Paparazzi Ethnography

1/21: London. I met with Michael H. at Deutsche Bank, who provided me with materials to consider, in expectation of my possibly carrying out an internship on oil and gas finance. I was absorbed in reading the materials as I took the tube over to Heathrow and to Oslo, where I am now.

Finding Deutsche Bank is not easy. London’s financial downtown is a maze. There are small alleys and intricate paths. I took the tube from Chancery station to Bank street and  got lost looking for 1 Great Winchester Street. A fellow tourist had a detailed map and she pointed me in the right direction.

As you walk into Deutsche Bank, there is a big metallic ball in the lobby. I took a few photos before being instructed by security that no photographs in the building are allowed. As I moved toward the elevators, I saw other art installations throughout the lobby.

Deutsche Bank is well known for its art collections. Upon my arrival at the appointed floor, I was handed several brochures about these holdings. There is a special curatorial floor, with actual curators. Some of the art work is depicted on the security badge itself, as you can see in the above image.

One of the administrative assistants, while waiting for my meeting, gave me a detailed description of the methods used for putting together the art pieces on display at the floor of my appointment.

It was not a simple description. The language she used, the flow of narration, and the multiple art pieces she used as examples, indicated a thorough training in what she was talking about. She was dressed in a uniform.

I enjoyed our meeting. We had met the year before in Norway at the Oslo Energy Forum. He walked through various different aspects of what he is involved in, capital expenditures, commodity sales, pre-project development, financing. Because of the frontier element of my work, pre-project development and capital expenditures interested me greatly.

The meeting was about 45 minutes or so, and after gathering my reading materials, I suggested that I would get back to him to find out if we could follow up on a period where I could spend time in the Bank.

I also had a chance to catch up with Ben M. from JP Morgan. We also met last year at the Norwegian Oslo Energy Forum.  He invited me over to lunch with him and a colleague. I was able to take a few shots of the viewshed outside our luncheon window. I also captured a few images of the preparation of our lunch.

We discussed a number of issues, surrounding arctic frontier development. Ben mentioned that he had visited the offshore Snøvit liquefied natural gas installation in Barents Sea of Norway, and from there headed over to Svolvær. We also touched briefly on the topic of energy consultants and the requirement they have in providing information in a simplistic manner for government leaders to make decisions.

I met with Francis G. at the Lanesborough Hotel at Hyde Park Corner near Buckingham Palace. Speaking with Francis was one of the best conversations I have had on this project. We began with a quick overview of the oil and gas situation globally, comparing it to renewables, which he invests in, but does not believe — given the enormous demands for hydrocarbons and the amount of energy they release — will be valued in the near or far future. I agreed with him on the issue of the btu output consumed by Americans is enormous, and we both provided our own stockpile quotes of incredulous power availability by comparison to earlier times, with me giving my usual quote from Vaclav Smil.

We then went on to my project proper. Francis was one of the most perceptive interlocutors I have come across. His terminology and framework were nearly identical to Bruno Latour’s description of how to follow science in society. In the latter case, the issue is enrollment and convincing others wherein artefacts become facts and therefore natural. Similarly, Francis suggested that a leader has to convince a variety of industry to get on board, and that one must weigh the facts which is a process of looking at data–to-information-to-knowledge and how these three categories move frequently back and forth (facts to artefacts).

In so doing, I reached a deep level discussion on what I was doing. For this Francis suggested that one of the deliverables for industry could be, and on this point he was very interested, in developing a model of how decisions occur or how leaders make decisions or leadership qualities in particular. How they weigh certain decisions.

We drank water (me sparkling his flat) and the meeting lasted about 1.5 hours.

1/18: Chilly and rainy. Sitting in Euston station having a coffee, not much different from how I begin the day anywhere else in the world. The only difference of course, is that I battled through the crowds this morning from Emma’s flat through the tube to downtown.

Today, I am headed to IIED, and then around 2PM going over to meet Francis G.. Afterward heading over to Energy Institute. From IIED to The Lanesborough at Hyde Park Corner:

From the Lanes Borough to the Energy Institute, 61 New Cavendish:

Londoners are gregarious. Yesterday while having a coffee I had the chance to chat with Sofie Howarth, who is writing a book about community outreach and who after hearing about my work, suggested I contact her brother who works in energy financing, straight away giving me his email address. Back at IIED, we worked till about 7:30PM and headed back to a pub for steak and ale, afterward catching a margarita in a local bar near Emma’s where it’s open mic night every evening.

1/17: My first day in London, spending the afternoon at IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development). Gosh, how can I explain everything, what a different planet from Berkeley. I picked up one their brochures and must have read it three times and even then did not quite understand everything. So sophisticated!

The folks here are polite and considerate. I have a little desk space, and my mate opposite me is Abbi B., with an MA from London School of Economics and works on value chains. In fact, I just spent the last 20 minutes talking in a confusing fashion, exited and rapidly, about my reaction to her recently written policy brief titled, Under what conditions are value changes effective tools for pro-poor development?

I was so enthusiastic, but perhaps it was the caffeine from the double-triple shot latte I ordered to keep me awake, since it is about 7AM west coast time, having just got off the plane several hours before, trotting through London’s tube from Heathrow airport over to Chancery St., to IIED’s beautifully renovated 5 story building, where down the street there are lovely luncheons, and coffee shops.

Emma W., senior member of the IIED’s sustainable Markets Group, is a friend whose work I admire very much. A few things caught my attention immediately — there are no private offices on the floors, and one result is that everyone whispers when they speak to each other, privacy is created by low talking, and at the same time, I must say, I am VERY much interested in what people are saying in low tones, so much so, that I even went so far as to comment to one of the researchers about her use of the phrase “I will put that on my top priority” — we had a good laugh (although, not a loud one) over my comment that in the good ole US of A, the very use of that phrase means the exact opposite.

I should say, however, when I arrived at lunch time in the cafe downstairs, there was quite bustle with folks laughing and talking, exchanging ideas, I immediately felt at home.

Emma and I have had some engaging discussions about the production of knowledge, and on more than one occasion, especially this morning while taking the bus through downtown London, she pointed out how dismissive I can be when talking about non-academic work to which we had a good laugh. But it was instructive as I began to think about some of the fault lines in our discussion and mentioned to her, perhaps the difference between IIED and my work or what I call academic work — is the difference between reproduction of discourse and novelty. I consider that what I produce is novelty as my marketable product whereas knowledge houses like IIED produce standardized productions, within definite niche settings. That was my argument.

And this brought us to the main critique I had, especially of universities, that most of these houses are more interested in name recognition than they are in producing great ideas. To this Emma was in agreement, all the so-called formats, type fonts, the policy briefings and broadcasts of promotions, all of the mature practices in place for producing, distributing, assembling — all oriented toward the effort of increasing one’s value in terms of name recognition.

Anyway, the conversation came about because last night — we were putting together a talk for the Arctic Frontiers presentation in Tromsø.

The talk, primarily Emma’s project, is about the difference between the desire to promote a concept of dialogue, and actual experiences she could think of where there was true dialogue (not many). We then went after a definition of dialogue, used by most folks, based on Habermasian distinctions of consensus building. On this, the assumption that academics take issue with Jürgen Habermas — is that much like the definition of liberal economics, dialogue assumes that everyone in the room is a so-called enlightened reasoned subject.

From there we began thinking about various categories of engagement that restrict dialogue, that are available to oil and gas engagement with northern communities. The argument we took up was essentially that in liberal states, there is the requirement to make demands from the liberal state, and it has nothing to do with dialogue, but that claims making requires making demands. We back tracked to include James Clifford‘s use of creating new interests along new axes of common purpose — essentially speaking last night and this morning on variations of enlightened reason claims making.

1/16: On the plane to london — read J. Godzimirsky’s pipelines and identities, current European debate on energy security, Shtokman and negp case (2006), looking at the Barents Region developments to consider them in larger geo-political relief about EU trends toward Russia. There’s quite a bit here on the so-called need for Russia to have western expertise in developing the high north or off shore and LNG deposits. I began wondering about typologies of required expertise in the literature, on shore (no); off-shore, LNG (yes).

Read V. Socor’s gazprom and the prospects of a gas cartel and Europe’s energy security, written about 3 years ago. What a difference 3 years makes. He suggests we build pipelines to Central Asia and make friendly with Iran in order to curb Russia’s thirst for power. Skimmed through book chapters for my edited volume with M. Watts  – Looks good!

Reading Indra Overland’s piece on gas cartels, practically had a nervous breakdown trying to think about what to write for a book chapter due February, when it struck me that the title of my proposed piece  — cartel consciousness and horizontal integration in energy industry — could easily be about the rise of a natural gas cartel as discussed by various practitioners these days. Could be.


1/11: Turning my attention now to what is at hand:

• Working with Emma W. Senior Researcher at IIED, on a keynote presentation for Arctic Frontiers in Norway. We went through several drafts and it’s still up in the air. Will work with her when I arrive.

• Francis Robert G., runs G. Consulting suggests we meet in the drawing room of the Lanesborough hotel, on Hyde Park Corner on Wednesday, January, 18 at 15:30. We met at Oslo Energy Forum. His world is populated by CEOs of oil and gas companies, who serve with him on various advisory panels that oversee global investment in natural resource development. One such group is Barclays Natural Resource Investment or BNRI, which has committed nearly $2 billion in 18 projects. Mr. G. is also a Chairperson for the Board of Directors of Petroleum Geo-Services, a Norwegian concern that focuses on data acquisition, analysis and interpretation. On their website, they state: “We help oil companies to find oil and gas reserves offshore worldwide”. PGS provides a MultiClient Library defined by 400,000 square kilometers of “high quality worldwide” three-dimensional seismic data.

• Ben M. at JP Morgan Office located on 10 Aldermanbury on Thursday, January, 19 at 12:00. The message I received stated “Ben would like to invite you to lunch at our office on that day”. Another fellow from Oslo Energy Forum. A few images on this building can be found from John Elkington, who writes in London on global capitalism and sustainability. Ben is Managing Director, Head of EMEA Oil and Gas. The Acronym stands for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Quite a region. He was quoted most recently by Financial Times journalist, Anousha Sakoui, on the topic of Atlantic off-shore development in Africa: “Given the global reserve replacement pressures on the oil majors, Africa is a region where they can deploy differentiated exploration and project management capability,” says Ben M., head of Europe, Middle East and Africa oil and gas at JPMorgan in London. “The sheer scale of the exploration opportunity in Africa makes it compelling for resource-hungry oil majors. Positions in Brazil transformed the equity story of those companies who saw the potential first. Companies are looking to replicate this now in east and west Africa.”

• Michael H., Head of Energy for EMEA at Deutsche Bank, Winchester House, 1 Great Winchester Street, on 11 AM Friday January 20. In Oslo earlier this year, I met with Edward C., Chairman, Global Corporate Finance. He directed me to Michael.

• I want to stop by Wood Mackenzie Global Consultants to check out, at least that building. Here’s the address from their website: