Mapping the oil elite web: Elite network embeddedness and firm-territory relations of the UK oil industry

The oil and gas industry remains central to global production and consumption, wielding significant economic and political power. This power stems not only from the strategic value of its resources but also from the industry’s embedded social power. This paper conceptualizes and analyzes this social embeddedness through the lens of elite network embeddedness. It opens up the black box of the firms at the top of the oil and gas industry and highlights the importance of human agency, in particular the corporate directors in charge of the firms. Building on economic geography and economic sociology literature, we explore how lead oil and gas (O&G) firms are socially and territorially embedded through their directors’ elite ties, focusing on the O&G sector of the UK Continental Shelf in the North Sea (UKCS). Sourcing firm and people data from BoardEx (2016–2020), we utilize social network analysis and complementary qualitative research (e.g. semi-structured interviews). We find that lead firms with significant control of O&G assets in the UK are embedded in extensive national and transnational corporate networks and extensively connected to politics and policy planning through elite networks. We also find US elite ties to be dominant across these three domains, highlighting the continuing influence of US elite power structures within the UKCS oil sector even as US O&G firms have significantly reduced their operations in the North Sea. This study hence offers a new perspective on how firm-territory relations of the UKCS O&G industry are geographically and societally embedded through elite networks.