The Oil Industry originated in the United States of America and by the 1920s, five of the seven companies that would dominate the industry were American (Boyle 2002). The companies in this industry have successfully thrived in most parts of the world and are continually growing. In the early days, according to Boyle (2002 p. 9), “the fortunes of these companies were based on the demand for oil as a source of energy for the internal
combustion engine and other engines”. As demand for oil steadily rose during the first three quarters of the 20th century, so did the number of companies that were involved with
producing oil-based and natural gas products (Bandinelli and Gamberi 2011). Oil and Gas companies were chosen as a case study for this research because of the global nature of its business means that they operate in every continent in the world sometimes having operations in several countries in each continent. This inevitably means that they operate across both ‘supercentral’ and ‘hypercentral’ languages in the world (De Swaan 2001). Also, because of global reach and operations, the choice of Oil and Gas companies is a good case study to see how the practice of localisation matches up to these global operations. These companies are also seen as a unique source of information as the operational areas of Oil and Gas companies mean that they need to make the locales aware of what their local activities are rather than the practice in the retail industry where companies are primarily trying to sell products on their websites. The world is also now in a new phase of globalisation where there is more focus by Oil and Gas companies on countries like China, India and Russia particularly because since 2008, there has been a recession in the ‘West’ while there has been continuous growth in the ‘BRICS’ (Badiru and Osisanya 2013). This new economic situation can make a lot of linguistic and cultural demands on Oil and Gas companies who are not from that region but who want to or are already operating in these countries. This research seeks answers to the extent and nature of localisation practices on the websites of these companies.
Oil companies are mainly divided into two major sectors which are the Upstream Sector and the Downstream Sector. The Upstream Oil Sector is the Exploration and Production part of the business and is mainly involved with the production, searching for underwater Oil and Gas fields and drilling exploratory wells (Ramos and Veiga and Wang 2014 p.7). The upstream Oil and Gas sector includes companies that are involved in all “the operations of seeking for potential underground or underwater oil and gas fields, drilling of exploratory wells, recovery and production of crude oil and natural gas” and generally own assets in the offshore sector (Bandinelli and Gamberi 2011 p.89). The upstream oil sector is also known as “the exploration and production sector” and companies such as Shell and ExxonMobil fall into this category of companies. The Downstream Oil sector is involved with the refining of oil crude, marketing and distribution of oil and gas products (Ramos, Veiga and Wang 2014 p.7). The downstream sector also constitutes of companies that are involved with providing subcontractor services to the Exploration and Production companies such as the operations of crude oil refining, selling and distribution of gas and crude oil products. This sector is composed by a large number of different companies, such as “oil refineries, petrochemical plants, petroleum product distribution
firms, retail outlets and natural gas distribution” companies (Bandinelli and Gamberi 2011 p.89). The service providers are part of the downstream sector and are primarily “involved in the process of extraction, transformation of energetic raw material, energy production and chemical transformation” (Bandinelli and Gamberi 2011 p.89). The research was carried out on companies chosen from both the upstream and downstream sectors with the expectation that each sector would provide varied results, which will in turn provide suitable information for a conclusion to this research.
In recent times, the Oil and Gas industry has expanded to include renewables and decommissioning projects and many more due to the development of Oil and Gas resources and the need for abandonment of previously used offshore facilities. When it comes to the classification of companies in the Oil and Gas industry, there have been several classifications such as the example below from Inkpen and Moffett (2011 p.11):
Independent These companies have all their revenue from either oil and gas production or downstream activities.
Integrated Oil
Company (IOC)
This is used to describe large oil and gas companies and is made up of companies that compete in the upstream, midstream, downstream and maybe petrochemicals sector.
International Oil Company (IOC)
This kind of companies complete across borders and the terms is used to describe the largest oil and gas companies that operate globally. Examples include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total.
Junior These are smaller oil and gas companies and are critical for operations and
executions in the oil and gas industry.
National Oil
Company (NOC)
These are companies controlled by the national government of the country in which it has most of its operations. Examples include Petrobras, Talisman Sinopec.
Oil Major These are the large non-state-owned oil and gas companies which are either
publicly traded companies or privately owned.
Supermajor This is used to describe the largest oil majors, for example, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total.
Figure 5: Classification of Companies
There have been a number of environmental issues and disasters stemming from the activities of the upstream and downstream oil and gas sectors. Environmental issues in the exploration and production of Oil and Gas products include gas flaring which involves the safe disposal of gaseous refinery wastes (Bahadori 2014). Oil and gas companies have also been accused of not taking extra care to protect the environment and to avoid
pollution such as the incident with the Deepwater Horizon in April 2010 where an undetected influx of hydrocarbons caused a blowout which flowed to the rig floor and caused explosions which killed 11 men and caused an oil spill (Vallero and Letcher 2012). Other disasters in the upstream sector include those affecting offshore facilities such as the BP Macondo well blowout in April 2010 (Badiru and Osisanya 2013 p.30), Oil spills which affect coastal habitats and the eco systems such as the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico mentioned above and the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 (Vallero and Letcher 2012). However, most countries with increased Oil and Gas activities have now put in place measures such as environmental policies to reduce the environmental impact or occurrence of these disasters and to safeguard lives (Papavinasam 2013).