Topic summary
Gas industry
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Petroleum industry.
Social impact
The oil and gas industry spends only 0.4% of its net sales on research & development (R&D) which is in comparison with a range of other industries the lowest share. Governments such as the United States government provide a heavy public subsidy to petroleum companies, with major tax breaks at various stages of oil exploration and extraction, including the costs of oil field leases and drilling equipment. In recent years, enhanced oil recovery techniques – most notably multi-stage drilling and hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") – have moved to the forefront of the industry as this new technology plays a crucial and controversial role in new methods of oil extraction.