Drilling expenses have increased sharply in recent years. The productivity of drilling operations – in terms of meters drilled per day – significantly influences exploration costs. Hence it is important to understand the factors that determine drilling productivity. In this study we analyze...

We explore a hypothesis that a change in investment behaviour among international oil companies (IOC) towards the end of the 1990s had long-lived effects on OPEC strategies, and on oil price formation. Coordinated investment constraints were imposed on the IOCs through financial market pressures...