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The uncertainty that surrounds oil and gas exploration environments call for an examination at different angles. In terms of robustness, the purpose of this paper is to focus on three performance measurements: the amount of exploration investments, the growth rate of exploration investments, and the value at risk (VaR) of exploration investments.

The study utilizes the properties of discriminant analysis for deriving Z-score models that can be used for monitoring firms’ performance. A cointegration analysis is utilized as well in order to examine the level of cointegration between predictors of each performance measure. The sample includes annual data for 41 firms (local and multinational) working in the oil and gas industry in Egypt for the period 2009-2014.

The results show that amount and growth of exploration investment are quite robust performance measures in the oil and gas industry; VaR of exploration investment is sporadic as it firm-specific; and GDP, capital expenditure and operating expenditure are quite relevant for managing and monitoring growth of exploration investments.

The study offers robust evidence that amount and growth of exploration investment are quiet relevant for measuring firm performance in the oil and gas industry.

This paper aims to deepen our understanding on circumpolar current dynamics relating to oil and gas exploitation and the role of nations in the polar development process. Additionally, it is fundamental to raise the debate about the energy development in the Arctic and the fact that the exploration of oil and gas resources in the Arctic cannot be performed with the current governance regime, policies and legal framework. Arctic-specific natural ecosystems, the presence of indigenous communities and the commercial interest in the region will require an innovative model of development based on the highest level of responsible exploitation, diplomacy, regulation and policy-making.

This is an unexplored subject but the paper uses a review of past and recent literature, outcomes of recent “petit comités” with some of the involved parties, as a vehicle to discuss possible new approaches and paths for the future development of an innovative model of environmental governance relating to energy development in the Arctic region.

This paper demonstrates the necessity of improving the current governance patterns, as the author believes that energy development will have both positive and negative impacts on micro and macro levels. The first relevant contribution of these operations in the Arctic, undoubtedly, is the benefit for energy security levels at a global platform; however, the framework built up in terms of new legal cooperation agreements, policy-making and technological innovation in different areas will define the new Arctic citizenship as well as the Arctic’s geopolitics, and, consequently, the region’s destiny.

This is an unexplored subject, as it is an unexplored region. New literature about the region dynamics is being developed, as new licensing process is ongoing, and there are more questions than answers about open space for reflection and decision-making. Important data have not been published or shared in “petit comités” due to strategic interests and confidentiality reasons.

The major drivers of change could be described as energy security, climate change and transportation that will have a huge direct impact in the region under social, economic and environmental perspectives. The core practical implication of this reflection is the energy development model for the Arctic region.

How the Arctic’s energy resources will contribute to the global energy mix in the decades to come and the impacts of the governance regime to Arctic and non-Arctic societies is the first relevant question. Another fundamental aspect with huge social implications is how the climate changes will impact the Arctic environment and societies. These are themes that deserve more study and deeper analysis.

The paper provides a deep reflection of the challenges and future trends involving the new frontiers of the world energy exploration. Multidisciplinary dialogue and research on all aspects of offshore oil and gas development will require a shift in the current conceptual view of the Arctic as well as in the multilateral efforts to negotiate and design an efficient Arctic governance regime that goes beyond the setting of new standards of spill prevention, preparedness and safety, but a regime that congregates the Arctic and Non-Arctic nations’ experience, workforce and leadership.

When the Accounting Standards Steering Committee (ASSC) began the task of setting Accounting standards for the UK in 1969 there were many issues which needed their attention. The more fundamental issues applicable to almost all company accounts were naturally a high priority. Early standards therefore were not industry‐specific. This series of generally applicable standards continued up until 1981 when Exposure Draft 28, “Accounting for Petroleum Revenue Tax”, was issued with reference to the accounts of one industry alone. In this respect the ASSC and its successor the Accounting Standards Committee (ASC) were following a similar pattern to that of development of Accounting standards in the United States where a run of widely applicable standards beginning in 1973 was broken by the issue in 1975 of FAS 9 “Accounting for Income Taxes ‐ Oil and Gas Producing Companies”.

In countries with large or potentially large oil and gas deposits, the resource and its extraction tend to become vital cornerstones of the economy. However, uncertainties involved in finding commercial quantities of oil and gas and the intensive capital required for undertaking exploration and production result in significant business risks. The petroleum fiscal systems in many developing countries are now opting for production‐sharing contracts (PSC) as a new model of agreement for the exploration and production of oil and gas resources. This paper extends the principal‐agent theory to foster understanding of partnership between the host government and its foreign contractor in the realm of PSC. The theory highlights the importance of moral hazard and adverse‐selection problems. To avoid these uncertainties and asymmetric information, the principal (national oil company) needs to design an incentive contract that induces the agent (international oil company (IOC)) to undertake actions that will maximise the principal's welfare. Under a PSC, the state has to offer contract terms that are attractive enough for the IOC to enter into an agreement. At the same time, the terms must allow the state to receive maximum economic returns from the venture.

A reflection on some supposed oil exporting states constantly reminds of the (in) validity of the resource curse hypothesis and environmental consequences of oil exploration. In Africa, especially the case of Nigeria, the argument has remained whether the country's voluminous deposit of crude oil has positively affected the livelihood of the people. The study aims to examine the impact of oil production on the income level in Nigeria.

In this context, the study first examined validity of Dutch disease in Nigeria, thus providing a foundation to further establish the resource curse hypothesis. As such, the impact of crude oil production (CRUDE), square of crude oil production (CRUDESQ), crude oil reserves (RESERVES) and population (POP) on economic growth over the period of 1980–2018 is examined through the combination of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), fully-modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and canonical cointegration regression (CCR) methods.

While the study revealed the existence of Dutch disease in Nigeria, the resource curse hypothesis is also valid. However, the study found that the resource curse hypothesis in Nigeria can be over-turned when the CRUDE attains a certain maximum threshold, i.e. when crude oil output is doubled over time. In addition, either of crude RESERVES or oil rent (RENT) is seen as a limiting factor to economic growth while POP poses a positive and desirable impact on the country's economic development.

Thus, the implication of a U-shaped relationship between oil production and income level is that Nigeria's natural resources exploration could be employed to over-turn the potential of resource curse hypothesis by increasing exploration while the sources of leakages and misappropriation of the oil revenues are deliberately mitigated. Other useful socio-economic policies were proposed for the Government.

For the first time since the “limits to growth” debate of the 1970s, we hear serious talk about the prospect of the world running out of oil. In the United States, concerns about reducing dependence on foreign oil have incited debate over the viability of alternative energy sources versus the oil industry's search for new oil “frontiers.” The rancorous dispute over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR) has captured the spotlight in this debate. Less controversial, but more significant for the future of U.S. oil production, are the bountiful “deepwater” reserves of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Offshore is central to the history of the petroleum industry over the last 50 years, and the GOM is the most explored, drilled, and developed offshore petroleum province in the world. In recent decades, revenue from offshore leasing has been second only to federal income taxes in value to the U.S. treasury. During the last 30 years, the search for oil and gas has continually moved into deeper waters and into new offshore environments. Still, the GOM remains the primary laboratory for technological innovation and regulatory practices. The recent and spectacular revival in production there thanks to deepwater discoveries has strongly reinforced this demonstration effect. As offshore oil assumes a high profile in national development strategies around the world, any effort to analyze the political, social, and economic aspects of offshore exploration and development must use the GOM as a historical precedent or basis of comparison.

Norway is a small nation state on the northernmost coastline of Western Europe, integrated in the Western world economy. For centuries Norway's integration in the world economy had been based on exports of raw materials such as fish and timber, as well as shipping services. In the early 20th century, furnace-based metals (made possible by cheap hydropower) were added to this export basket. Just as the world economy entered an increasingly unstable phase in 1970s, another natural resource was discovered in Norway: petroleum – that is, oil and natural gas from the North Sea. This chapter analyses the challenges and possibilities inherent in the Norwegian strategy of developing an oil economy in a world economic situation influenced by new and stronger forms of international integration through the four decades between 1970 and 2010.

Using the case of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, I argue that the catastrophe was less an example of a low probability-high catastrophe event than an instance of socially produced risks and insecurities associated with deepwater oil and gas production during the neoliberal period after 1980. The disaster exposes the deadly intersection of the aggressive enclosure of a new technologically risky resource frontier (the deepwater continental shelf) with what I call a frontier of neoliberalized risk, a lethal product of cut-throat corporate cost-cutting, the collapse of government oversight and regulatory authority and the deepening financialization and securitization of the oil market. These two local pockets of socially produced risk and wrecklessness have come to exceed the capabilities of what passes as risk management and energy security. In this sense, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was produced by a set of structural conditions, a sort of rogue capitalism, not unlike those which precipitated the financial meltdown of 2008. The forms of accumulation unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico over three decades rendered a high-risk enterprise yet more risky, all the while accumulating insecurities and radical uncertainties which made the likelihood of a Deepwater Horizon type disaster highly overdetermined.

This case is one of a pair of cases used in a merger negotiation. It is designed to be used with “British Petroleum, Ltd.” (UVA-F-1263). One-half of the class prepares only the British Petroleum (BP) case, and one-half uses this case. BP and Amoco are considering a merger, and are in the process of negotiating a merger agreement. Macroeconomic assumptions, particularly forecasting future oil prices in an uncertain environment, and assumptions about Amoco's ability to reduce exploration and production costs make Amoco's future cash flows difficult to predict.

This case is one of a pair of cases used in a merger negotiation. It is designed to be used with “Amoco Corporation” (UVA-F-1262). One-half of the class prepares only the Amoco case, and one-half uses this case. BP and Amoco are considering a merger, and are in the process of negotiating a merger agreement. Macroeconomic assumptions, particularly forecasting future oil prices in an uncertain environment, and assumptions about Amoco's ability to reduce exploration and production costs make Amoco's future cash flows difficult to predict.