PETROLEUM ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT JOURNAL |
The Petroleum Accounting and Financial Management Journal is in its 19th year of publication. Published three times per year, the Journal targets a readership of petroleum and financial professionals at the mid- to high-management levels. As the petroleum industry of today is by necessity a global industry, today's Journal reflects this with an increased coverage of international issues and a larger number of international contributors among its authors. The Journal endeavors to balance the coverage of both international and domestic issues confronting the oil and gas industry, as well as an appropriate mix of articles from both academic and industry professionals. Over the past two years, the Journal has had a policy of publishing single-focus issues on a topic of current interest to the petroleum industry. To facilitate this process, the Journal has used guest editors for each single-topic issue. The Fall/Winter 1994 issue focused on environmental concerns with Charlotte Wright of Oklahoma State University, the Journal's environmental columnist, as guest editor; the Spring 1995 issue, edited by Manuel Herrera, featured natural gas issues. Other single focus issues have featured international matters, royalties, and taxation. Typically, the guest editor will write a keynote article giving a broad overview that is then supported by 8-10 additional articles focusing on a specific aspect of the topic at hand. The guest editorship serves two purposes: an authority in the field who can bring a breadth of coverage to an issue and a resource who, through contacts developed over the years, has access to other writers willing to share their expertise on a narrower aspect of the topical focus. The single-topic approach has worked well for the Journal and will be continued into the foreseeable future. One reason the guest editorships have worked well is the continuity provided by having the Director of the Institute serve as both editor-in-chief and publisher of the Journal. Under his supervision, the Journal maintains a consistent professional standard, and through his connections within the industry and the academic establishment, he has secured recognized experts who have been willing to devote their time and talents to producing a high-caliber, professional publication. The managing editor works closely with the guest editor and individual contributors in turning out a technically polished publication. As an example, the managing editor's ability and willingness to rewrite and edit an article from what may have originally been a speech presented to a professional organization has allowed the Journal to secure opinions from industry experts who might have ordinarily been intimidated by the thought or reluctant to commit the time necessary to produce a printed piece. The Institute maintains control of content, appearance, and quality, and minimizes printing costs, by utilizing staff to produce the Journal in-house. Continuing columns in the Journal focus on financial accounting and reporting, COPAS activities, environmental issues, and taxation. Each spring the Journal publishes a comprehensive, topical index to all articles which have appeared in the Journal since its inception. Each issue of the Journal includes a list of other Institute publications and an order form by which interested readers may purchase them. Through this marketing venue, the Institute is able to offer such products as the Coopers & Lybrand Survey of Accounting Practices in the Oil and Gas Industry and, most recently, the United Kingdom Oil and Gas: A Financial Guide, published by Chiltern Publications, U.K., for which the Institute serves as U.S. distributor. The Journal also enjoys a cooperative advertising exchange relationship with several other periodicals, including The Accounting Review and Oil & Gas Law and Taxation Review. Under this informal and mutually beneficial arrangement, the Institute carries ads in the Journal for their publications in exchange for which they do the same with Journal ads. |