Investment behaviour in the international oil and gas industry : essays in empirical petroleum economics
Doctoral thesis
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/184046Utgivelsesdato
2008Metadata
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Investment behaviour in the international oil and gas industry : essays in empirical petroleum economics by Klaus Mohn, Stavanger : University of Stavanger, 2008 (PhD thesis UiS, no. 51)Sammendrag
High growth and welfare aspirations will require massive energy investment
in the years ahead of us, especially in the non-OECD area. With more than 60
per cent of primary energy supply, oil and natural gas play a dominant role in
today’s global energy market. Even with high ambitions to contain
greenhouse gas emissions and arrest global warming, petroleum is likely to
remain an important source of energy in a 20-year perspective. A good
understanding of the investment process among oil and gas companies is
important to grasp the full picture of oil and gas supply. Insights from oil and
gas investment studies may translate into policies to improve the security of
energy supply, to promote energy efficiency and economic growth, and to pull
people out of poverty through the extension of affordable energy.
In petro-states like Norway, oil and gas investments play an important role for
macroeconomic fluctuations in the short to medium term. A proper
understanding of investment behaviour in the oil and gas industry is therefore
useful for economists, market analysts, policy-makers, and everyone who
takes an interest in economic and financial market fluctuations. Moreover,
strategies for resource management become important for any country rich in
petroleum resources. In this context, the links between exploration, reserve
accumulation, field development and production become important both to
corporate strategists and to policy-makers.
Profit maximisation is the key behavioural assumption for international oil
and gas companies, as for most other industries. However, some features are
specific to oil and gas production. The reserve concept is unique to nonrenewable
resource industries, and so is exploration activity. High capital
intensity, imperfect competition, and extensive political attention are some
other distinguishing characteristics. Industry-specific methods and tailored
analyses are therefore required. Combining industry-specific theories of
investment behaviour with the best statistical methods available, this thesis
adds new empirical insights on issues of capital formation and interaction
between companies and markets in the international oil and gas industry. [...]