Many governments rely on oil companies to efficiently exploit natural resources. Governments have the challenging task of deciding which companies should be awarded exclusive rights to explore, develop, and produce their petroleum resources, and on what conditions such rights should be awarded. This paper analyzes the available evidence on the advantages and disadvantages of various systems used by petroleum-producing countries to allocate petroleum exploration, development, and production rights, and considers the policy implications of each system. The experience of six petroleum-producing...

National Oil Companies (NOCs) directly or indirectly control the majority of oil and gas reserves. As such, they are of great consequence to their country's economy, to importing countries' energy security, and to the stability of oil and gas markets. The paper analyzes the available evidence on the objectives, governance and performance of 20 NOCs from both net importing and net exporting countries, and draws conclusions about the design of policies and measures that are more likely to lead to social value creation. NOCs differ from private companies on a number of very important variables,...

A number of countries have recently discovered and are developing oil and gas reserves. Policy makers in such countries are anxious to obtain the greatest benefits for their economies from the extraction of these exhaustible resources by designing appropriate policies to achieve desired goals. One important theme of such policies is the so-called local content created by the sector--the extent to which the output of the extractive industry sector generates further benefits to the economy beyond the direct contribution of its value-added, through its links to other sectors. While local content...