The importance of energy to the functioning of any economy has meant that energy industries are amongst the most regulated of industries. What might appear to be purely private decisions are made within a complex and evolving web of government regulations. Petropolitics: Petroleum Development,...

`Oil Equivalence' is widely used to measure total hydrocarbon activity. Natural gas is converted to oil using a fixed factor, usually based on thermal measurement. In turn, expenditures on oil and gas are divided by such `oil equivalence' volumes to define unit costs, especially of reserve...