The authors take the reader from the world of J.P. Morgan, when a private network of investment banks presided over a tumultuous market of competing entrepreneurial firms, to the world of Lee Iacocca, where the power of even the most celebrated chief executive is more than matched by the government. Morgan commanded; business leaders of the 1980s negotiate. Over the course of the twentieth century, corporations developed new means of innovating and of achieving efficiency and control of their political and market environments. -- Book Jacket.

Fifty years ago, in November 1947, Brown & Root helped Kerr-McGee build the first out-of-sight-of-land offshore platform that produced oil. This history puts a human face on the process of technological change. Using the words of many of those who took part in Brown & Root's offshore activities, this book recounts their efforts to find practical ways to recover offshore oil.

Immediately after World War II, several Houston-based firms organized to transport natural gas from the giant fields of the Southwest to the large utility companies that distributed energy in the urban-industrial centers along the East coast. This relatively inexpensive and clean-burning fuel quickly made spectacular inroads into markets previously served by coal and petroleum. Texas Eastern was one of the major competitors in the post-war industry. The company's origins were unique. Early in 1947, a group of entrepreneurs led by Herman and George R. Brown, founders of the Brown & Root construction firm, purchased the Big Inch and Little Big Inch pipelines from the U.S. government, which had built them to transport crude oil and petroleum product vital to the war effort. By converting these pipelines to the transportation of natural gas, the founders of Texas Eastern got in on the ground floor of a dynamic industry. With full access to company files, Christopher J. Castaneda and Joseph A. Pratt follow the company from its creation in 1947 to its purchase by Panhandle Eastern Corporation in 1989. During this period, Texas Eastern's strategy focused on expansion of its natural gas system and diversification into other related industries including liquefied natural gas sales, North Sea oil and gas production, and Houston real estate. In the 1970s and 1980s, the company faced a series of challenges from the energy crisis, the deregulation of natural gas, and the hostile takeover movement in the energy industries. By the late 1980s, the process of diversification had come full circle, as the company sold off subsidiaries and refocused on the transmission of natural gas as a part of Panhandle Eastern's vast system.

As counsel for Pennzoil's successful effort to recover billions of dollars in damages from Texaco over the acquisition of Getty Oil Company, the Baker & Botts law firm of Houston, Texas, achieved wide public recognition in the 1980s. But among its peers in the legal and corporate worlds, Baker & Botts has for more than a century held a preeminent position, handling the legal affairs of such blue-chip clients as the Southern Pacific Railroad, Houston Lighting & Power Company, Rice University, Texas Commerce Bank, and Tenneco. In this study, Kenneth J. Lipartito and Joseph A. Pratt chronicle the history of Baker & Botts, placing particular emphasis on the firm's role in Houston's economic development. Founded in 1840, Baker & Botts literally grew up with Houston. The authors chart its evolution from a nineteenth-century regional firm that represented eastern-based corporations moving into Texas to a twentieth-century national firm with clients throughout the world. They honestly discuss the criticisms that Baker & Botts has faced as an advocate of big business. But they also identify the important impact that corporate law firms of this type have on business reorganization and government regulation. As the authors demonstrate in this case study, law firms throughout the twentieth century have helped to shape public policy in these critical areas. Always prominent in the community, and with prominent connections (former Secretary of State James A. Baker III is the great-grandson of the original Baker), the Baker & Botts law firm belongs in any history of the development of Houston and the Southwest.

The National Petroleum Council (NPC) emerged out of the close cooperation between the petroleum industry and the federal government during World War II. An industry-financed advisory committee designed to work closely with the Department of the Interior, it enjoyed a remarkable independence from political or financial pressures. Including representatives of all phases of the petroleum business, the NPC could reach deep within the industry for information on vital issues. In the last fifty-plus years, the Council has evolved into a voice of the marketplace, analyzing conditions in the petroleum industry at the request of the government and publishing its findings in reports widely considered authoritative and useful. Three uniquely qualified historians here chronicle the development and contributions of the NPC to both the energy industry and the American market. While technological advances, skyrocketing world demand, the rise of OPEC, and far-reaching regulatory initiatives have fundamentally transformed the petroleum industry's structure and operating environment, the National Petroleum Council has remained a reliable source of authoritative information. Joseph A. Pratt, William H. Becker, and William McClenahan, Jr., analyze the choices and strategies that have given the Council the adaptability and resilience to survive and remain important. The authors look also at the actual reports generated by the Council--more than two hundred studies to date--and the impact they have had on both government and business. They examine the NPC's ability to tap information and personnel from all sectors of the industry and to fund from industry resources studies that would have exceeded the pockets of the federal government. They consider the way the Council has managed to encompass the varied viewpoints within a diverse, highly competitive industry, and particularly to bridge the sharp historical division between the "majors" and the "independents." Finally, the authors analyze the one political concern that has remained constant for the industry: antitrust. This engagingly written book not only sheds light on the petroleum industry and its regulatory context, but also addresses the larger questions of the U.S. government's relations with the industries it regulates.

Ein umfassender Überblick über die derzeitigen Technologien zur Energieerzeugung und den heutigen Energieverbrauch Dieses Fachbuch verbindet in einzigartiger Weise die Ansichten eines Soziologen mit denen eines Naturwissenschaftlers. Neben Erläuterungen und Ansätzen zur Quantifizierung von Energie und Nachhaltigkeit werden die heutigen Technologien zur Energieerzeugung und der aktuelle Energieverbrauch untersucht. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei auf ökologischen, historischen und regulatorischen Aspekten jeder Energietechnologie. Alternative und zukünftige Energietechnologien sowie Beispiele nachhaltiger Techniken, alltäglicher Probleme bei Transport, Stadtplanung und Eigenheimbau werden ebenfalls beleuchtet. Introduction to Energy and Sustainability beschreibt zunächst die verschiedenen Konzepte und behandelt u. a. die Geschichte unserer Beziehung zu Energie, definiert und quantifiziert Energie und Nachhaltigkeit, den Energiefluss, die Umwandlung von Energie und Stoffen, die Gesetze der Thermodynamik und die heutige Energieherstellung. Es folgt eine Untersuchung, wie in unserer modernen Welt Energie erzeugt und verbraucht wird, welche Arten von Energie zur Verfügung stehen und wie diese eingesetzt werden. Das Fachbuch beschäftigt sich auch mit der Zukunft von Energie und damit, wie wir vor dem Hintergrund einer sich verändernden Welt die heutigen und zukünftigen Energiequellen bereitstellen und nutzen werden. - Ausgewogene Darstellung der naturwissenschaftlichen und technischen Konzepte zu Energie und Nachhaltigkeit. Diskutiert ausführlich die sozioökonomischen und geopolitischen Auswirkungen. - Verbindet in einzigartiger Weise die Ansichten eines Soziologen und eines Naturwissenschaftlers. - Behandelt unzählige Fragen aus der Praxis und gibt Antworten. - Ein Buch für Studenten verschiedener Studiengänge aus dem Bereich Energie und für Ökologen. Introduction to Energie and Sustainability richtet sich an Postgraduierte von Studiengängen aus dem Bereich Energie. Auch für Ökologen, Ingenieure, Ingenieure der Energiewirtschaft und Chemiker in der Industrie von hoher Relevanz.

The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, which houses the extensive ExxonMobil Historical Collection, is honored to publish the fifth volume of Exxon’s corporate history, which extends the history of Exxon and its predecessors to more than 125 years, the longest in-depth account of a private company in existence. ExxonMobil’s history stretches from the time of kerosene lamps to the era of jet travel, from the days of finding oil by searching for surface indications to the days of 3-D seismic, which uses powerful computers to create images of oil deep underground. Its learning curve was particularly steep in the years covered by this book, 1973–2005, when the company adapted to new realities that confronted it at every turn. ExxonMobil has remained among the most profitable concerns in the history of modern capitalism by showing flexibility when faced with the need to adapt to changing conditions. As the company responded to sweeping changes in global markets, its decisions reflected a deeply held corporate culture that rested on the key operating values of engineering efficiency and financial discipline. This extensively researched volume demonstrates how Exxon’s core values and management enabled the company to adapt and succeed during a period of dramatic changes for the energy industry. Pratt and Hale provide readers a historical perspective from inside one of the most powerful corporations in the world.

Table of Contents

For more than a century the Houston area has grown steadily and at times spectacularly. The lifeblood of the region's development has been the flow of credit; its heart, the banks that have pumped investment dollars through the economy, and particularly Texas Commerce Bank, one of the city's largest.