Factors Influencing Developing and Sustainable Oil and Gas Projects

This project examines the factors influencing the development and sustainability of oil and gas projects, particularly in Southeast Asia. It investigates key elements for success, including investment decision-making, risk management, and the impact of volatile oil prices on energy policies. The research addresses specific questions such as the main factors for sustainable oil and gas projects in developing countries, the challenges of risk and uncertainty in the upstream oil and gas industry, and the effects of fluctuating oil prices on energy policies. The objectives include identifying key factors for sustainable projects, evaluating the distributional effects on energy policies, assessing the influence of oil price volatility, and examining risk and investment decisions. The project also explores the broader context of sustainability, the role of ASEAN countries, and the application of decision analysis techniques. It aims to contribute to both academic and management fields by providing insights into overcoming constraints, improving managerial practices, and attracting investment for sustainable projects.

Running head: DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
Developing and Sustainable Oil and Gas Project
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
Table of Contents
1. Aim, objective and feasibility of the dissertation........................................................................2
2. Literature review..........................................................................................................................5
3. Research methodology and methods...........................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................12

2DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
1. Aim, objective and feasibility of the dissertation
One of the most vital raw materials among the natural resources is oil and now-a-days,
the day-to-day life of the people is highly dependent on the oil. There are a wide range of
products that are made up of either gas or oil (Shaikh et al. 2017). The contribution of the oil and
gas industry is considerable in the economic growth of the country. In addition, it also creates
huge employment opportunities for the people of the country, which is beneficial for the
developing countries. However, the high demand for the products made from oil and gas lead to
the over extraction and exploration of the natural resource. The potential demand for the oil and
gas also shot up in the era of industrialization. The developing countries, especially Southeast
Asia welcomed the oil and gas projects that belongs from the extractive industries have a severe
environmental impact.
Thus, in order to avoid issues related to the environmental sustainability, it is necessary to
take the path of developing and sustainable oil and gas project, which will also minimize the
social disruptions. As stated by (Mamat, Sani and Sudhakar 2019), a major concern for the
players from oil and gas industry and governments to control the issues related to the
environmental sustainability. The necessity of developing and sustainable oil and gas project
become inevitable for the developing countries. A major toll is created by activities carried out
by the oil and gas projects, which has a profound negative impact. It not only affects the health
and livelihood of the people but also affects the environment, which causes pollution.
In entire history of the oil and gas industry, it hit by the greatest challenge related to
health, environment and safety currently (Fulton et al. 2017). Many researches have been
conducted in order to find out the sustainable way to operate the oil and gas project. The

3DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
concerned study will contribute in the academic field by making the interpretation of the research
more creative and active through investigating challenges faced by the oil and gas companies
from developing economies to sustain such projects. According to (Tongsopit et al. 2016), there
are several organizations that works in this field to operate the oil and gas project in a more
sustainable way. To improve the management decisions of the players in field of the oil and gas
projects, the overview of the areas of strategic forecasting is crucial. It will enable the existing
organizations in the oil and gas industry to manage sustainability.
The aim of this research paper is to assess and identify the factors that lead to the
developing and sustainable oil and gas project, which will be considered as the major
contribution for the oil and gas industry. It will benefit the people associated with the project as
well as the people those who affected due to adverse consequences of the non-sustainable
approach to produce oil and gas. Hence, it can stated that the concerned study will contribute
significantly in both academic and management field. As per , it is necessary to adopt a
collaborative approach to sustainable development by the oil and gas companies of the
developing countries to achieve the UN and national development goals. To manage the whole
system, the actions such as close relationships and cooperation with the peers, project area
communities, non-governmental communities, development partners and governments are
required to undertake. According to (Oh et al. 2018), the countries from the mainland Southeast
Asia such as Laos, West Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia and the
countries maritime Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, East Malaysia, Philippines, East Timor and
Singapore had a rivalry over natural resource related to gas. Despite, strong production these
countries hit by the rising demand and volatile oil prices. The gap between the oil demand and
production widened in recent years. Though, the production of the oil remained steady, the

4DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
demand for the oil increased drastically, which higher the dependence on the oil imports and
over extraction.
The role of the research questions is pivotal in this connection, as it will help to achieve
the objectives and aims of the research (Marquardt 2016). It is also effective for understanding
the areas to be covered in the research and the research questions of this paper are expressed as
follows:
 What are the main factors to be followed by the developing countries like Southeast Asia
to sustain oil and gas projects?
 What are the uncertainty, risk and investment decision making in the upstream oil and
gas industry from developing countries?
 What are the impacts of current oil volatile prices on the energy policies due to
distributional effect for the oil and gas companies of the developing countries?
The research objectives of this dissertation will emphasis on developing and sustainable oil
and gas project in context of developing. Thus, the research objectives of this study are as
follows:
 To identify the key factors that lead to the sustainable oil and gas project in Southeast
Asia.
 To evaluate the distributional effect on energy policies of the oil and gas companies of
the developing countries.
 To assess the influence of the current oil volatile prices on the businesses of the oil and
gas companies (Lee et al. 2017).

5DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
 To examine risk, uncertainty and investment decision making related raw materials
before ready to refine for the oil and gas project in developing countries.
The similarities associated with the risk, uncertainty and investment decision making will
help to extend the potential research findings to other developing countries apart from Southeast
Asia. The oil and gas companies of the developing countries will able to understand the
environmental consequences and reorganize managerial practices in order to succeed in their
operational areas potentially focusing on developing and sustainable practices (Smits 2015).
Therefore, it will negate the constraints related to oil and gas projects of the developing countries
from the organizational perspective. In addition, the study can also be extended to taken into
consideration the role of the ASEAN countries as net exporter of the natural gas. It will assist to
understand the condition of the upstream oil and gas companies in ASEAN countries.
2. Literature review
One of the major concern of the business management theories is to balancing between
social well-being and economic growth. Sustainability can be defined as the performance and
development approach from an environmental, social and economic perspective. Many Southeast
countries witnessed significant growth in the field of gas production, which will contribute
towards the economic growth. On the contrary, some of these exporting countries started
importing oil because of growing internal demand as per (Lyons 2016). As the gap between
consumption and production of the oil and gas widened, it may further lead to the environment
and social consequences. Though, there exists several constraints for the oil and gas companies
from the developing countries to sustain oil and gas project. It is necessary to overcome these
constraints to achieve economic growth along with social and environmental well-being in

6DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
developing countries. In contrast, the ASEAN countries remained the net exporters of the natural
gas as the demand and production of the gas remained equal.
The production of the oil was higher in Malaysia and Indonesia among the other
Southeast Asian countries. However, as stated by (Anifowose et al. 2016), these countries
witnessed significant declines in reserves and capacities, which aggravated the chances of the
over-exhaustion of the available reserve. The production and trade balances of these Southeast
Asia countries, especially Indonesia, downgraded because of rising demand, changing landscape
and fluctuating oil prices (Purwanto et al. 2016). On the other hand, the large reserve holdings
of gas reserves among the countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand created tension
between the rival countries. Therefore, security and opportunity plays a vital role in case of these
Southeast Asian countries. One of the important trend that can be seen in the oil and gas
companies of the Southeast Asia countries is significant capital flowing for the companies that
contribute to social and environmental progress through sustainability (Nwapi 2015). The range
of the potential sustainability investments is broader in case of the developing countries in
comparison with the developed countries.
Thus, the sustainability investment became rapidly mainstream in the Southeast Asia
developing countries. Therefore, the measures to make sustainable gas and oil project will attract
huge investments in these oil and gas companies. It will prove beneficial for the oil and gas
companies to accumulate capital for the sustainable project. In addition, there is a growth in the
socially responsible investing around the world, which is inspired by the growing concern related
to global challenges such as pollution, climate change and social inequality and deforestation
(Raut, Narkhede and Gardas 2017). As the current development towards the developing and
sustainable project within the field of oil and gas production is limited, the oil and gas project

7DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
from developing and sustainable perspective under the management-related academic research
cannot be characterized with a large number of studies.
The global fund managers are pressurized by the limited partners to incorporate social,
environmental and governance criteria into their investment processes. According to (Nesadurai
2018), there is a correlation between the oil industry literatures and decision theory, which can
be explored on the basis of the developing countries context. One of the widely accepted part of
the organization is decision analysis. However, there exists limited evidence related to the
contribution of the decision analysis on the performance of the organization. There are a range of
decision analysis techniques available for making decision for the industry. In order to, find out
the investment decision making of the oil and gas industry with the help of decision analysis
techniques, it is required to taken into consideration the concept of the current capability (Basri,
Ramli and Aliyu 2015). This decision analysis helps the oil and gas companies of the developing
countries to undertake the capital investment decision making and avoid the risks associated with
it. There is a close association between the good organizational performance in the upstream oil
and gas industry and the use of the decision analysis in investment decision making.
In general, it is necessary to investigate the investment decision making in a high risk
environment under the oil and gas companies from developing countries. The dissertation will
focus on the multi-disciplinary decision theory literature as it need to analyze the investment
decision making under conditions of uncertainty and risk (Zou et al. 2018). Decision analysis is a
normative discipline under the decision theory comprises of several concepts and techniques that
offer a comprehensive way to compare and evaluate the degree of uncertainty and risk associated
with investment choices. One of the disciples that act a major contributor to the behavioral
decision theory literature is management. The proposed study will highlight the research gap of

8DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
this existing research by introducing the concept of the investment decision making. In addition,
further analysis will be conducted on the basis of the quantitative approach to fulfill the research
gap as the contributors of this research comes mainly from numeric disciplines such as statistics
and mathematics.
According to (Shi and Variam 2017), the nations may get the benefits of energy and
economic security from the substantial growth in the oil and gas production. It also helps to
minimize the trade gap by decreasing the dependence on the oil and gas import. On the contrary,
it also closely tied the oil and gas companies with the swings in crude prices. In case of the
developing countries, the effect of this vitality is profound on the oil and gas companies. Thus,
the developing countries Southeast Asia enjoyed a significant economic growth during the boom
period. As a result, it fostered employment, income of the household, local and state investment.
However, this growth comes with a different set challenges for the developing countries. The
major environmental challenges along with the strains on local school, housing and
infrastructure, which are amplified by the uncertainty over fall in price and production. Hence, as
per (Breul and Diez 2018), in this context of the developing countries also faces challenges when
there is volatile oil prices. It lead to the sharp decline of the state and local economy. Moreover,
it also results in obsoleting the investment decisions that made during the boom period. As stated
by (Scholvin et al. 2017), both the private and public sector companies of the oil and gas project
from the developing countries faces planning challenges due to the volatility. It also effects the
people belongs from the oil producing regions.
The intervention is required to reduce the challenges associated with the volatility
through adopting developing and sustainable oil and gas project. Another factors that has a major
effect on the oil price volatility is the global economic slowdown. Furthermore, the global

9DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
economic slowdown driven by plunge in demand ns surge in supply will aggravate the economic
problems of the oil and gas companies from the developing countries. Here, a crucial role is also
played by the oil and gas importing countries. As the change in demand and price affects the
volume of imports by these counties, it is vital for the developing countries to prepare with the
sustainable solution to overcome the crisis period. In this regard, the developing country like
Nigeria can also be taken into consideration to evaluate the effect of the fluctuating oil prices on
the growth of this country.
3. Research methodology and methods
A feasible research method can be obtained from the recognition of the appropriate
research philosophy. In addition, to determine the way in which information regarding a research
question is examined, collected and implemented, the role of the research philosophy is
inevitable. There exist primarily three research philosophies such as constructivist, positivist and
relativist under the epistemological approach (Croissant and Lorenz 2018). The proposed study
applies a positivist research philosophy under the epistemological approach, which aims to
examine the extent to which developing and sustainable are considered as the vital success factor
in oil and gas project. This study gathers data related to the current practices of project managers
and their approach towards the project management to analyze the prevalence of the sustainable
practices in oil and gas industry.
In order to, conduct the concern study through exploratory research, there are two
available research methods such as quantitative and qualitative. As it assesses the notion of the
sustainability based on oil and gas projects of today, it is encouraged to adopt the quantitative
method due to its close association with the positivism (Purwanto et al. 2016). Therefore,
epistemological approach can be utilized by collecting data through quantitative methods to

10DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
answer the research questions. As suggested by (Kim 2017), the primary data can be collected
from five ways such as case studies, gathering of historical data, questionnaires, experimental
and analysing archives. The nature and case of the study along with the aspects it handles
decides the appropriate primary data collection way. The survey will be applied in this proposed
study. The survey strategy can be illustrated as selection of people from a predetermined
population that are relatively large sample and the collection of data from those individuals. In
order to make some inference about the wider population, the information from a sample of
individual is adopted by the researcher. In this regard, a survey will be developed, reviewed and
distributed among the group of sample project managers of the oil and gas project (Nosić,
Karasalihović Sedlar and Jukić 2017).
The data gathering strategy for this proposed study is survey, as it will enable collection
of the data from numerous project managers at a minimum cost and efforts in a short span of
time. The vital features of the survey are high degree of reliability and flexibility, which make
the survey easy to manage, disperse and analyse. According to (Raut, Narkhede and Gardas
2017), the validity and reliability of the survey technique can be improved with the help of
administrating and utilizing questionnaire instead of semi-structured or structured interviews for
the oil and gas project. There is a standardized set of questions, which will be asked to all
participants and it will also take into consideration the poor recall of the surveyor. As per
(Meierding 2017), it makes the questionnaire transparent and authentic to conduct the
quantitative research. Thus, the questionnaire will be dispersed to the project managers of the oil
and gas companies from developing countries Southeast Asia. Moreover, it will survey the
practices and opinions of the project managers to understand the sustainable practices
implemented by them as well as how these practices bring success in oil and gas project.

11DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
At first stage, around 50 project management practitioners will be chosen for the
dispersion of the questionnaire from oil and gas companies of the developing countries.
Furthermore, initially 20 large organizations are selected for the questionnaire. In order to attain
proper information through convenience, accessibility and appropriateness, the sample size will
be adequate for the preliminary research (Ningning et al. 2018). Additionally, the theoretical
proposition of the literature review can be validated by the result obtained by the questionnaire.
The sample will include project managers along with program managers, senior executives,
engineers and business owners. The conducted survey for the oil and gas project will initially
paper based. However, it will also be available web based as well later. Moreover, to validate
and authenticate the result of the survey two statistical process will be undertaken. To determine
the frequency distribution of the survey, it needs to analyse on the basis of SPSS statistics and
regression analysis. Therefore, the proposed study will be examined on the basis of the statistical
tools such as SPSS statistics and regression analysis to determine the frequency distribution of
the survey. Hence, it can stated that the validation of concerned research will be obtained
through the quantitative research approach with the help of survey and questionnaire. It will
prove beneficial to determine the significance of the developing and sustainable oil and gas
project.

12DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINABLE OIL AND GAS PROJECT
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