COPEC
 COPEC Headquarters in Agnannet | |
| State-owned enterprise | |
| Industry | Oil and gas |
| Founded | September 6, 1945 |
| Founder | Jelal Medan |
| Headquarters | Agnannet, Charnea |
Key people | Aghu Rasul (CEO) |
| Products | Fuel and petrochemicals |
| Owner | Charnea |
Number of employees | 127,110 (2018) |
| Subsidiaries | Ejjaj |
The Charnean Oil, Petrochemical and Energy Corporation (Tamashek: ⴰⵣⵣⴰⵢⵜⴻⵏ, ⵙⴰⴴⴴⴰⵢⴽⴻⵎ ⴷ ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵔⴰ ⵎⴰⵎⴰⵏⴰ ⵏ ⵞⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ), better known as COPEC, is the state owned petroleum and energy company of Charnea. COPEC is the largest employer and second-most profitable corporation in in Charnea behind the Plexico Corporation, and provides roughly half of all yearly revenue for the state treasury. Charnea is a member of the Association of Oil Producing Nations, playing host to some of the largest unproven gas and petroleum reserves in the world. COPEC is the largest single generator of electric power in Charnea through its generation and grid management subsidiary Ejjaj, operating seven gas turbine, four oil fired and two solar power stations across the country. Ejjaj-operated power stations account for 13 of Charnea's 16 total electric power stations and roughly 80% of total generation. COPEC is the only solar power generation company operating in Charnea. The political influence of COPEC over the Charnean energy sector is largely responsible for the lack of penetration of photovoltaic solar power into the national market.
Because of its situation as a highly lucrative enterprise responsible for a large portion of government revenue, the management of COPEC is highly politicized and plays a strategic role in the internal affairs of the Charnean state. Prior to the Muttay Aljamaɣat, numerous high profile members of the Agraw Imgharan and the national AKE party, relatives of military officers and regime officials sit on the COPEC board of directors representing the various interest groups inside the Charnean government that are at least partially dependent on the COPEC revenue stream and direct the company's affairs accordingly. Politically motivated business deals and operational decisions at the highest levels of corporate governance within COPEC were in part responsible for the relatively depressed revenue statistics reported by the company, such as the sale of petrochemicals below market price to Charnean industrial firms including Plexico. The Muttay Aljamaɣat changed this condition, with the subsequent political purges of the Charnean political class eliminating a significant portion COPEC's leadership. Although this has represented a major shock to the company's operations, these are signs that the restructuring of COPEC's business model and corporate governance could positively affect efficiency and profitability and a greater share of the profits from the extraction industry are set to be re-invested in modernizing and improving the company's aging infrastructure.
History
The nationalization of the oil industry in Charnea in September of 1945 forced the merger of existing companies Charnopec, Agnannet Petroleum Co and many Charnean subsidiaries of foreign oil and gas companies into the state owned entity COPEC. This coincided with the start of the Agala War, which broke out a month prior to nationalization and served as the main justification for the action by the Charnean government, citing price gouging and market fluctuations detrimental to the war effort. The war had severely disrupted the Charnean petroleum extraction industry, drawing away much of the state funding and subsidies which drove the growth of the sector. Much of the oil extration up to the point of nationalization had been based in the Charnean far east, especially in Hatheria province, and had been dominated by Alanahri and Latin firms with a focus on exporting through Alanahri rail links to Periclean ports. Nationalization changed this dichotomy with oil operations expanding into the Azalay region in the western Tenere which quickly became the new center for oil production, displacing the Hatherian oil fields by the late 1950s. From 1960 to 1990, Azalay exploitation fueled steady growth in COPEC revenue and enabled the expansion of the company into additional refining capacities and enabling COPEC to add value to its product through the production of various petrochemicals such as diesel fuel, gasoline, kerosene and other hydrocarbons such as propane and butane. This expansion allowed COPEC to begin opening commercial gas stations across Charnea for the direct sale of its refined petroleum fuels to consumers by the late 1970s. During this same period, COPEC entered the power generation business through the subsidiary company Ejjaj utilizing its refined natural gas and oil products as fuel for the power stations. By the turn of the millennium, COPEC had gained a near-monopoly over the electric power in Charnea alongside its legal monopoly over the oil and gas industry.
Operations
Exploration
COPEC employs a large cadre of geologists and geo-physics specialists focused on exploration and prospecting activities in the Ninva desert. This has historically been done through a seismic exploration process involving the detonation of an explosive charge at a specific point in the desert such that well situated measuring equipment is able to read the shockwaves traveling through the ground and determined from readings the presence of subterranean fossil fuel reserves. In the modern day, sophisticated ground penetrating radar is increasingly used for exploration. Due to the extremely expansive area of the Ninva desert and the relatively low level of infrastructure of human settlement in the area, exploration of the region has been expensive and time consuming for the company. Identifying and mapping unproven or undiscovered reserves represents the single largest operational expenditure for COPEC, narrowly beating out extraction and refining expenditures.