1.
Hydrocarbon exploration
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Hydrocarbon exploration is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for hydrocarbon deposits beneath the Earths surface, such as oil and natural gas. Oil and gas exploration are grouped under the science of petroleum geology, visible surface features such as oil seeps, natural gas seeps, pockmarks provide basic evidence of hydrocarbon generation. However, most exploration depends on sophisticated technology to detect. Oil exploration is an expensive, high-risk operation, offshore and remote area exploration is generally only undertaken by very large corporations or national governments. Typical shallow shelf oil wells cost US$10 –30 million, while deep water wells can cost up to US$100 million plus, hundreds of smaller companies search for onshore hydrocarbon deposits worldwide, with some wells costing as little as US$100,000. A prospect is a trap which geologists believe may contain hydrocarbons. A significant amount of geological, structural and seismic investigation must first be completed to redefine the potential hydrocarbon drill location from a lead to a prospect. Four geological factors have to be present for a prospect to work, a source rock - When organic-rich rock such as oil shale or coal is subjected to high pressure and temperature over an extended period of time, hydrocarbons form. Most hydrocarbons migrate to the surface as oil seeps, but some will get trapped, reservoir - The hydrocarbons are contained in a reservoir rock. This is commonly a porous sandstone or limestone, the oil collects in the pores within the rock although open fractures within non-porous rocks may also store hydrocarbons. The reservoir must also be permeable so that the hydrocarbons will flow to surface during production, trap - The hydrocarbons are buoyant and have to be trapped within a structural or stratigraphic trap. Exploration risk is a concept and is usually defined by assigning confidence to the presence of the imperative geological factors. This confidence is based on data models and is usually mapped on Common Risk Segment Maps. High confidence in the presence of imperative geological factors is usually coloured green, therefore, these maps are also called Traffic Light Maps, while the full procedure is often referred to as Play Fairway Analysis. The aim of such procedures is to force the geologist to objectively assess all different geological factors, furthermore, it results in simple maps that can be understood by non-geologists and managers to base exploration decisions on. Bright spot - On a seismic section, coda that have high amplitudes due to a formation containing hydrocarbons, chance of success - An estimate of the chance of all the elements within a prospect working, described as a probability. Dry hole - A boring that does not contain commercial hydrocarbons, see also Dry hole clause Flat spot - Possibly an oil-water, gas-water or gas-oil contact on a seismic section, flat due to gravity. Hydrocarbon in place - amount of hydrocarbon likely to be contained in the prospect. e, net reserve - part of net sand that has the minimum reservoir qualities, i. e. minimum porosity and permeability values
2.
Extraction of petroleum
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Peak oil, an event based on M. King Hubberts theory, is the point in time when the maximum rate of extraction of petroleum is reached, after which it is expected to enter terminal decline. Peak oil theory is based on the rise, peak, fall. It is often confused with oil depletion, however, peak oil is the point of production, while depletion refers to a period of falling reserves. Some observers, such as petroleum industry experts Kenneth S. Predictions vary greatly as to exactly these negative effects would be. Oil production forecasts on which predictions of peak oil are based are made within a range which includes optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. Pessimistic predictions of future oil production made after 2007 stated either that the peak had already occurred, that oil production was on the cusp of the peak, or that it would occur shortly. Hubberts original prediction that US peak oil would be in about 1970 seemed accurate for a time, in addition, Hubberts original predictions for world peak oil production proved premature. The idea that the rate of oil production would peak and irreversibly decline is an old one, in 1919, David White, chief geologist of the United States Geological Survey, wrote of US petroleum. The peak of production will soon be passed, possibly within 3 years, in 1953, Eugene Ayers, a researcher for Gulf Oil, projected that if US ultimate recoverable oil reserves were 100 billion barrels, then production in the US would peak no later than 1960. If ultimate recoverable were to be as high as 200 billion barrels, likewise for the world, he projected a peak somewhere between 1985 and 2000. Ayers made his projections without a mathematical model, King Hubbert used statistical modelling in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1971. Hubbert used a semi-logistical curved model and he assumed the production rate of a limited resource would follow a roughly symmetrical distribution. Depending on the limits of exploitability and market pressures, the rise or decline of production over time might be sharper or more stable. That model and its variants are now called Hubbert peak theory, they have used to describe and predict the peak and decline of production from regions, countries. The same theory has also applied to other limited-resource production. In a 2006 analysis of Hubbert theory, it was noted that uncertainty in real world oil production amounts, by comparing the fit of various other models, it was found that Hubberts methods yielded the closest fit over all, but that none of the models were very accurate. In 1956 Hubbert himself recommended using a family of possible production curves when predicting a production peak, more recently, the term peak oil was popularized by Colin Campbell and Kjell Aleklett in 2002 when they helped form the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. In his publications, Hubbert used the peak production rate
3.
Anglo-Persian Oil Company
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The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was a British company founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran, in 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and in 1954 it became the British Petroleum Company, one of the antecedents of the modern BP public limited company. In 1901 William Knox DArcy, a millionaire London socialite, negotiated an oil concession with Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar of Persia and he financed this with capital he had made from his shares in the highly profitable Mount Morgan mine in Queensland, Australia. DArcy assumed exclusive rights to prospect for oil for 60 years in a vast tract of territory including most of Iran, in exchange the Shah received £20,000, an equal amount in shares of DArcys company, and a promise of 16% of future profits. DArcy hired geologist George Bernard Reynolds to do the prospecting in the Iranian desert, conditions were extremely harsh, small pox raged, bandits and warlords ruled, water was all but unavailable, and temperatures often soared past 50°C. After several years of prospecting, DArcys fortune dwindled away and he was forced to sell most of his rights to a Glasgow-based syndicate, the Burmah Oil Company. By 1908, having more than £500,000 into their Persian venture and found no oil, DArcy. Reynolds delayed following these orders and in a stroke of luck, struck oil shortly after on May 26,1908, on 14 April 1909, Burmah Oil created the Anglo-Persian Oil Company as a subsidiary and also sold shares to the public. Volume production of Persian oil products eventually started in 1913 from a refinery built at Abadan, in 1913, shortly before World War I, APOC managers negotiated with a new customer, Winston Churchill, who was then First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill, as a part of an expansion program, sought to modernize Britains Royal Navy by abandoning the use of coal-fired steamships. Although Britain had large reserves of coal, oil had advantages in energy density. Furthermore, Churchill wanted to free Britain from its reliance on the Standard Oil, in exchange for secure oil supplies for its ships, the British government injected new capital into the company and, in doing so, acquired a controlling interest in APOC. The contract that was set up between the British Government and APOC was to hold for 20 years, the British government also became a de facto hidden power behind the oil company. APOC took a 50% share in a new Turkish Petroleum Company organized in 1912 by Calouste Gulbenkian to explore, after a hiatus caused by World War I it reformed and struck an immense gusher at Kirkuk, Iraq in 1927, renaming itself the Iraq Petroleum Company. In 1920, the APOC also acquired an oil concession that had been formally granted in 1916 to a former Russian subject. During this period, Iranian popular opposition to the DArcy oil concession, such a pervasive atmosphere of dissatisfaction seemed to suggest that a radical revision of the concession terms would be possible. In 1923, Burmah employed Winston Churchill as a consultant to lobby the British government to allow APOC to have exclusive rights to Persian oil resources. In 1925, TPC received concession in the Mesopotamian oil resources from the Iraqi government under British mandate, TPC finally struck oil in Iraq on 14 October 1927
4.
Royal Dutch Shell
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Royal Dutch Shell plc, commonly known as Shell, is a British–Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in the Netherlands and incorporated in the United Kingdom. It is one of the six oil and gas supermajors and the sixth-largest company in the world measured by 2016 revenues. Shell was first in the 2013 Fortune Global 500 list of the worlds largest companies and it also has renewable energy activities in the form of biofuels and wind. Shell has operations in over 70 countries, produces around 3.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has 44,000 service stations worldwide, as of 31 December 2014, Shell had total proved reserves of 13.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Shell Oil Company, its subsidiary in the United States, is one of its largest businesses. Shell holds 50% of Raízen, a joint venture with Cosan, which is the third-largest Brazil-based energy company by revenues, Shell was formed in 1907 through the amalgamation of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company of the Netherlands and the Shell Transport and Trading Company of the United Kingdom. Shell first entered the industry in 1929. In 1970 Shell acquired the mining company Billiton, which it sold in 1994. In recent decades gas exploration and production has become an important part of Shells business. Shell acquired BG Group in 2016, making it the worlds largest producer of liquefied natural gas, Shell has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. It has secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange, as of January 2013, Shells largest shareholder was Capital Research Global Investors with 9. 85% ahead of BlackRock in second with 6. 89%. Shells logo, known as the pecten, is one of the most familiar commercial symbols in the world and it was a move largely driven by the need to compete globally with Standard Oil. The Shell Transport and Trading Company was a British company, founded in 1897 by Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted, and his brother Samuel Samuel. Their father had owned a company in Houndsditch, London. For various reasons, the new firm operated as a company, whereby the merging companies maintained their legal existence. The terms of the merger gave 60 percent ownership of the new group to the Dutch arm and 40 percent to the British, national patriotic sensibilities would not permit a full-scale merger or takeover of either of the two companies. The Dutch company, Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij at The Hague, was in charge of production, the British Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company was based in London, to direct the transport and storage of the products. During the First World War, Shell was the supplier of fuel to the British Expeditionary Force
5.
BP
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BP P. L. C. also referred to by its former name, British Petroleum, is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It also has renewable energy interests in biofuels and wind power, the company has around 17,200 service stations worldwide. Its largest division is BP America in the United States, in Russia BP owns a 19. 75% stake in Rosneft, the worlds largest publicly traded oil and gas company by hydrocarbon reserves and production. BP has a listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. It has secondary listings on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, BPs origins date back to the founding of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1908, established as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company to exploit oil discoveries in Iran. In 1935, it became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and in 1954 British Petroleum, in 1959, the company expanded beyond the Middle East to Alaska and it was one of the the first companies to strike oil in the North Sea. British Petroleum acquired majority control of Standard Oil of Ohio in 1978, formerly majority state-owned, the British government privatised the company in stages between 1979 and 1987. British Petroleum merged with Amoco in 1998, becoming BP Amoco plc, from 2003 to 2013, BP was a partner in the TNK-BP joint venture in Russia. BP has been involved in several major environmental and safety incidents. 1.8 million gallons of Corexit oil dispersant were used in the cleanup response, legal proceedings continued into January 2015 which determined payouts and fines under the Clean Water Act and the Natural Resources Damage Assessment. BP appealed the ruling, which raised concerns about BPs future and they settled in July 2015 in the amount of $19 billion plus the original amount. In May 1908 a group of British geologists discovered a large amount of oil at Masjid-i-Suleiman in Mohammerah and it was the first commercially significant find of oil in the Middle East. William Knox DArcy, by contract with the Emir of Mohammerah, Sheikh Khazal Khan al-Kaabi and this event changed the history of the Middle East. The oil discovery led to petrochemical industry development and also the establishment of industries that depended on oil. On 14 April 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was incorporated as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company, some of the shares were sold to the public. The first chairman and minority shareholder of the company became Lord Strathcona, the refinery was built and began operating in 1912. In 1913, the British Government acquired a controlling interest in the company and at the suggestion of Winston Churchill, the Royal Navy, which projected British power all over the world, came to be run 100% on oil from Iran. In 1919, the became a shale-oil producer by establishing a subsidiary named Scottish Oils which merged remaining Scottish oil-shale industries
6.
ExxonMobil
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Exxon Mobil Corporation is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefellers Standard Oil Company, the worlds seventh largest company by revenue, ExxonMobil is also the seventh largest publicly traded company by market capitalization. The company was ranked ninth globally in the Forbes Global 2000 list in 2016, ExxonMobil was the second most profitable company in the Fortune 500 in 2014. ExxonMobil is the largest of the worlds Big Oil companies, or supermajors, with production of 3.921 million BOE. In 2008, this was approximately 3 percent of world production, when ranked by oil and gas reserves, it is 14th in the world—with less than 1 percent of the total. ExxonMobils reserves were 25.2 billion BOE at the end of 2013, ExxonMobil has a history of lobbying for climate change denial and against the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The company has also been the target of accusations of improperly dealing with rights issues, influence on American foreign policy. ExxonMobil was formed in 1999 by the merger of two oil companies, Exxon and Mobil. Both Exxon and Mobil were descendants of Standard Oil, established by John D. Rockefeller, in 1882, it together with its affiliated companies was incorporated as the Standard Oil Trust with Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and Standard Oil Company of New York as its largest companies. The Anglo-American Oil Company was established in the United Kingdom in 1888, in 1890, Standard Oil, together with local ship merchants in Bremen established Deutsch-Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft. In 1891, a branch for the Netherlands and Belgium. At the same year, a branch for Italy, Società Italo Americana pel Petrolio, was established in Venice. The Standard Oil Trust was dissolved under the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1892, however, in 1893, the Chinese and the whole Asian kerosene market was assigned to Standard Oil Company of New York in order to improve trade with the Asian counterparts. In 1898, Standard Oil of New Jersey acquired controlling stake in Imperial Oil of Canada, in 1899, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey became the holding company for the Standard Oil Interests. The anti-monopoly proceedings against the Standard Oil were launched in 1898, by 1911, with public outcry at a climax, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Standard Oil must be dissolved and split into 34 companies. Two of these companies were Jersey Standard, which eventually became Exxon, and Socony, over the next few decades, Jersey Standard and Socony grew significantly. John Duston Archbold was the first president of Jersey Standard, Archbold was followed by Walter C. Teagle in 1917, who made it the largest oil company in the world, in 1919, Jersey Standard acquired a 50% share in Humble Oil & Refining Co. a Texas oil producer
7.
Total S.A.
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Total S. A. is a French multinational integrated oil and gas company and one of the seven Supermajor oil companies in the world. Total is also a large scale chemicals manufacturer, Total is a major player in solar energy with SunPower and Total Solar. Total has its office in the Tour Total in La Défense district in Courbevoie. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index, at Poincarés behest, Col. Ernest Mercier with the support of ninety banks and companies founded Total on 28 March 1924, as the Compagnie française des pétroles, literally the French Petroleum Company. Petroleum was seen as vital in the case of a new war with Germany, the French governments stake in TPC was transferred to CFP, and the Red Line agreement in 1928 rearranged the shareholding of CPF in TPC to 23. 75%. The company from the start was regarded as a private company in view of its listing on the Paris Stock Exchange in 1929. The company during the 1930s was engaged in exploration and production and its first refinery began operating in Normandy in 1933. After World War II, CFP engaged in oil exploration in Venezuela, Canada, Exploration in Algeria, then a French colony, began in 1946, with Algeria becoming a leading source of oil in the 1950s. In 1954, CFP introduced its downstream product – Total brand of gasoline in the African continent and Europe. In 1980, Total Petroleum Ltd. a company controlled 50% by CFP and this purchase gave Total refining capacity, transportation, and a network of 350 service stations in 20 states. The company renamed itself Total CFP in 1985, to build on the popularity of its gasoline brand, later in 1991, the name was changed to Total, when it became a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, Total continued to expand its presence in North America under several brand names. In 1989, Denver, Colorado, based Total Petroleum, Total CFPs North American unit, purchased 125 Road Runner retail locations from Texarkana, by 1993, Total Petroleum was operating 2,600 retail stores under the Vickers, Apco, Road Runner, and Total brands. That year, the company began remodeling and rebranding all of its North American gasoline, only four years later, Total sold its North American refining and retail operations to Ultramar Diamond Shamrock for $400 million in stock and $414 million in assumed debt. After Totals takeover of Petrofina of Belgium in 1999, it known as Total Fina. Afterwards it also acquired Elf Aquitaine, first named TotalFinaElf after the merger in 2000, it was later renamed back to Total on 6 May 2003. During that rebranding, the current globe logo was unveiled, in 2003, Total signed for a 30% stake in the gas exploration venture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – South Rub al-Khali joint venture along with Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco. The stake was bought out by its partners
8.
Partex
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Partex Oil and Gas Corporation is an oil company which is fully owned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, from Lisbon, Portugal. The contract between Royal Dutch Shell, Anglo Persian, Compagnie Française des Pétroles, Near East Development Company, at the same time the partners undertook to work together within the boundaries of the former Ottoman Empire - the Red Line Agreement. In 1938, before the beginning of the Second World War and it was Participations and Explorations Corporation from which came the name Partex. Calouste Gulbenkian spent the years of his life in Lisbon, Portugal. It also holds concessions in other countries like Kazakhstan, Algeria and Brazil, the oil and gas resources of the Group at the end of 2005 reached 215 million barrels of oil equivalent, showing a clear increase in relation to 2004
9.
Petroleum
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Petroleum is a naturally occurring, yellow-to-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earths surface, which is commonly refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation and it consists of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other organic compounds. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock, Petroleum has mostly been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis. Petroleum is used in manufacturing a variety of materials. Concern over the depletion of the earths finite reserves of oil, the burning of fossil fuels plays the major role in the current episode of global warming. The word petroleum comes from Greek, πέτρα for rocks and Greek, the term was found in 10th-century Old English sources. It was used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer, Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times, and is now important across society, including in economy, politics and technology. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. By 347 AD, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China, early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. The mythological origins of the oil fields at Yenangyaung, and its hereditary monopoly control by 24 families, Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been explored and used. The still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century, both in Pechelbronn as in Wietze, the coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. In 1848 Young set up a small business refining the crude oil, Young eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, in creating a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. The production of oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated 17 October 1850. In 1850 Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under the title of E. W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian, the worlds first oil refinery was built in 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz. The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America, edwin Drakes 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well
10.
Monopoly
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A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity. The verb monopolise or monopolize refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors, in economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is an entity that has significant market power, that is. Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly, a small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry. A monopoly is distinguished from a monopsony, in there is only one buyer of a product or service. Likewise, a monopoly should be distinguished from a cartel, in which several providers act together to coordinate services, prices or sale of goods. Monopolies, monopsonies and oligopolies are all situations in one or a few entities have market power and therefore interact with their customers. Monopolies can be established by a government, form naturally, or form by integration, in many jurisdictions, competition laws restrict monopolies. A government-granted monopoly or legal monopoly, by contrast, is sanctioned by the state, patents, copyrights, and trademarks are sometimes used as examples of government-granted monopolies. The government may also reserve the venture for itself, thus forming a government monopoly, There are four basic types of market structures in traditional economic analysis, perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly. A monopoly is a structure in which a single supplier produces, if there is a single seller in a certain market and there are no close substitutes for the product, then the market structure is that of a pure monopoly. Sometimes, there are many sellers in an industry and/or there exist many close substitutes for the goods being produced and this is termed monopolistic competition, whereas in oligopoly the companies interact strategically. Most economic textbooks follow the practice of explaining the perfect competition model. The boundaries of what constitutes a market and what does not are relevant distinctions to make in economic analysis, in a general equilibrium context, a good is a specific concept including geographical and time-related characteristics. Most studies of market structure relax a little their definition of a good, price Maker, Decides the price of the good or product to be sold, but does so by determining the quantity in order to demand the price desired by the firm. High Barriers, Other sellers are unable to enter the market of the monopoly, single seller, In a monopoly, there is one seller of the good, who produces all the output. Therefore, the market is being served by a single company, and for practical purposes. Price Discrimination, A monopolist can change the price or quantity of the product and he or she sells higher quantities at a lower price in a very elastic market, and sells lower quantities at a higher price in a less elastic market
11.
Iraq
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The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds, others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, around 95% of the countrys 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws, the area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and it was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires. Iraqs modern borders were mostly demarcated in 1920 by the League of Nations when the Ottoman Empire was divided by the Treaty of Sèvres, Iraq was placed under the authority of the United Kingdom as the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. A monarchy was established in 1921 and the Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932, in 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created. Iraq was controlled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party from 1968 until 2003, after an invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Saddam Husseins Baath Party was removed from power and multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 2005. The American presence in Iraq ended in 2011, but the Iraqi insurgency continued and intensified as fighters from the Syrian Civil War spilled into the country, the Arabic name العراق al-ʿIrāq has been in use since before the 6th century. There are several suggested origins for the name, one dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk and is thus ultimately of Sumerian origin, as Uruk was the Akkadian name for the Sumerian city of Urug, containing the Sumerian word for city, UR. An Arabic folk etymology for the name is rooted, well-watered. During the medieval period, there was a region called ʿIrāq ʿArabī for Lower Mesopotamia and ʿIrāq ʿajamī, for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran. The term historically included the south of the Hamrin Mountains. The term Sawad was also used in early Islamic times for the region of the plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In English, it is either /ɪˈrɑːk/ or /ɪˈræk/, the American Heritage Dictionary, the pronunciation /aɪˈræk/ is frequently heard in U. S. media. Since approximately 10,000 BC, Iraq was one of centres of a Caucasoid Neolithic culture where agriculture, the following Neolithic period is represented by rectangular houses. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations
12.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
13.
Iraq Petroleum Company
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The Iraq Petroleum Company, known prior to 1929 as the Turkish Petroleum Company, is an oil company which, between 1925 and 1961, had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq. Today, it is owned by some of the worlds largest oil companies and is headquartered in London. In June 1972, the Baathist government in Iraq nationalised the IPC, the company Iraq Petroleum Company still remains extant, however, on paper and one associated company – the Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company – also continues with its original shareholding intact. The related Iraq Petroleum Group was an association of companies played a major role in the discovery. The first interest was shown by Imperial German banks and companies, already involved in the building of the Berlin-Baghdad railway, followed by British interests. In 1911, in an attempt to bring together competing British and German interests in the region, in 1912, this company became the Turkish Petroleum Company, formed with the purpose of acquiring concessions from the Ottoman Empire to explore for oil in Mesopotamia. The owners were a group of large European companies – Deutsche Bank, the Anglo Saxon Oil Company, the driving force behind its creation was Gulbenkian, and the largest single shareholder was the British government-controlled Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which by 1914 held 50% of the shares. TPC received a promise of a concession from the Ottoman government, Deutsche Bank brought with it a concession granted to the Anatolian Railway Company to explore for minerals and oil along a 40 km -wide strip either side of its proposed railway in Mesopotamia. On 28 June 1914, the Turkish grand vizier confirmed the promise of a concession to TPC, a rising demand for petroleum during the war had demonstrated to the big powers the importance of having their own sources of oil. Since one of the partners of TPC had been German. This was agreed by the San Remo Oil Agreement, much to the annoyance of the Americans who felt excluded from Middle Eastern oil and demanded an open door. After prolonged and sometimes sharp diplomatic exchanges, U. S. oil companies were permitted to buy into the TPC, the concession required the company to select 24 rectangular plots of 8 square miles each for drilling operations. During the 1925/6 season, a geological party, comprising representatives of the shareholding companies together with an American contingent. Two wells were selected for drilling at Pulkanah and one each at Khashm al Ahmar, Kirkuk was included as the sixth location. The well at Baba Gurgur was located by geologist J. M. Muir just north of Kirkuk, drilling started, and in the early hours of 14 October 1927 oil was struck. Many tons of oil were spilled before the well was brought under control. TPC was to be organized as a company, registered in Britain. The company itself was allowed to refine and sell to Iraqs internal market
14.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
15.
Mesopotamia
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In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The Sumerians and Akkadians dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of history to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman control. In AD226, eastern part of it fell to the Sassanid Persians, division of Mesopotamia between Roman and Sassanid Empires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. The regional toponym Mesopotamia comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος middle and ποταμός river and it is used throughout the Greek Septuagint to translate the Hebrew equivalent Naharaim. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria, the Aramaic term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran. In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation and it is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazirah, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments, Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the Armenian Highlands. Both rivers are fed by tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000 square kilometres region of marshes, lagoons, mud flats, in the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf. In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times, periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and these trends have continued to the present day in Iraq
16.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
17.
Istanbul
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Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople and Byzantium, is the most populous city in Turkey and the countrys economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosphorus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side, the city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, both hosting a population of around 14.7 million residents. Istanbul is one of the worlds most populous cities and ranks as the worlds 7th-largest city proper, founded under the name of Byzantion on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city developed to become one of the most significant in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as a capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine, the Latin. Overlooked for the new capital Ankara during the period, the city has since regained much of its prominence. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in, arts, music, film, and cultural festivals were established at the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network, considered a global city, Istanbul has one of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies in the world. It hosts the headquarters of many Turkish companies and media outlets and accounts for more than a quarter of the gross domestic product. Hoping to capitalize on its revitalization and rapid expansion, Istanbul has bid for the Summer Olympics five times in twenty years, the first known name of the city is Byzantium, the name given to it at its foundation by Megarean colonists around 660 BCE. The name is thought to be derived from a personal name, ancient Greek tradition refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Greek colonists. Modern scholars have hypothesized that the name of Byzas was of local Thracian or Illyrian origin. He also attempted to promote the name Nova Roma and its Greek version Νέα Ῥώμη Nea Romē, the use of Constantinople to refer to the city during the Ottoman period is now considered politically incorrect, even if not historically inaccurate, by Turks. By the 19th century, the city had acquired other names used by foreigners or Turks. Europeans used Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu. The name İstanbul is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν Πόλιν and this reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was reflected by its Ottoman name Der Saadet meaning the gate to Prosperity in Ottoman. An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from the name Constantinople, with the first, a Turkish folk etymology traces the name to Islam bol plenty of Islam because the city was called Islambol or Islambul as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire
18.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis
19.
German Empire
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The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence also helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron, chemicals, and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, however, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, however, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas
20.
Baghdad railway
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Completion of the project took several decades and by the outbreak of World War I, the railway was still 960 km away from its intended objective. The last stretch to Baghdad was built in the late 1930s, if the railway had been completed, the Germans would have gained access to suspected oil fields in Mesopotamia, as well as a connection to the port of Basra on the Persian Gulf. The latter would have provided access to the parts of the German colonial empire, and avoided the Suez Canal. The railway became a source of international disputes during the immediately preceding World War I. Although it has argued that they were resolved in 1914 before the war began. Construction resumed in the 1930s and was completed in 1940, the journey home to Germany would have given German industry direct supply of oil. The Europeans saw great potential to exploit the resources of the empire, irrigation could transform agriculture, there were chrome, antimony, lead and zinc mines. Not least there were potentially vast amounts of oil, during 1901 a German report announced the region had a veritable lake of petroleum of almost inexhaustible supply. In 1872 German railway engineer Wilhelm von Pressel was retained by the Ottoman government to develop plans for railways in Turkey, thus came into existence the Anatolian Railway Company. The two lines were the first two sections of the Baghdad Railway, another railway built at the same time by German engineers was the Hejaz railway, commissioned by Sultan Hamid II. The Ottoman Empire chose to place the line outside the range of the British Navy guns, therefore, the coastal way from Alexandretta to Aleppo was avoided. The line had to cross the Amanus Mountains inland at the cost of engineering including an 8 km tunnel between Ayran station and Fevzipaşa. A Russian plan was rejected for fear of it extending Russian influence in Constantinople, a well-financed British plan collapsed due to the outbreak of the Boer War. A well-financed French proposal titled the Imperial Ottoman Railway enabled them to become financiers of the winning Deutsche Bank plan and this Baghdad Railway Company was controlled by a few German banks. McMurray rejects the theory that the railway tied Turkey to Germany, there was concern in Russia, France, and Britain after 1903 as the implications of the German scheme to construct a great Berlin-Baghdad railway became apparent. A railway that would link Berlin to the Persian Gulf would provide Germany with a connection to its southernmost colonies in Africa, i. e. with German East Africa and German South-West Africa. The railway might eventually have strengthened the Ottoman Empire and its ties to Germany, despite obstructions at the diplomatic level, work slowly began on the railway. Both geographical and political obstacles prevented the completion of the Baghdad Railway before World War I commenced in 1914, much of the construction work was undertaken by Philipp Holzmann
21.
Deutsche Bank
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Deutsche Bank AG is a German global banking and financial services company with its headquarters in the Deutsche Bank Twin Towers in Frankfurt. It has more than 100,000 employees in over 70 countries, and has a presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific. In 2009, Deutsche Bank was the largest foreign exchange dealer in the world with a share of 21 percent. The company was a component of the STOXX Europe 50 stock market index until being replaced on that index on August 8,2016, the bank offers financial products and services for corporate and institutional clients along with private and business clients. Deutsche Bank’s core business is investment banking, which represents 50% of equity, 75% of leverage assets, in January 2014, Deutsche Bank reported a €1.2 billion pre-tax loss for the fourth quarter of 2013. This came after analysts had predicted a profit of nearly €600 million, revenues slipped by 16% versus the prior year. On 7 June 2015, the then co-CEOs, Juergen Fitschen and Anshu Jain, Anshu Jains resignation took effect on 30 June 2015, but he provided consultancy to the bank until January 2016. Juergen Fitschen temporarily continued as joint CEO until 19 May 2016, the appointment of John Cryan as joint CEO was announced, effective 1 July 2016, he became sole CEO at the end of Juergen Fitschens term. In January 2016, Deutsche Bank pre-announced a 2015 loss before income taxes of approximately €6.1 billion, Deutsche Bank was founded in Berlin in 1870 as a specialist bank for foreign trade. The banks statute was adopted on 22 January 1870, and on 10 March 1870 the Prussian government granted it a banking licence, three of the founders were Georg Siemens whose fathers cousin had founded Siemens and Halske, Adelbert Delbrück and L. Bamberger. Its first foray overseas came shortly afterwards, in Shanghai and London followed sometime by South America, major projects in the early years of the bank included the Northern Pacific Railroad in the US and the Baghdad Railway. In Germany, the bank was instrumental in the financing of bond offerings of steel company Krupp, the second half of the 1890s saw the beginning of a new period of expansion at Deutsche Bank. The bank formed alliances with large banks, giving itself an entrée into Germanys main industrial regions. Joint ventures were symptomatic of the then under way in the German banking industry. In addition, the bank rapidly perceived the value of specialist institutions for the promotion of foreign business, the immediate postwar period was a time of liquidations. Having already lost most of its assets, Deutsche Bank was obliged to sell other holdings. A great deal of energy went into shoring up what had been achieved, but there was new business, too, some of which was to have an impact for a long time to come. The bank played a significant role in the establishment of the production company, UFA
22.
National Bank of Turkey
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The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, CBRT is the central bank of Turkey and is founded as a joint stock company on 11 June 1930. Shares of the CBRT are divided into four classes, Class A shares belong solely to the Turkish Treasury. Class B and Class C shares are allocated to national banks operating in Turkey, banks other than national banks, finally, Class D shares are allocated to Turkish commercial institutions and to real and legal persons of Turkish nationality. The CBRT determines, at its own discretion, the policy to pursue. This implies that the CBRT enjoys instrument independence, in order to attain its objective of price stability, the CBRT has implemented a full-fledged inflation targeting regime since 2006. The preparations to establish a bank of Turkey began in 1926. The Bank had, originally, a privilege of issuing banknotes for a period of 30 years, in 1955, this privilege was extended until 1999. Finally it was prolonged indefinitely in 1994, in this organizational structure that prevailed until the second half of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire minted gold coins on behalf of the Sultan. The Ottoman Empire put cash banknotes into circulation in 1840, as a result, the “Ottoman Bank ”, headquartered in London, was established with English capital in 1856. The fundamental powers of the Bank were limited to lending in small amounts, making payments to the Government. In 1863, the Ottoman Bank was dissolved and restructured as an English-French partnership under the name “Bank-ı Osmanî-i Şahane ”, the Imperial Ottoman Bank was granted the sole privilege of issuing banknotes for a period of thirty years. The capital of the Imperial Ottoman Bank retained by other nations triggered reactions in time, efforts towards establishing a central bank with domestic capital culminated in the establishment of the “Ottoman National Credit Bank ” on 11 March 1917. However, the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War prevented the bank from becoming a national bank and this issue was first addressed in the 1923 Izmir Economic Congress with a special emphasis on founding a “national state bank”. In 1927, the Minister of Finance Abdülhalik Renda submitted a bill on the establishment of a central bank. Following the enactment of the law, Turkey exchanged views with the banks of other countries’ in establishing the Turkish Central Bank. In 1928, having been invited to Turkey, Dr. G. Leon Morf from the University of Lausanne, following the centralization of duties carried out by various institutions and organizations, the Central Bank started to function on 3 October 1931. The shares of the Bank, which acquired legal status as a joint stock company, - to manifest that ‘it is not a public entity’, and that ‘it is independent’, were divided into, and classes. 1715, the objective of the Central Bank was to support the economic development of the country
23.
Armenians
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Armenians are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highlands. Armenians constitute the population of Armenia and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There is a diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide, most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the worlds oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew, in the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, historically, the name Armenian has come to internationally designate this group of people. It was first used by neighbouring countries of ancient Armenia, the earliest attestations of the exonym Armenia date around the 6th century BC. In his trilingual Behistun Inscription dated to 517 BC, Darius I the Great of Persia refers to Urashtu as Armina (in Old Persian, Armina and Harminuya. In Greek, Αρμένιοι Armenians is attested from about the same time, xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BC. He relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians and it is also further postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. Movses Khorenatsi, the important early medieval Armenian historian, wrote that the word Armenian originated from the name Armenak or Aram, the Armenian Highland lies in the highlands surrounding Mount Ararat, the highest peak of the region. In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Hittite Empire, Mitanni, soon after Hayasa-Azzi were Arme-Shupria, the Nairi and the Kingdom of Urartu, who successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highland. Each of the nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. Under Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire reached the Caucasus Mountains, yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia, was founded in 782 BC by king Argishti I. T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov proposed the Indo-European homeland around the Armenian Highland, eric P. Hamp in his 2012 Indo-European family tree, groups the Armenian language along with Greek and Ancient Macedonian in the Pontic Indo-European subgroup. In Hamps view the homeland of this subgroup is the northeast coast of the Black Sea and he assumes that they migrated from there southeast through the Caucasus with the Armenians remaining after Batumi while the pre-Greeks proceeded westwards along the southern coast of the Black Sea. However, fresh genetics studies explain Armenian diversity by several mixtures of Eurasian populations that occurred between ~3,000 and ~2,000 b. c
24.
Calouste Gulbenkian
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Calouste Gulbenkian was a British businessman and philanthropist of Armenian origin. He played a role in making the petroleum reserves of the Middle East available to Western development and is credited with being the first person to exploit Iraqi oil. Gulbenkian travelled extensively and lived in a number of cities including Constantinople, London, Paris, throughout his life, Gulbenkian was involved with many philanthropic activities including the establishment of schools, hospitals, and churches. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, a foundation based in Portugal, was started at his bequest in 1956 and continues to promote arts, charity, education. It is now among the largest foundations in Europe, by the end of his life he had become one of the worlds wealthiest individuals and his art acquisitions one of the greatest private collections. Gulbenkians family is believed to be descendants of the Rshtunis, an Armenian noble family centered around Lake Van in the 4th century AD, in the 11th century, the Rshtunis settled in Kayseri, taking the name Vart Badrik, a Byzantine noble title. With the arrival of the Ottoman Turks, the Turkish equivalent of the name, the family had established themselves in the town of Talas and lived in the region until the mid-1800s, when they ultimately moved to Constantinople. Their property in Talas was ultimately confiscated and is owned by the Turkish government. By 1860, his father Sarkis Gulbenkian was an Armenian oil importer/exporter already heavily involved in the oil industry, Sarkis was an owner of several oil fields in the Caucasus, mainly in Baku, and was a representative of Alexander Mantashevs oil company. Sarkis Gulbenkian also provided oil to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Calouste Gulbenkian was born on 23 March 1869 in Scutari, in the Ottoman Empire capital Constantinople. He received his education at Aramyan-Uncuyan, a local Armenian school. He then attended the Lycée Saint-Joseph French school and continued his studies at Robert College and these studies were cut short when he moved to Marseilles at the age of 15 to perfect his French at a high school there. His father sent him to be educated at Kings College London, where he studied petroleum engineering and he graduated in 1887 at the age of 18 with a first class degree in engineering and applied sciences. A year later, he went to Baku to further his knowledge on the oil industry, the article described his travels to Baku and the state of the oil industry in the region. It was eventually published as a book in 1891 in Paris, after Hagop Pashas appointment as the Ottoman Minister of Finance in 1887, he had Calouste prepare an oil survey of Mesopotamia. To develop the oil survey, Calouste merely read travel books, by 1895, he started his oil operation business. He had to return to the Ottoman Empire, but in 1896, Gulbenkian and they ended up in Egypt, where Gulbenkian met Alexander Mantashev, a prominent Armenian oil magnate and philanthropist. Mantashev introduced Gulbenkian to influential contacts in Cairo and these new acquaintances included Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer
25.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
26.
San Remo conference
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The San Remo conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council, held at Villa Devachan in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. It was attended by the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I who were represented by the ministers of Britain, France and Italy. Resolutions passed at this conference determined the allocation of Class A League of Nations mandates for the administration of former Ottoman territories in the Middle East. The precise boundaries of all territories were left unspecified, to be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, the conference decisions were embodied in the Treaty of Sèvres. As Turkey rejected this treaty, the decisions with regard to the Palestine mandate were finally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922. In July 1919 the parliament of Greater Syria had refused to acknowledge any right claimed by the French Government to any part of Syrian territory. On 30 September 1918 supporters of the Arab Revolt in Damascus declared a government loyal to Sharif Hussein, a Pan-Syrian Congress, meeting in Damascus, had declared an independent state of Syria on 8 March 1920. Faisal was declared the head of state, at the same time Prince Zeid, Faisals brother, was declared regent of Mesopotamia. The San Remo conference was hastily convened and it was attended by the prime ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy, and representatives of Japan, Greece, and Belgium. Great Britain and France agreed to recognize the independence of Syria and Mesopotamia. Palestine was composed of the Ottoman administrative districts of southern Syria, under international law, premature recognition of its independence would be a gross affront to the government of the newly declared parent state. It could have been construed as a belligerent act of intervention without any League of Nations sanction, for France, the San Remo decision meant that most of its claims in Syria were internationally recognized and relations with Faisal were now subject to French military and economic considerations. The ability of Great Britain to limit French action was significantly diminished. France issued an ultimatum and intervened militarily at the Battle of Maysalun in June 1920, deposing the Arab government, in 1920, Great Britain appointed Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel as high commissioner and established a mandatory government in Palestine that remained in power until 1948. Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, which contained the rules to be applied to all Mandated Territories, was written two months before the signing of the Versaille Peace Treaty. It was not known at time to which territories paragraphs 4,5 and 6 would relate. Those 10 territorial areas were administered under 15 mandates. The decisions of the San Remo conference confirmed the mandate allocations of the First Conference of London, the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917
27.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
28.
Arabs
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Arabs are an ethnic group inhabiting the Arab world. They primarily live in the Arab states in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Arabs are first mentioned in the mid-ninth century BCE as a tribal people dwelling in the central Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, tradition holds that Arabs descend from Ishmael, the son of Abraham. The Arabian Desert is the birthplace of Arab, there are other Arab groups as well that spread in the land and existed for millennia. Before the expansion of the Caliphate, Arab referred to any of the largely nomadic Semitic people from the northern to the central Arabian Peninsula and Syrian Desert. Presently, Arab refers to a number of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to spread of Arabs throughout the region during the early Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. The Arabs forged the Rashidun, Umayyad and the Abbasid caliphates, whose borders reached southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and this was one of the largest land empires in history. The Great Arab Revolt has had as big an impact on the modern Middle East as the World War I, the war signaled the end of the Ottoman Empire. They are modern states and became significant as distinct political entities after the fall and defeat, following adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the sovereignty of its member states. Beyond the boundaries of the League of Arab States, Arabs can also be found in the global diaspora, the ties that bind Arabs are ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historical, identical, nationalist, geographical and political. The Arabs have their own customs, language, architecture, art, literature, music, dance, media, cuisine, dress, society, sports, the total number of Arabs are an estimated 450 million. This makes them the second largest ethnic group after the Han Chinese. Arabs are a group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. In the pre-Islamic era, most Arabs followed polytheistic religions, some tribes had adopted Christianity or Judaism, and a few individuals, the hanifs, apparently observed monotheism. Today, Arabs are mainly adherents of Islam, with sizable Christian minorities, Arab Muslims primarily belong to the Sunni, Shiite, Ibadi, Alawite, Druze and Ismaili denominations. Arab Christians generally follow one of the Eastern Christian Churches, such as the Maronite, Coptic Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, or Chaldean churches. Listed among the booty captured by the army of king Shalmaneser III of Assyria in the Battle of Qarqar are 1000 camels of Gi-in-di-buu the ar-ba-a-a or Gindibu belonging to the Arab
29.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
30.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
31.
Baba Gurgur
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Baba Gurgur is a large oil field and gas flame near the city of Kirkuk which was the first to be discovered in Northern Iraq in 1927. The field is 40 meters in diameter and has been burning for 2,500 years and it was considered the largest oil field in the world until the discovery of the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia in 1948. Baba Gurgur is 16 kilometres north-west of Arrapha and is famous for its Eternal Fire at the middle of its oil fields, the name Baba Gurgur derives from Turkmen Baba and Gur. The name is translated form Kurdish into Father of Eternal Fiery and it has a significant symbolic value for residents of Kirkuk. This ancient practice probably goes back to the time of worshipping or other belief systems which put earthly elements such as fire. The burning flames are the result of an emission of natural gas through cracks in the Baba Gurgur areas rocks and it is believed that the heat of the eternal flames was used by shepherds to warm their flocks during winter. In 1927, an oil well was spudded at Baba Gurgur by the Turkish Petroleum Company, at 3 a. m. on October 15,1927, oil was struck and a great fountain spurted over the crown of the derrick to a height of 42 metres. It soon became clear the company had an environmental crisis on its hands. The oil well was situated in a known as Wadi Naft that carried water off the low foothills. The spraying oil also threatened the local inhabitants, whose adjacent properties stood in danger of being destroyed, Kirkuk, and the surrounding villages, were in danger of being drowned in a deluge of oil. Being unable to stop the flow immediately, the problem for the Company was how to contain it, eventually it was decided to commence building dams in the wadi at distances of about 1.5 kilometres apart. A piece of low ground was selected about 24 kilometres away from the well and it was estimated that 2,000 men would be required for the dams construction. Men from the Kurdish Jubur tribe along the Zab river, a few lucky men rode in vehicles, but most walked, in some cases distances up to 60 kilometres. A blue mist formed at night in the hollows of the low hills caused by gas pockets, one night the poisonous effects of gas collecting in a depression killed two drillers and three Iraqi workers. The risk of fire was ever-present as for hundreds of metres around everything was smothered in oil, men were working in gas masks almost naked in an endeavour to get near enough to set up some control appliances. The oil fell evenly in all around the derrick and draw-works due to the windless autumn days. Eventually, the cloud of oil was blown away from one side of the derrick to allow work to start on the head by using an aero engine. It took ten days from the first eruption to close the control valve, initial flow rate was variously estimated at from 35,000 to 95,000 barrels of oil per day
32.
Kirkuk
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Kirkuk is an Iraqi city in northern Iraq,236 kilometres north of Baghdad and 83 kilometres south of Erbil. It is the capital of Kirkuk Governorate, Kirkuk lies in a wide zone with an enormously diverse population and has been multilingual for centuries. There were dramatic changes during Kirkuks urbanization in the twentieth century. Kurds, Turkmen, Arabs and Assyrians lay conflicting claims to this zone, the city sits on the ruins of the original Kirkuk Citadel, site of the ancient mid 3rd millennium BC, Assyrian city of Arrapha, and which sits near the Khasa River. The city is mentioned during the Sumero-Akkadian period of Assyria in cuneiform script from about 2400 BC, the region became a part of the Akkadian empire which united all of the Akkadian and Sumerian speaking Mesopotamians under one rule. Arrapha remained an important Assyrian city until the fall of the Assyrian empire between 615-599 BC, the Arab Islamic conquest of the 7th century AD saw the dissolution of Assyria as a geo-political entity. Kurds and Turkmens have claimed the city as a cultural capital and it was named the capital of Iraqi culture by the Iraqi ministry of culture in 2010. The city currently consists mainly of people who self-identify as Kurds, Arabs, with changes in population after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the US invasion, and the advent of Daesh The ancient name of Kirkuk was the Assyrian Arrapha. During the Parthian era, a Korkura/Corcura is mentioned by Ptolemy, since the Seleucid Empire it was known as Karkha D-Bet Slokh, which means Citadel of the House of Seleucid in Mesopotamian Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent in that era. The region around Kirkuk was known historically in the Eastern Aramaic and it was one of a number of independent Neo-Assyrian states which flourished during the Parthian empire. Kirkuk itself was the Assyrian Karkha DBeth Slokh, the centre of Beth Garmai. It is also thought that region was known during the Parthian and Sassanid periods as Garmakan, which means the Land of Warmth or the Hot Land. In Persian Garm means warm, During the Seleucid period, the city was renamed after king Seleucus, Karkha d Beth Slokh, after the 7th century, Muslim writers used the name Kirkheni to refer to the city. Others used other variant, such as Bajermi (a corruption of Aramaic Bth Garmayeh or Jermakan, a cuneiform script found in 1927 at the foot of Kirkuk Citadel stated that the city of Erekha of Babylonia was on the site of Kirkuk. Other sources consider Erekha to have simply one part of the larger Arrapha metropolis. It is suggested that Kirkuk was one of the occupied by Neanderthals based on archeological findings in the Shanidar Cave settlement. A large amount of pottery dating to the Ubaid period were also excavated from several Tells in the city. Ancient Arrapkha was a part of Sargon of Akkads Akkadian Empire, later the city was occupied around 2150 BC by language Isolate speaking Zagros Mountains dwellers who were known as the Gutian people by the Semitic and Sumerian of Mesopotamians
33.
Consortium
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Consortium is a Latin word, meaning partnership, association or society and derives from consors partner, itself from con- together and sors fate, meaning owner of means or comrade. The Big Ten Academic Alliance and Five Colleges, Inc. along with the Claremont Consortium are among the oldest and most successful higher education consortia in the United States. The Big Ten Academic Alliance, formerly known as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the participants in Five Colleges, Inc. are, Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Another example of a successful consortium is the Five Colleges of Ohio of Ohio, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Kenyon College, College of Wooster and Denison University. These consortia have pooled the resources of their colleges and the universities to share human and material assets as well as to link academic. An example of a non-profit consortium is the Appalachian College Association located in Richmond, the association consists of 35 private liberal arts colleges and universities spread across the central Appalachian mountains in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Collectively these higher education institutions serve approximately 42,500 students, six research universities in the region are affiliated with the ACA. These institutions assist the ACA in reviewing grant and fellowship applications, conducting workshops, the ACA works to serve higher education in the rural regions of these five states. An example of a for-profit consortium is a group of banks that collaborate to make a loan—also known as a syndicate and this type of loan is more commonly known as a syndicated loan. In England it is common for a consortium to buy out financially struggling football clubs in order to them out of liquidation. Hulu, the American video streaming service, is owned by a consortium of media conglomerates including Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, Comcast. Airbus Industries was formed in 1970 as a consortium of aerospace manufacturers, the retention of production and engineering assets by the partner companies in effect made Airbus Industries a sales and marketing company. This arrangement led to inefficiencies due to the inherent conflicts of interest that the four partner companies faced, the companies collaborated on development of the Airbus range, but guarded the financial details of their own production activities and sought to maximize the transfer prices of their sub-assemblies. In 2001, EADS and BAE Systems transferred their Airbus production assets to a new company, in return, they got 80% and 20% shares respectively. BAE would later sell its share to EADS, coopetition is a word coined from cooperation and competition. It is used when companies otherwise competitors collaborate in a consortium to cooperate on areas non-strategic for their core businesses and they prefer to reduce their costs on these non-strategic areas and compete on other areas where they can differentiate better. For example, the GENIVI Alliance is a consortium between different car makers in order to ease building an in-vehicle infotainment system. Another example is the World Wide Web Consortium, which is a consortium that standardizes web technologies like HTML, XML, joint venture This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles, ed. passim
34.
Exxon
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Exxon /ˈɛksɒn/ was the brand name of oil and natural resources company Exxon Corporation, prior to 1972 known as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. In 1999, Exxon Corporation merged with Mobil to form ExxonMobil, the Exxon brand is still used by ExxonMobils downstream operations as a brand for certain of its gas stations, motor fuel and related products. Standard Oil Company of New Jersey was one of the Seven Sisters that dominated the petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. Exxon replaced the Esso, Enco, and Humble brands in the United States on January 1,1973. As a result, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey was restricted from using Esso in the U. S. except in those states awarded to it in the 1911 Standard Oil antitrust settlement. In states where it was restricted from using the Esso name, the Humble brand was used at Texas stations for decades, as those operations were under the direction of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey affiliate Humble Oil & Refining Company. In the middle to late 1950s, use of the Humble brand spread to other states, including Arizona, New Mexico. Enco was created as an acronym for the phrase Energy Company, Humble introduced the Enco brand in 1960 in Oklahoma and surrounding states, to replace Humbles subsidiary Oklahoma and Pate brands. Humble also tried marketing under Enco in Ohio, but Standard Oil Company of Ohio protested that the Enco name, consequently, stations in Ohio were rebranded as Humble, and remained so until the Exxon brand came into use. After the Enco brand was discontinued in Ohio, it was moved to other non-Esso states, in 1961, Humble stations in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas were rebranded to Enco. That same year, Enco appeared on former Carter stations in the Midwest, in 1963, Humble Oil and Tidewater Oil Company began negotiating a sale of Tidewaters West Coast refining and marketing operations. The sale would have given Humble Oil a large number of existing Flying A stations and distributorships, as well as a refinery in California, however, the Justice Department objected to the sale on anti-trust grounds. Humble Oil continued to expand its West Coast operations, adding California to its territory, building a large number of new Enco stations. In 1967, Humble Oil purchased all remaining Signal stations from Standard Oil Company of California and rebranded them as Enco outlets, finally, in 1969, Humble Oil opened a new refinery in Benicia, California. By 1967, Humble Oils Esso stations in the Southeast were rebranded to Enco, in the 1960s and early 1970s, Humble Oil continued to have difficulties promoting itself as a nationwide marketer of petroleum products, despite a number of high-profile marketing strategies. These included the popular Put a Tiger in Your Tank advertising campaign and accompanying tiger mascot, introduced in 1959, to promote Enco Extra and Esso Extra gasolines. Humble Oil also used similar logotypes, use of the Humble name in all Enco and Esso advertising, in addition, Humble Oil was a major promoter and broadcast sponsor for college football in the Pacific-8 and Southwestern conferences. But Humble Oil still faced competition from such national brands such as Shell and Texaco
35.
Mobil
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Mobil, previously known as the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, is a major American oil company which merged with Exxon in 1999 to form a parent company called ExxonMobil. It was previously one of the Seven Sisters which dominated the petroleum industry from the mid-1940s until the 1970s. Today, Mobil continues as a brand name within the combined company. Following the break-up of Standard Oil in 1911, the Standard Oil Company of New York, or Socony, was founded, in 1920, the company registered the name Mobiloil as a trademark. Henry Clay Folger was head of the company until 1923, when he was succeeded by Herbert L. Pratt, Socony continued to sponsor the show when it moved to CBS in 1934. In 1935, it became the Socony Sketchbook, with Christopher Morley, in 1931, Socony merged with Vacuum Oil to form Socony-Vacuum. In 1933, Socony-Vacuum and Jersey Standard merged their interests in the Far East into a 50–50 joint venture, standard-Vacuum Oil Co. or Stanvac, operated in 50 countries, including New Zealand, China, and the region of East Africa, before it was dissolved in 1962. In 1963, it changed its name from Mobilgas to simply Mobil. To celebrate its 100th anniversary in 1966, Socony was dropped from the corporate name, the Economy Run originated with the Gilmore Oil Company of California in 1936 and later became the Mobilgas Economy Run, and still later the Mobil Economy Run. The cars driven in the run were fueled with Mobil gasoline. The vehicles in class that achieved the highest fuel economy numbers were awarded the coveted title as the Mobilgas Economy Run winner. During American involvement in World War II, April 29,1942, Soconys unescorted tanker, named Mobiloil, was sunk by a German U-boat, socony-Mobil ranked 86th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. Through the years, Mobil was among the largest sellers of gasoline and motor oils in the United States and even held the top spot during the 1940s and much of the 1950s. In 1954, Mobil introduced a new and improved Mobilgas Special in response to trends toward new automobiles powered by engines that demanded higher and higher octane gasolines. Later Mobil campaigns advertised Mobilgas as the New Car Gasoline following extensive testing during the annual Mobilgas Economy Run, during the early 1970s, Mobil ran a TV commercial featuring a character known as Mr. At the end of the 1980s Mobil sold its stations in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to Norsk Hydro. William P. Tavoulareas was President of Mobil Corporation until succeeded by Allen E. Murray in 1984, Mobil moved its headquarters from 150 East 42nd Street, New York City to Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1987. In 1998, Mobil and Exxon agreed on a merger to create ExxonMobil, lou Noto was Chairman of Mobil at the time of the merger, and Walter Arnheim was treasurer
36.
Gulf Oil
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Gulf Oil was a major global oil company from the 1900s to the 1980s. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, prior to its merger with Standard Oil of California, Gulf was one of the chief instruments of the Mellon family fortune, both Gulf and Mellon Financial had their headquarters in Pittsburgh. Gulfs former headquarters, originally referred to as the Gulf Building, is an art-deco skyscraper, the tallest building in Pittsburgh until 1970, when it was eclipsed by the U. S. Steel Tower, it is capped by a step pyramid structure several stories high. Until the late 1970s, the top was illuminated, changing color with changes in barometric pressure to provide a weather indicator that could be seen for many miles. Gulf Oil Corporation ceased to exist as an independent company in 1985, Gulf Canada, Gulfs main Canadian subsidiary, was sold the same year with retail outlets to Ultramar and Petro Canada and what became Gulf Canada Resources to Olympia & York. However, the Gulf brand name and a number of the constituent business divisions of GOC survived, Gulf has experienced a significant revival since 1990, emerging as a flexible network of allied business interests based on partnerships, franchises and agencies. Gulf, in its present incarnation, is a new economy business and it employs very few people directly and its assets are mainly in the form of intellectual property, brands, product specifications and scientific expertise. The corporate vehicle at the center of the Gulf network outside the United States, Spain and Portugal is Gulf Oil International, a company owned by the Hinduja Group. The companys focus is primarily in the provision of products and services to a mass market through joint ventures, strategic alliances, licensing agreements. Gulf Oil International has its office in the City of Westminster. The business that became Gulf Oil started in 1901 with the discovery of oil at Spindletop near Beaumont, a group of investors came together to promote the development of a modern refinery at nearby Port Arthur to process the oil. The largest investor was William Larimer Mellon of the Pittsburgh Mellon banking family, other investors included many of Mellons Pennsylvania clients as well as some Texas wildcatters. Mellon Bank and Gulf Oil remained closely associated thereafter, the Gulf Oil Corporation itself was formed in 1907 through the amalgamation of a number of oil businesses, principally the J. M. Guffey Petroleum and Gulf Refining companies of Texas. The name of the company refers to the Gulf of Mexico where Beaumont lies, output from Spindletop peaked at around 100,000 barrels per day just after it was discovered and then started to decline. This was achieved by constructing the 400-mile Glenn Pool pipeline connecting oilfields in Oklahoma with Gulfs refinery at Port Arthur, the pipeline opened in September 1907. Gulf later built a network of pipelines and refineries in the eastern and southern United States, thus, Gulf Oil provided Mellon Bank with a secure vehicle for investing in the oil sector. Gulf promoted the concept of branded product sales by selling gasoline in containers, a customer buying Gulf-branded gasoline could be assured of its quality and consistent standard. Gulf Oil grew steadily in the years, with its activities mainly confined to the United States
37.
Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company
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The Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company was an oil company founded in 1916 by the American oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny after he had made a huge oil strike in Mexico. Pan American profited from fuel demand during World War I, for several years Pan American was the largest American oil company, with holdings in the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. In 1924 Pan American was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal over irregularities in the award of a U. S. government oil concession, Standard Oil of Indiana obtained a majority stake in 1925. The company sold its properties to Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1932. What was left of Pan American was merged with Standard Oil of Indiana in 1954 to form Amoco, Edward L. Doheny was a prospector who became wealthy in the 1880s from silver mines in the Black Range of New Mexico. In 1892 he moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he sank a mine and found oil at the corner of Patton Street and this began an oil boom in Los Angeles. Doheny overextended himself and his company went bankrupt in August 1896, the setback was temporary, and a long-term contract with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway gave him the opportunity to develop and expand a growing number of oil properties. Doheny found heavy oil in El Ebano in 1901, which he exported to the United States for use in paving and he formed the Mexican Petroleum Company and funded it with $6 million of his own money. In 1905 he bought properties near Tuxpan, Veracruz, and formed the Huasteca Petroleum company to hold them, in 1910 his wells in the Juan Casiano Basin in the Faja de Oro field started to produce good quality oil. The gusher at Casiano number 7 spewed out 60,000 barrels a day, in 1911 Doheny signed a contract to supply Standard Oil. Dohenys Mexican Petroleum Company made a strike in February 1916 with the Cerro Azul No.4 well in Cerro Azul, Veracruz. When the well struck it shot a stream of oil 598 feet into the air and it became worlds largest, pumping 260,000 barrels per day. Over the next fourteen years the well produced over 57 million barrels, the Mexican Petroleum Company eventually acquired ownership or leasehold rights to 1,500,000 acres of land. World War I drove up demand for oil-fueled transport, and Doheny responded by expanding pumps, tanks, by July 1917 Pan American had a fleet of 31 tankers. The company paid $1.1 million in dividends in 1917,1918 revenues were $17 million and net profits were almost $7 million. In 1918 the Carib Syndicate, a concern owned by Americans and they sold 75% of their interest to the Colombian Petroleum Company the next year, a subsidiary of Pan American. Doheny was also interested in plans to develop the oil industry in Venezuela, in 1921 Pan American was the largest oil company in the United States, ahead of Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation and the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. Automobile production was booming and oil prices were high, the Mexican Petroleum Company was the largest in Mexico, and Mexico was the largest oil producer in the world
38.
ARCO
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Atlantic Richfield Company is an American oil company with operations in the United States, Indonesia, the North Sea, and the South China Sea. It has more than 1,300 gas stations in the part of the United States. ARCO was formed by the merger of East Coast–based Atlantic Refining, a merger in 1969 brought in Sinclair Oil Corporation. It became a subsidiary of UK-based BP plc in 2000 through its BP West Coast Products LLC affiliate, on August 13,2012, it was announced that Tesoro would purchase ARCO and its refinery for $2.5 billion. However, the deal came under fire due to increasing fuel prices, many activists urged state and federal regulators to block the sale due to concerns that it would reduce competition and could lead to higher fuel prices at ARCO stations. On June 3,2013, BP sold ARCO and the Carson Refinery to Tesoro for $2.5 billion, BP sold its Southern California terminals to Tesoro Logistics LP, including the Carson Storage Facility. BP will continue to own the brand and sell it to Tesoro for Southern California, Arizona. BP exclusively licensed the ARCO rights from Tesoro for Northern California, Oregon, ARCO is known for its low-priced gasoline compared to other national brands, mainly due to an early 1980s decision to emphasize cost cutting and alternative sources of income. ARCO is headquartered in La Palma, California, the Atlantic Petroleum Storage Companys heritage dates back to 1866. It became part of the Standard Oil trust in 1874, in 1915, Atlantic opens its first gas station on Baum Boulevard in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1917, First Richfield Oil Company of California gas station at Slauson and Central Avenues in Los Angeles, Richfield Oil Company of California logo is an Eagle trademark. The Atlantic Refining Company was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1921, Sinclair Oil Company opens first modern service station in Chicago called Greasing Palace No.1. Sinclair gets into trouble with Teapot Dome scandal, in 1966, Atlantic merges with the Richfield Oil Company of California. The first CEO was Robert Orville Anderson, the new company boasts a new trademark, a red diamond shape called the ARCO Spark designed by Bauhaus artist, designer, and architect Herbert Bayer. Key employees with ARCO Alaska were Marvin Mangus John M. Sweet, the Richfield Oil Company of California had purchased the drilling rights to the land where the discovery well was located. British Petroleum had drilling rights near the discovery well, ARCO acquired Sinclair Oil Corporation in 1969, but later divested certain Sinclair assets during the mid-1970s, resulting in Sinclair returning as a private company. In 1978, ARCO opened the first of its AMPM convenience stores in Southern California. ARCO once had a presence in the Southwestern U. S. —a stretch of Texas State Highway 225 east of Loop 610 in Houston, lyondell-Citgo would rebrand the oil tanks in the 1980s
39.
Saudi Aramco
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Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, most popularly known just as Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian national petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. Saudi Aramcos value has been estimated at anywhere between US$1.25 trillion and US$10 trillion, making it the worlds most valuable company, Saudi Aramco has both the worlds largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production. Saudi Aramco owns, operates and develops all energy resources based in Saudi Arabia, according to a 2015 Forbes report, Aramco is said to be the worlds largest oil and gas company. Headquartered in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco operates the worlds largest single hydrocarbon network, the Master Gas System. Its 2013 crude oil production total was 3.4 billion barrels, Saudi Aramco operates the Ghawar Field, the worlds largest onshore oil field, and the Safaniya Field, the worlds largest offshore oil field. Saudi Aramcos origins trace to the oil shortages of World War I, the US Republican administration had popular support for an Open Door policy, which Herbert Hoover, secretary of commerce, initiated in 1921. Standard Oil of California was among those US companies seeking new sources of oil from abroad, through its subsidiary company, the Bahrain Petroleum Co. SoCal struck oil in Bahrain in May 1932 and this event heightened interest in the oil prospects of the Arabian mainland. On 29 May 1933, the Saudi Arabian government granted a concession to SoCal in preference to a bid from the Iraq Petroleum Co. The concession allowed SoCal to explore for oil in Saudi Arabia, SoCal assigned this concession to a wholly owned subsidiary, California-Arabian Standard Oil. In 1936, with the company having had no success at locating oil, after four years of fruitless exploration, the first success came with the seventh drill site in Dhahran in 1938, a well referred to as Dammam No.7. This well immediately produced over 1,500 barrels per day, on 31 January 1944, the company name was changed from California-Arabian Standard Oil Co. to Arabian American Oil Co. In 1948, Standard Oil of New Jersey purchased 30% and Socony Vacuum purchased 10% of the company, with SoCal and Texaco retaining 30% each. The newcomers were also shareholders in the Iraq Petroleum Co. and had to get the restrictions of the Red Line Agreement lifted in order to be free to enter into this arrangement. In 1950, King Abdulaziz threatened to nationalize his countrys oil facilities, a similar process had taken place with American oil companies in Venezuela a few years earlier. The American government granted US Aramco member companies a tax known as the golden gimmick equivalent to the profits given to King Abdulaziz. In the wake of the new arrangement, the headquarters were moved from New York to Dhahran. In 1951, the company discovered the Safaniya Oil Field, the worlds largest offshore field, in 1957, the discovery of smaller connected oil fields confirmed the Ghawar Field as the worlds largest onshore field
40.
Chevron Corporation
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Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. One of the companies of Standard Oil, it is headquartered in San Ramon, California. It was also one of the Seven Sisters that dominated the petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. Chevrons downstream operations manufacture and sell products such as fuels, lubricants, additives, the companys most significant areas of operations are the west coast of North America, the U. S. Gulf Coast, Southeast Asia, South Korea, Australia and South Africa. In 2010, Chevron sold an average 3.1 million barrels per day of refined products like gasoline, diesel, Chevrons alternative energy operations include geothermal, solar, wind power, biofuel, fuel cells, and hydrogen. In 2011–2013, the company planned to spend at least $2 billion on research, Chevron has claimed to be the worlds largest producer of geothermal energy. In October 2011, Chevron launched a 29-MW thermal solar-to-steam facility in the Coalinga Field to produce the steam for enhanced oil recovery, the project is the largest of its kind in the world. Chevron is also one of the first two brands to be Top Tier certified. The other is Tulsa, Oklahoma based QuikTrip, one of Chevrons early predecessors, Star Oil, discovered oil at the Pico Canyon Oilfield in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Los Angeles in 1876. The 25 barrels of oil per day well marked the discovery of the Newhall Field, in September 1879, Charles N. Felton, Lloyd Tevis, George Loomis and others created the Pacific Coast Oil Company, which acquired the assets of Star Oil with $1 million in funding. Pacific Coast Oil became the largest oil interest in California, by time it was acquired by Standard Oil for $761,000 in 1900. Pacific Coast operated independently and retained its name until 1906, when it was merged with a Standard Oil subsidiary, another predecessor, Texas Fuel Company, was founded in 1901 in Beaumont, Texas as an oil equipment vendor by Buckskin Joe. The founders nickname came from being harsh and aggressive, Texas Fuel worked closely with Chevron. In 1936 it formed a joint venture with California Standard named Caltex, to drill, the Texas Fuel Company was renamed the Texas Company, and later renamed Texaco. In 1911, the government broke Standard Oil into several pieces under the Sherman Antitrust Act. One of those pieces, Standard Oil Co. went on to become Chevron and it became part of the Seven Sisters, which dominated the world oil industry in the early 20th century. In 1926, the changed its name to Standard Oil Co. of California. Today Chevron is the owner of the Standard Oil trademark in 16 states in the western and southeastern U. S, to maintain ownership of the mark, the company owns and operates one Standard-branded Chevron station in each state of the area
41.
Bahrain Petroleum Company
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The Bahrain Petroleum Company is an integrated national oil company of Bahrain. The BAPCO was established in 1929 in Canada by Standard Oil Company of California for oil exploration activities in Bahrain and it took over Bahrains assets of Gulf Oil. In 1930 it obtained the oil concession in Bahrain. On 31 May 1932, the company discovered the Awali oil field, in 1936 the Standard Oil Company of California signed an agreement with Texaco, which acquired a half of BAPCOs shares. In 1975 more than 60% BAPCOs shares was acquired by the Government of Bahrain, in 1980, all BAPCOs shares were taken over by the Government of Bahrain. In 1999 the current Bahrain Petroleum Company was created when the Bahrain National Oil Company, established in 1976, BAPCO is an integrated oil company operating in the field of exploration, drilling, production, refining, and marketing. It operates a 260, 000-barrel-per-day oil refinery which lies midway between the original BAPCO expat workers accommodation township of Awali and Sitra, the complex also includes storage facilities for 14 million barrels, a marketing terminal, and a marine terminal. About one-sixth of this crude originates from Bahrain Field, with the remainder being pumped from Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco supplies approximately 235,000 barrels per day through the 62-kilometre Abqaiq–Dhahran Pipelines System
42.
Vacuum Oil Company
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Vacuum Oil Company was an American oil company known for their Gargoyle 600-W Steam Cylinder Oil. Vacuum Oil merged with Standard Oil Co of New York, commonly known as Socony Oil to form Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, Vacuum Oil was founded in 1866 by Matthew Ewing and Hiram Bond Everest, of Rochester, New York. The lubrication oil was an accidental discovery while attempting to distill kerosene, Everest noted the residue from the extraction was suitable as a lubricant. Soon after, the product became popular for use by steam engines, Ewing sold his interest to Everest, who carried on the company. Vacuum was bought by Standard Oil in 1879 and it originated the Mobil trademark in 1899. When Standard Oil was broken up in 1911 due to the Sherman Antitrust Act, Vacuum Oil and Standard Oil of New York merged in 1931, after the government gave up attempts to prevent it. At the time, the combined company made Socony-Vacuum Corp. the 3rd largest oil company. Everest remained with the firm, and was given a job as president. In 1955, the company became Socony Mobil Oil Company, in 1963 it was renamed Mobilgas then just Mobil. In 1887, founder Hiram Bond Everest and son Charles M. Everest were charged with conspiracy to destroy competitor Buffalo Lubricating Oil Co and it is said that they were attempting to destroy the buildings, preventing them from manufacturing petroleum products, as well as acquiring their skilled employees. One said employee included Albert A. Miller who was being bribed to construct defective machinery so that it would explode, Hiram Everest and Charles Everest were both found guilty. In 1907 the Vacuum Oil, Standard Oil, New York Central Railroad, Vacuum Oil was charged for shipping 228 cars of petroleum and petroleum products to Standard Oil at unlawful rates via the New York Central RR and Pennsylvania RR
43.
Great Depression
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The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, in most countries it started in 1929 and it was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the economy can decline. The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4,1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%, by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s, however, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. The Great Depression had devastating effects in both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%, unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries, farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Even after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time, john D. Rockefeller said These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come, prosperity has always returned and will again. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April and this was still almost 30% below the peak of September 1929. Together, government and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom had suffered losses in the stock market the previous year. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S, by mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed. By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928, prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930
44.
Tigris River
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The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq, the Tigris is 1,850 km long, rising in the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey about 25 km southeast of the city of Elazig and about 30 km from the headwaters of the Euphrates. The river then flows for 400 km through Turkish territory before becoming the border between Syria and Turkey and this stretch of 44 km is the only part of the river that is located in Syria. Close to its confluence with the Euphrates, the Tigris splits into several channels, First, the artificial Shatt al-Hayy branches off, to join the Euphrates near Nasiriyah. Second, the Shatt al-Muminah and Majar-al-Kabir branch off to feed the Central Marshes, further downstream, two other distributary channels branch off, which feed the Hawizeh Marshes. The main channel continues southwards and is joined by the Al-Kassarah, finally, the Tigris joins the Euphrates near al-Qurnah to form the Shatt-al-Arab. According to Pliny and other ancient historians, the Euphrates originally had its outlet into the sea separate from that of the Tigris, Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, stands on the banks of the Tigris. The port city of Basra straddles the Shatt al-Arab, in ancient times, many of the great cities of Mesopotamia stood on or near the Tigris, drawing water from it to irrigate the civilization of the Sumerians. Notable Tigris-side cities included Nineveh, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia, while the city of Lagash was irrigated by the Tigris via a canal dug around 2400 B. C, the Tigris has long been an important transport route in a largely desert country. Shallow-draft vessels can go as far as Baghdad, but rafts are needed for transport upstream to Mosul, General Francis Rawdon Chesney hauled two steamers overland through Syria in 1836 to explore the possibility of an overland and river route to India. One steamer, the Tigris, was wrecked in a storm which sank, Chesney proved the river navigable to powered craft. Later, the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company was established in 1861 by the Lynch Brothers trading company and they had 2 steamers in service. By 1908 ten steamers were on the river, tourists boarded steam yachts to venture inland as this was the first age of archaeological tourism, and the sites of Ur and Ctesiphon became popular to European travelers. In the First World War, during the British conquest of Ottoman Mesopotamia, Indian, see Siege of Kut and the Fall of Baghdad. The Tigris Flotilla included vessels Clio, Espiegle, Lawrence, Odin, armed tug Comet, armed launches Lewis Pelly, Miner, Shaitan, Sumana, and stern wheelers Muzaffari/Mozaffir. These were joined by Royal Navy Fly-class gunboats Butterfly, Cranefly, Dragonfly, Mayfly, Sawfly, Snakefly, and Mantis, Moth, the Ancient Greek form Tigris was borrowed from Old Persian Tigrā, itself from Elamite Tigra, itself from Sumerian Idigna. The Sumerian form was borrowed into Akkadian as Idiqlat, and from there into the other Semitic languages, another name for the Tigris used in Middle Persian was Arvand Rud, literally swift river. Today, however, Arvand Rud refers to the confluence of the Euphrates, in Kurdish, it is also known as Ava Mezin, the Great Water
45.
Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
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