from drilled wells. Examples of oil-bearing shales are the Bakken Formation, Pierre Shale, Niobrara Formation, and Eagle Ford Formation. Accordingly, shale oil produced from oil shale should not be confused with tight oil, which is also frequently called shale oil.
The Hubbert peak theory says that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. It is one of the primary theories on peak oil.
Peak oil is the point when global oil production reaches its maximum rate, after which it will begin to decline irreversibly. The main concern is that global transportation relies heavily on gasoline and diesel. Transitioning to electric vehicles, biofuels, or more efficient transport could help reduce oil demand.
Michael T. Klare is a Five Colleges professor of Peace and World Security Studies, whose department is located at Hampshire College, defense correspondent of The Nation magazine and author of Resource Wars and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (Metropolitan). His 2019 book is, All Hell Breaking Loose: the Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change (Metropolitan). Klare also teaches at Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Eni S.p.A., acronym for and formerly legally known as Ente nazionale idrocarburi, is an Italian multinational energy company headquartered in Rome. It is considered one of the "supermajor" oil companies in the world, with a market capitalization of €50 billion, as of 31 December 2023. The Italian government owns a 30.5% golden share in the company, 1.99% held through the Ministry of Economy and Finance and 28.5% through the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.
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Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil is used as fuel oil or upgraded to meet refinery feedstock specifications by adding hydrogen and removing sulfur and nitrogen impurities.
Predicting the timing of peak oil involves estimation of future production from existing oil fields as well as future discoveries. The initial production model was Hubbert peak theory, first proposed in the 1950s. Since then, many experts have tried to forecast peak oil.
The Robert and Renée Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, also known as the Belfer Center, is a research center located at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.
The Age of Oil, also known as the Oil Age, the Petroleum Age, or the Oil Boom, refers to the era in human history characterised by an increased use of petroleum in products and as fuel. Though unrefined petroleum has been used for various purposes since ancient times, it was during the 19th century that refinement techniques were developed and gasoline engines were created.
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This article describes the energy and electricity production, consumption and import in Egypt.
Shale gas in the United States is an available source of unconventional natural gas. Led by new applications of hydraulic fracturing technology and horizontal drilling, development of new sources of shale gas has offset declines in production from conventional gas reservoirs, and has led to major increases in reserves of U.S. natural gas. Largely due to shale gas discoveries, estimated reserves of natural gas in the United States in 2008 were 35% higher than in 2006.
Tight oil is light crude oil contained in unconventional petroleum-bearing formations of low permeability, often shale or tight sandstone. Economic production from tight oil formations requires the same hydraulic fracturing and often uses the same horizontal well technology used in the production of shale gas. While sometimes called "shale oil", tight oil should not be confused with oil shale or shale oil. Therefore, the International Energy Agency recommends using the term "light tight oil" for oil produced from shales or other very low permeability formations, while the World Energy Resources 2013 report by the World Energy Council uses the terms "tight oil" and "shale-hosted oil".
Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas produced from shale, a type of sedimentary rock. Shale gas has become an increasingly important source of natural gas in the United States over the past decade, and interest has spread to potential gas shales in Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. One analyst expects shale gas to supply as much as half the natural gas production in North America by 2020.
Versalis is a wholly owned subsidiary of Italian oil supermajor Eni specializing in the production of chemicals. With more than 7,000 employees and a production of about 5.6 million tons of chemical products in 2023, it is by far the largest chemical company in Italy and one of the largest in Europe.
A petrostate, oil state, or petrocracy is a country whose economy is heavily dependent on the extraction and export of oil or natural gas. The presence alone of large oil and gas industries does not define a petrostate: major oil producers that also have diversified economies are not classified as petrostates due to their ability to generate income from various industries and sectors beyond the oil industry. Petrostates also have highly concentrated political and economic power, resting in the hands of an elite, as well as unaccountable political institutions which are susceptible to corruption.
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Robert Alexander Belfer is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the namesake of Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School.
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