Journal articles on the topic 'Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)'

Since the discovery of Crude Oil in 1875, the Petroleum Industry has gradually improved in value due to the series of valuable products gotten from crude oil. The significant impact of crude oil as a source of energy has made exportation and importation of this mineral a lucrative business around the world, having turned to be the major source of revenue for most producing countries. Crude oil has contributed to about 80% of Nigerian Government revenue and foreign exchange since 1958, making it a key player in the economic plan of the country. Its importance in Nigeria has made the Legislature introduce lots of policies and laws governing the Oil and Gas business in the country. However, Nigerians with different views over the years have clamored for an improvement of these policies to enable the benefits of Her resources fairly get to the grassroots, producing communities and states while improving foreign investment policies in the country. These demands led to the introduction of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) in the year 2000. This research work attempts to review and offer recommendations for improvements to avoid future litigations, violence, conflicts, and industry fragility. This work will also elaborate on different steps taken by the Nigerian Government over the years to implement this bill, challenges faced by the Government and International Oil Companies (IOCs), Government and its citizens, and anomalies seen in the bill up till status quo.

ABSTRACTThe Nigerian Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which is currently being discussed in Parliament, aims at reforming the oil industry. But it also reveals the guiding forces of local politics. The PIB exposes the limitations of the state's ambitions, desire and capacity for reform, and it is strong evidence for the regional divisions and social tensions catalysing resistance against the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, which is accused of ethnic bias in favour of the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta.

The oil and gas industry is governed by policies with the aim of smoothening the business relationship between the Government, the International Oil Companies (IOC’s) and the Host communities. Different oil producing countries have their own laws governing petroleum activities and these laws vary from country to country based on the B-PEST factors which are Biological, Political, Environmental, Social and Technology. However, reserve size and oil type can also influence petroleum laws. Countries like Nigeria relies strongly on petroleum bills such as the PIB in which this research will be analyzing the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) which is a significant subset of the PIB. Comparison between the existing PSC of Malaysia and that of Nigeria was captured in this research and the analysis of the PSC was done based on the Government Take, National Oil Company (NOC) and the Contractor’s benefits. 26.67% and 56.58% recovery cost, 28.67% and 26.28% Government revenue, 23.14% and 7.64% NOC share, 21.52% and 9.50% Contractor share of revenue per barrel was arrived at for Malaysia and Nigeria respectively, showing that the Malaysian PSC model yields more income to the country when compared to that of Nigeria without necessarily short-changing the contractors or the IOCs. Finally, the reasons behind these deficits were highlighted and recommendations made to improve the PSC and benefits for all parties to the contractual agreements.

In 2005 the Australian Government introduced into Parliament the long awaited Offshore Petroleum Bill (Bill). Often referred to as the rewrite of the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act 1967 (Act), the Bill essentially is a redraft of the Act in a bid to improve readability and clarity. A number of policy changes have been made, albeit most are minor.The public consultation process undertaken as part of the rewrite of the Act saw a number of other issues raised. As these were beyond the ambit of the rewrite—that is, to improve readability and clarity of the Act—these issues were temporarily parked until the completion of the rewrite process.Government will now proceed with a process of review and consultation with industry on these parked issues. In a number of areas divergent views of Government and industry can be expected.It is not clear the extent to which industry in general and APPEA in particular and its members will actively support the review process or whether inertia will prevail, without substantive progress. Reform has the potential to significantly change and enhance the offshore regime from what it is today. While it is early days, questions remain as to whether the process will produce significant changes in an acceptable timeframe.

This paper considers certain aspects of the proposed legislative changes to the Income Tax Act (Canada) and the Petroleum and Gas Revenue Tax Cut set out in the January 30, 1985 and May 9, 1985 Notices of Ways and Means Motions, the Western Accord and the federal budget of May 23, 1985 which may be of interest to advisers to the oil and gas industry. Certain of these changes have been incorporated in Bill C-72, which was passed October 29, 1985, and draft amendments to the Petroleum and Gas Revenue Tax Act released September 16, 1985.

AbstractThe 2018 Petroleum Host and Impacted Communities Development Trust Bill before the Nigerian National Assembly was proposed to foster sustainable development (SD) and embed corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the oil and gas corporate activities within host communities. From the backdrop of SD and CSR as regulatory concepts, this article scrutinizes the Bill for its viability to realize its objectives in its current form. It raises concerns about: (i) perceived negligence by the government to provide social services and public goods, seeming to outsource such responsibilities to the business community; (ii) the reduction of CSR to capital or community development projects; and (iii) the absence of useful delimitation criteria to determine host and impacted communities. The article argues that past mistakes are being rehashed and queries the capacity of the Bill to live up to stakeholders’ expectations. Using the normative contributions of global templates such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the article recommends policy and regulatory changes to the Bill’s governance structure towards embedding effective CSR and engendering SD in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

On 1 January 2012, a new regulatory framework for the offshore oil and gas industry in Australian Commonwealth waters started. The changes were profound and brought about a single national regulator for safety, environmental management, and well integrity. It also meant that the seven former designated authorities were abolished in favour of a single National Titles Administrator. In the lead up to the reforms, ministers Martin Ferguson and Frederick Moore agreed that officials from their respective departments would implement cooperative working arrangements for the WA adjacent offshore area, to facilitate and ensure a smooth transition for the industry and help achieve the recommendations of the Productivity Commission's review. The authors of this extended abstract reflect on and share the experiences of the past 12 months. An update of the authors' respective agencies' progress beyond the transition phase is also discussed. This extended abstract also outlines projects of interest and how they will benefit the industry and continue to develop the foundations of the cooperative working arrangements between NOPTA and WA-DMP. During the changes and transition program, industry and regulators have strived to engage in the new regime, and the results have been positive. Now is the opportunity for us to come together, ask questions, share information, and examine what has worked and what is yet to come. Several aspects of the arrangements are now evident: the establishment of the National Core Store and Data Repository, the establishment of the National Electronic Approvals and Tracking System (NEATS), and the day-to-day interactions between NOPTA and WA-DMP. The WA-DMP speaker reviews Joint Authority operations for the WA adjacent area since the establishment of NOPTA and NOPSEMA. Bill Tinapple also reviews regulatory framework developments for WA; in particular, changes to provide for shale and tight gas and oil activity, as well as, public engagement to increase confidence in regulatory processes. Coordination of regulatory processes across jurisdictional boundaries are reviewed, including case studies for Gorgon, Wheatstone, and Macedon.

On 1 January 2012, a new regulatory framework for the offshore oil and gas industry in Australian Commonwealth waters started. The changes were profound and brought about a single national regulator for safety, environmental management, and well integrity. It also meant that the seven former designated authorities were abolished in favour of a single National Titles Administrator. In the lead up to the reforms, ministers Martin Ferguson and Frederick Moore agreed that officials from their respective departments would implement cooperative working arrangements for the WA adjacent offshore area, to facilitate and ensure a smooth transition for the industry and help achieve the recommendations of the Productivity Commission's review. The authors of this extended abstract reflect on and share the experiences of the past 12 months. An update of the authors' respective agencies' progress beyond the transition phase is also discussed. This extended abstract also outlines projects of interest and how they will benefit the industry and continue to develop the foundations of the cooperative working arrangements between NOPTA and WA-DMP. During the changes and transition program, industry and regulators have strived to engage in the new regime, and the results have been positive. Now is the opportunity for us to come together, ask questions, share information, and examine what has worked and what is yet to come. Several aspects of the arrangements are now evident: the establishment of the National Core Store and Data Repository, the establishment of the National Electronic Approvals and Tracking System (NEATS), and the day-to-day interactions between NOPTA and WA-DMP. The WA-DMP speaker reviews Joint Authority operations for the WA adjacent area since the establishment of NOPTA and NOPSEMA. Bill Tinapple also reviews regulatory framework developments for WA; in particular, changes to provide for shale and tight gas and oil activity, as well as, public engagement to increase confidence in regulatory processes. Coordination of regulatory processes across jurisdictional boundaries are reviewed, including case studies for Gorgon, Wheatstone, and Macedon.

Since crude oil purchasing accounts for the largest part of the total costs in the petroleum industry, improving the efficiency of the process is of great significance in economy. In this paper, a novel mixed integer linear programming model is formulated for a large typical oil refinery to determine the purchasing, inventory and transportation quantities over a multi-period horizon while taking into account all the practical features of crude oil purchasing. The objective of the model is to minimize the total costs attributed to crude oil purchasing, i.e. the sum of ordering, purchasing, inventory and transportation costs. The constraints related to bill of materials, different capacities and different transportation modes are considered. A numerical example indicates the extensive application of the presented model.

Jersey Oil and Gas Unearths Wengen Prospect The Greater Buchan Area (GBA) now has four drill-ready prospects to add to discoveries already slated for development. In a new subsurface evaluation, Jersey Oil & Gas, a British-independent North Sea-focused upstream oil and gas company, has uncovered a new prospect, named Wengen, to complement its Verbier Deep, Cortina NE, and Zermatt drill-ready prospects. The four are estimated to host some 222 million bbl of P50 prospective resources, all in the immediate vicinity of Jersey’s planned GBA production facility. The consolidated Greater Buchan venture comprises Buchan field (80 million bbl), Verbier (c25 million bbl), J2 (c20 million), and Glenn (14 million). The new prospect, located in License P2170, is directly west of the Tweedsmuir field and should host some 62 million bbl of potential resources (P50), with the probabilistic range set at 31 million bbl at P90 (higher confidence) and 162 mil-lion for P10 (lower confidence). Probability of geological success is 22% for the prospect. Contractor Rockflow previously estimated the recoverable resources in the GBA at 94.7 million bbl, including the parts within P2170. In late November, Jersey announced it is taking full ownership of License P2170, which hosts most of the Verbier discovery, as part of the GBA. In March, Jersey told investors the project is fully funded and that it intends to take the project to potential industry partners via a farm-out process. An exploratory drilling campaign is being planned for 2022. Jordan Finds “Promising” Gas Reserves Near Iraq Border Jordan’s majority state-owned National Petroleum Company (NPC) has discovered “promising” natural gas in the Risha gas field along its eastern border with Iraq. Risha makes up nearly 5% of the kingdom’s consumption of natural gas of around 350 MMcf/D for power generation, Jordanian officials said. The flow of new gas supplies will raise the productivity of the gas field and help Jordan cut dependence on oil imports to fuel its power sector and industries. The country, which now imports over 93% of its total energy supplies, is burdened by a $3.5-billion annual bill, comprising almost 8% of Jordan’s GDP. Although British supermajor BP abandoned the eastern desert area in 2014 after investing over $240 million, Jordanian exploration has stepped up since 2019, boosting quantities by at least 70%, Mohammad al Khasawneh, head of NPC, said. An ambitious 10-year energy plan unveiled in 2019 aims to secure nearly half of the country’s electricity generation from local energy sources com-pared to a current 15%, according to Iraq Energy Minister Hala Zawati. The plan is meant to diversify local energy sources by expanding investments in renewable and oil shale to reduce costly foreign fuel imports, Zawati added. ExxonMobil Discovers Hydrocarbons Offshore Suriname ExxonMobil and Petronas have discovered several hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone zones with good reservoir qualities in the Campanian section of the Sloanea-1 exploration well on Block 52 offshore Suriname, adding to ExxonMobil’s finds in the Guyana-Suriname basin. The well was drilled by operator Petronas. ExxonMobil said in November that it is prioritizing near-term capital spending on advantaged assets with the highest potential future value. Maersk Drilling reported in early July that it had secured the Maersk Developer from Petronas subsidiary PSEPBV in a $20.4-million one-well exploration con-tract offshore Suriname. The semisubmersible rig drilled the Suriname-Guyana basin well to a total depth of 15,682 ft. “We are pleased with the positive results of the well,” Emeliana Rice-Oxley, Petronas’ vice president of upstream exploration, said. “It will provide the drive for Petronas to continue exploring in Suriname, which is one of our focus basins in the Americas.” Block 52 covers an area of 1.2 million acres and is located approximately 75 miles offshore north of Paramaribo. The water depths on Block 52 range from 160 to 3,600 ft. ExxonMobil E&P Suriname BV, an affiliate of ExxonMobil, holds 50% interest in Block 52. PSEPBV is operator and holds 50% interest. CNOOC Starts Production on Penglai 25-6 Oil Field Area 3 Project China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced on 14 December that its Bohai Sea Project - the Penglai 25-6 oil field area 3 - has started production ahead of schedule. The biggest offshore oil field and the second biggest oil field in China, the Penglai is located in the south central Bohai Sea, with average water depth of about 27 m. In addition to fully utilizing the existing processing facilities of Penglai oil fields, the project has built a new wellhead platform and plans 58 development wells, including 38 production wells and 20 water-injection wells. The project is expected to reach its peak production of approximately 11,511 B/D of crude oil in 2023. Six successful appraisal wells were also drilled, which confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons in reservoirs located with-in Miocene, Lower Minghuazhen, and Guantao sandstones. The Penglai 19-3 oil field is located in Block 11/05 of Bohai Bay, approximately 235 km southeast of Tanggu. The production-sharing contract for block 11/05 was signed between CNOOC and ConocoPhillips China (COPC) in December 1994; the field was discovered jointly by CNOOC and COPC in 1999. The oil field was developed in two phases. Phase I production started in December 2002; production from the wellhead platform C, which is tied back temporarily to the production facilities of Phase I, began in June 2007. Since June 2020, CNOOC has announced five production startups: the Jinzhou 25-1 oilfield 6/11 area project, the Liuhua 16-2 oilfield/ 20-2 oil-field joint development project, the Nan-bao 35-2 oilfield S1 area project, the Luda 21-2/16-3 regional development project, and the Qinhuangdao 33-1S oilfield phase-I project. In Q3 2020, CNOOC achieved a total net production of 131.2 million BOE, which the company said represented an increase of 5.1% year over year. Production from China was said to have increased by 10.4% year over year to 88.6 million BOE. In November, CNOOC revealed that the Liuhua 29-1 gas field had begun production; in September, the company said the Bozhong 19-6 condensate gas field pilot area development project had also begun. Operator CNOOC holds 51% interest while COPC holds 49% interest in the Penglai 25-6 oilfield area 3 project. Equinor’s Snorre Expansion Project Starts Ahead of Schedule, Below Cost Work began in December on the Snorre Expansion Project in the southern part of the Norwegian Sea. This increased-oil-recovery project will add almost 200 million bbl of recoverable oil reserves and help extend the productive life of the Snorre field through 2040. The expansion project is proposed in blocks 34/4 and 34/7 of the Tampen area, approximately 124 miles west of Florø in the Norwegian North Sea. “I am proud that we have managed to achieve safe startup of the Snorre Expansion Project ahead of schedule in such a challenging year as 2020. In addition, the project is set to be delivered more than NOK 1 billion below the cost estimate in the plan for development and operation,” Geir Tungesvik, Equinor’s executive vice president for technology, projects, and drilling, said. Originally scheduled to come onstream in the first quarter of 2021, the project comprises 24 new wells divided into six subsea templates, drilled to recover the new volumes. Bundles connecting the new wells to the platform have been installed, in addition to new risers. The project also includes a new module and modifications on Snorre A. In December 2017, Equinor submitted a modified plan for development and operation of the field. With the expansion, the recovery factor will increase from 46 to 51%, representing significant value for a field with 2 billion bbl of recoverable oil reserves. Wind power will supply about 35% of the power requirement for the Snorre and Gullfaks fields. The Hywind Tampen project, featuring 11 floating wind turbines, should start up in Q3 2022. The investments in the expansion project total NOK 19.5 billion (2020 value). The project has had substantial spin-off effects for the supply industry in Norway, particularly in eastern Norway and in Rogaland. The Snorre field partnership comprises Equinor (operator) 33.27%, Petoro 30%, Vår Energi 18.55%, Idemitsu 9.6%, and Wintershall Dea 8.57%. Petrobras To Sell Entire Stake in Onshore Field of Sergipe Petrobras on 11 December signed a contract with Energizzi Energias do Brasil to sell its entire stake in the onshore field of Rabo Branco, located south of the Carmópolis field in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, Sergipe state. The Rabo Branco field is part of the BT-SEAL-13 concession. The $1.5-million sale is in line with Petrobras’ strategy to cut costs and improve its capital allocation, to focus its resources increasingly on deep and ultradeep waters. The average oil production of the field, from January to October 2020, was 138 B/D. Energizzi Energias do Brasil will own 50% stake in the Rabo Branco field; operator Produção de Óleo e Gás (Petrom) holds the remaining 50%. On 10 December, Petrobras closed the divestiture of its full ownership in four onshore fields at the Tucano Basin site in the state of Bahia. Petrobras sold its entire interest to Eagle Exploração de Óleo e Gás (Eagle). Petrobras earned $2.571 million from this sale, in addition to the $602,000 that the company received at the time of signing the sale contract, for a total of $3.173 million. BP, Reliance Announce First Gas From Asia’s Deepest Project Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and BP have started production from India’s first ultradeepwater gas project, the first of three such projects in the KG D6 block. The R Cluster gas field is located off the east coast of India, about 60 km from the existing KG D6 control-and-riser platform (CRP), and comprises a subsea production system tied back to the CRP via a subsea pipeline. It is the deepest offshore gas field in Asia at a depth greater than 2000 m. The companies’ next project, the Satellites Cluster, is expected to come on stream this year, followed by the MJ project in 2022. These projects will utilize the existing hub infrastructure in the KG D6 block. “Growing India’s own production of cleaner-burning gas to meet a significant portion of its energy demand, these three new KG D6 projects will support the country’s drive to shape and improve its future energy mix,” BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney said. The R Cluster field is expected to reach plateau gas production of about 12.9 million standard cubic meters per day (MMscm/D) in 2021. Peak gas production from the three fields should be 30 MMscm/D (1 Bcf/D) by 2023, about 25% of India’s domestic production, and will help reduce the country’s dependence on imported gas. RIL is the operator of KG D6 with a 66.67% interest; BP holds a 33.33% participating interest.

This article examines Bill C-45 and its possible impact on the Canadian Petroleum Industry. Bill C- 45, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, establishes a new occupational health and safety (OHS) duty in the Criminal Code. If the duty is breached, either by individuals or organizations, it may result in a criminal charge of occupational health and safety criminal negligence. Bill C-45 also changes the means by which organizations, including corporations, are held liable for offences under the Criminal Code. The "identification theory" of corporate criminal liability has now been replaced by two provisions in the Criminal Code to address the criminal liability of organizations. The first provision, which deals with offences such as the new OHS criminal negligence offence, requires proof of negligence. The second deals with a more classic objective fault element or mens rea. The Canadian petroleum industry, especially in Alberta, has often relied upon outsourcing, contract provisions and structuring of relationships to minimize OHS legal liability under applicable OHS statutes. However, there is no legal basis to contract out of the Criminal Code. It is more important than ever to emphasize proper contract language, indemnity provisions and OHS management systems.

This article seeks to analyse initiatives that have aimed to increase the level of transparency and accountability in the petroleum sector in Nigeria during the past few decades. Nigeria has vast deposits of natural-resource wealth; however, harvesting these resources in order to provide an optimal financial return has often been challenging. Furthermore, the financial gains have not always translated into an improved socio-economic standing of the country’s citizens. It is argued that the main reasons for this are mismanagement of natural-resource wealth and a lack of transparency and accountability in the petroleum sector. This article discusses recent initiatives that aim to deal with these issues, namely: the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), specifically the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the NEITI Act and the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB). The article examines whether these initiatives can contribute to a more transparent and accountable petroleum sector and whether they can ultimately translate into objectifiable results and improve the overall socio-economic situation in Nigeria.

A região do Ruhr é uma aglomeração metropolitana localizada no oeste da Alemanha com aproximadamente 5,3 milhões de habitantes e abrangendo uma área de 4.435 km². Esta área faz parte da região metropolitana Rhein-Ruhr que abriga mais de 10 milhões de habitantes e cobre uma área de cerca de 10.000 km². A região do Ruhr, uma das maiores regiões de industria pesada da Europa, teve seu crescimento com base nos recursos de carvão mineral. A economia da região do Ruhr foi por mais de 150 anos exclusivamente caracterizada pelos quatro setores da indústria pesada: carvão, aço, indústria química e energia. Quando o petróleo natural, o gás natural e o carvão importado com menor custo conquistaram o mercado alemão e o aço também podia ser produzido no exterior a preços mais baixos, o setor produtivo que florescia na região do rio Ruhr experimentou dificuldades. Este fato levou a região na metade dos anos 1970 a um aumento considerável na taxa de desemprego, chegando, entre os anos de 1980 a 2002, a quase meio milhão de desempregados no setor de produção, por outro lado, cerca de 300.000 empregos foram criados no setor de serviços. A mudança estrutural econômica e social na região do Ruhr se baseia em um crescimento considerável, principalmente na área de serviços como propaganda, pesquisa e desenvolvimento, logística de transporte, aconselhamento e design. Também os setores culturais e de lazer apresentam um crescimento relativamente positivo: O produto interno bruto (PIB) da região do Ruhr corresponde a cerca de 26% do PIB do estado Nordrheinwestfalen, perfazendo 6% do PIB da República Federal da Alemanha. Em comparaçao, a Grande São Paulo é responsável por 17% do PIB do Brasil. Abstract REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE RUHR DISTRICT – FROM THE FORMALLY CENTRE OF THE COAL AND STEAL INDUSTRY TO A CENTRE OF TERTIARY SERVICES Regional development within the Ruhr district – from the formally centre of the coal and steel industry to a centre of tertiary services. The Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr district) is an urban agglomeration in the western part of Germany with a population of approximately 5.3 Million, covering an area of 4.435 km². It’s part of the metropolitan area of Rhine-Ruhr with more than 10 Million inhabitants living in an area of about 10.000 km².The black coal resources, deposited during the carboniferous area form the natural backbone for the development of the largest region of coal, iron, and steel industry in Europe. The economy of the Ruhrgebiet was unidirectional dominated for more than 150 years by four heavy industry sectors, black coal, steel, chemical industry and energy production. But later, when petroleum and natural gas and cheaper imported black coal conquered the German market and, as well, steel could be produced at a reduced rate elsewhere in the world the booming producing industry quasi collapsed. Thus, the Region is characterized by an above average unemployment since the mid 70ies. More than 50% of the 1 Million jobs in the region were lost, while only 300.000 new jobs could be added within the service sector between 1980 and 2002. The economic and social structural change within the Ruhr district is primarily based on the expansion of services like advertisement, science, development, transport logistics, consulting, and design. But also the cultural and tourist branches are characterized by growing figures. The BIP, produced within the Ruhrgebiet, is about 26% of the BIP of North-Rhine-Westphalia or 6% of Germany’s BIP. In comparison, the metropolitan area of São Paulo produces 17% of the national BIP of Brazil.

Purpose The topic is examined with a view to ascertaining the various methods by which indigenous oil companies can participate in petroleum development contract in Nigeria. Also, the raison d’etre of the policy will be considered to see whether the government has achieved its primary aim and how successive government has approach the issue with a view to determining the best policy to adopt. The challenges facing this policy will be considered with a view to unfold whether the Petroleum Industry Bill proffers solution. Design/methodology/approach This methodology of research is doctrinaire and analytical. The author used the available statute and case law in extrapolation of the views expressed in this paper; where necessary, secondary data as sourced from existing literature was used. Findings This paper revealed that the existing laws in Nigeria do not support public participation in the petroleum sector. so much is in the hands of the government. The paper also found that this government's monopoly of the sector is one of the reasons for the slow level of development in the sector. Originality/value This paper is original to the extent that it focusses on a relatively new area of public participation in the upstream petroleum sector in Nigeria. Most papers have often focussed on the downstream sector; however, this study seeks to re-direct the debate to the upstream sector.

Precious metals are to mercantile capitalism what paper is to industrial capitalism and what plastic and electronics are to post-industrial capitalism—which is to say, the different materials and their specific textual forms become the dominant, if not always preferred, means of transferring and storing value or wealth in their respective capitalist phases. As a distinct “text,” what separates the precious metals from the materials that follow them is that they are seen as “natural money.” In Capital, for example, Karl Marx endorses Galiani’s view that “although gold and silver are not by Nature money, money is by Nature gold and silver”(92-3). Common enough even among contemporary economists, this view relies upon a conception of “Nature” and money that paper began to unsettle and that the new forms of plastic and electronic money altogether erase. Thus Marshall McLuhan early on proclaimed that the new electronic technologies put “the very concept of money [ . . . ] in jeopardy . . .” (138-9). Even if this is in part true—and I think it is—how does one explain the current proliferation of money thanks to plastic cards and electronic money? Georg Simmel, in his monumental The Philosophy of Money, provides one possible answer. Discussing the war between Spain and the Netherlands, Simmel generalizes “ . . . and one might say paradoxically that, the more it is really money in its essential significance, the less need there is for it to be money in a material sense”(171). Plastic and electronic technologies, far from threatening the “very concept of money,” have worked to free the “essential significance” of money from its previous material forms. Certain forms of money may indeed be in jeopardy but, precisely because of this, the concept of money is all the more necessary to the ideological harmony of post-industrial capitalism. It would even be going too far to say that the new plastic and electronic forms of exchange threaten the aura of money. Instead, it is more advantageous to see these differing materials and their textual forms as representing competing mythologies. As a starting point, consider the de a ocho reales (pieces-of-eight) often referred to as the Spanish or pillar dollar. Minted from silver that came from the Spanish Empire’s silver mines in the New World, it represents the peak of mercantile capitalism. On its obverse side is the image of two worlds between two columns, representing the Pillars of Hercules. Winding around the columns is a banner with the inscription “plus ultra” (more beyond). On one level, this promise was frighteningly true—estimates range from a staggering 145,000 to 165,000 tons of silver extracted from the New World by Europeans (Weatherford 100). And yet, the promise of infinite wealth is belied, ultimately, by the finite nature of the material being used to fashion this text. In contrast, consider the inscription found on the first coin minted in 1787 by the newly established United States of America. The one-cent copper coin bears the motto “Fugio MIND YOUR BUSINESS” and shows the sun above a sundial. The references to time (fugio or I fly) are clearly indebted to the axiom “time is money”, which comes from a founding father of the new nation, Benjamin Franklin, who, perhaps more than any other, lived out and popularized its revolutionary ideology. “Mind your business” is equally Franklinesque and equally expressive of the spirit necessary for the emergence of industrial capitalism. Nonetheless, the coin’s advice, like the Spanish dollar’s promise, contains its own instability. The relatively congenial warning that wasting your time will cost you money is undercut by the pugnacious double entendre contained in “mind your business”, which can also mean stay out of other people’s affairs. The double meaning of “mind your business” encapsulates a rationalist utopia of individual citizens who serve the common good simply by tending to their own gardens or minding their own businesses. In less than seventy-five years, America’s Civil War violently exposed the internal contradictions of such an aspiration. Switching the motto of the Spanish silver dollar with that of the American copper penny results in a jarring confusion that illustrates the ideological divide between mercantile and industrial capital that the two coins represent. The Spanish dollar promises infinite wealth based upon trade, an individual’s appetite for “more,” and access to scarce commodities (gold and silver). The American penny promises endless work based upon production, self-interest, and access to cheap commodities, such as copper. This American work ethic fueled a pathological amassing of wealth that is similar to and yet distinct from the mercantile period preceding it. The differences and similarities are like those that Marx finds between the miser and the capitalist: “This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange-value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser”(151). Adapting Marx’s comparison, then, it would be more accurate to say the mercantile capitalist is an unfinished capitalist, distracted from his purpose by the maddening allure of the miser’s horde. While the industrial capitalist, on the other hand, may be the truer capitalist, he is still a miser, albeit a rational one. If capitalists are going to realize their full potential as “rational misers” the history of America shows they can only achieve this with a medium of exchange that is cheaper, more accessible, and more disposable than copper or any other metal. Through paper currency, America not only financed its revolution, making it the first nation in the history of the world to do so, it also financed its westward expansion, the North’s victory in the Civil War, and it unleashed the productive capacities necessary for an industrial revolution that would surpass its European rivals. The design found on America’s modern one-dollar bill—which except for minor changes has remained the same since 1935—reveals a textual indeterminacy, like that found in the Spanish dollar and America’s revolutionary copper penny. The first aspect of its indeterminacy is in the nature of all paper currencies. Their cheap materials, relatively easy production, and fiat value make them attractive to counterfeiters as well as governments. To a degree unmatched by coins, paper money’s text is driven by anxieties over counterfeiting. For example, the signatures of the U.S. Treasurer and Secretary of the Treasury on the front of America’s paper currency are motivated in part by this anxiety. But the signing of an official’s name holds a deeper significance, one that separates paper currency from metal. Paper currency seems to call for a signature the way metal coins call for heads in profile. Metal coins, even when machine made, still evoke the artisan and his mode of production—circumscribed, organic, and coherent. The very real artisanship that goes into paper currency is lost in a surreal sea of printed signs—open, fragmented, and dreamlike. The signature, although mechanically reproduced, leaves the trace of a human hand and the individual to which it belongs. In a world where exchange value is created by artificial means that are essentially limitless, the signature is a reassuring reminder of human limits and authority. A different sort of tension is on the back of the dollar bill. Here the front and back of the Great Seal of the United States are on either side of a “ONE” in large letters at the center of the rectangular design. The contraries contained in the Great Seal—war and peace represented by the olive branch and arrows the eagle holds in its talons and the material and the spiritual aspects of life represented by the unfinished pyramid and the eye of the Deity that shines above it—draw the viewer into a web of triangular sight lines. The back of the Seal encircles an apparent triangle formed by the pyramid and the eye above it. The encircled triangle in the Seal’s front is subtler. It is made by the number thirteen which appears in the thirteen stars above the eagle’s head and the thirteen olive leaves and arrows held in the eagle’s talons. This triangular symmetry is reinforced by the four numeral 1s with “one” written across them that appear one in each corner of the bill’s design. These 1s create bisecting diagonal sight lines that connect with and pass through the “ONE” at the center of the rectangle, thereby cutting the rectangle into four symmetrical triangles. At the very least, all this (in)visible triangular symmetry could be called overdetermined—an excessive attempt to impress order on a chaotic world and to naturalize the text’s claim as “legal tender.” If, as Simmel maintains, “all money is credit” (Ingham 24), then by one line of reasoning, it would be easy for credit cards to acknowledge this truth. Instead, like the other monetary forms we have examined, their texts work to obfuscate the social character of exchange value and naturalize or mythologize their authority. Like paper money’s connection to the printing press, credit cards are also connected to a revolutionary technology, the petroleum industry. It is fitting that credit cards are made of plastic, a by-product of oil refineries, since they originated in the 1930s as a convenience to drivers provided by the major oil companies. Even as different businesses extended the use of credit cards, they have retained their early association with the world of travel and the pleasures of mobility—both physical and social. With the company’s origin in the travel business, the American Express credit card is uniquely positioned to exploit the pleasures of mobility, and the history of its credit card designs helps to illustrate some of the ideological shifting required of post-industrial capitalism. As Jack Weatherford points out in his History of Money, American Express made effective use of a card class system. Starting in 1958 with their purple card, the color of royalty, they sought to attract consumers with a feeling of exclusivity. Some years later, they switched to the famous green card, the color of American money. In 1966, they added the distinction of the gold card for elite members. As the numbers of gold card members swelled, they sought further distinctions, such as the black card that was quickly replaced by the platinum card (229). A striking aspect of these textual permutations, given the focus of this paper, is the credit company’s reliance on the security of older monetary forms, such as precious metals and American paper currency, to attract consumers. Now that credit cards rule supreme, it is hard to recall consumers’ earlier antipathy towards them. In 1971, after credit cards were well established, one study found that almost one-third of the families interviewed thought it was “bad business to use credit cards,” and even among credit card users, nearly one-fifth felt it was “bad” (Moore and Russell 78). In contrast, the design of the latest card by American Express, its blue card, boldly proclaims the apotheosis of credit—a blue hologram suspended in transparent plastic. Here is the ultimate medium: a transparency that promises to take its possessor at the speed of light into the depths of hyperspace. Beneath these specific historical texts, lies a deeper and more general ontological association between plastic and movement, which Roland Barthes uncovers in his ruminations upon the substance in Mythologies. In its protean ability to imitate life, plastic is “less a thing than the trace of a movement”(97). And Barthes maintains our new plastic mobility revolutionizes our relationship to life itself. The finite character of metal and paper for storing and transferring wealth were always more or less apparent. Precious metals were limited by the natural laws of scarcity—first come, first served. Paper promised a world of infinite wealth, but it always threatened to hyperinflate, collapsing into worthless piles. Sometimes implicitly or sometimes explicitly, paper still relied on nature’s scarcity in order to justify its claim to value. Plastic needs no such justification. As Barthes puts it, with plastic, “the hierarchy of substances is abolished: a single one replaces them all: the whole world can be plasticized . . .”(99). In a plastic world, there are no limits on what or how much we can produce. And in such a world, only an abstract and infinite medium of exchange, such as credit, can promise to return our alienated labor to us through the plasticized commodities it purchases. Works Cited Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Anette Lavers. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990. Ingham, Geoffry. “’Babylonian Madness’: On the Historical and Sociological Origins of Money.” What Is Money? Ed. John Smithin. London: Routledge, 2000. 16-41. Marx, Karl. Capital Volume One. Ed. Frederick Engels. New York: International, 1987. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995. Moore, Carl H. and Alvin E. Russell. Money: Its Origin, Development and Modern Use. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1987. Simmel, Georg. The Philosophy of Money. Ed. David Frisby. Trans. Tom Bottomore and David Frisby. New York: Routledge, 1990. Weatherford, Jack. The History of Money. New York: Crown, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Rizzo, Sergio. "'Show Me the Money!'" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0401/09-rizzo.php>. APA Style Rizzo, S. (2004, Jan 12). 'Show Me the Money!'. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 7, <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0401/09-rizzo.php>