Atmospheric emissions urgently need to reduce for natural gas to fulfill its potential role in the energy transition to achieve the Paris Agreement on climate change. This paper establishes the magnitude and trends of flaring and venting in oil and gas operations, as well as their emissions and...

This second paper on hydrocarbon gas flaring and venting builds on our first, which evaluated the economic and social cost (SCAR) of wasted natural gas. These emissions must be reduced urgently for natural gas to meet its potential as an energy-transition fuel under the Paris Agreement on...

The global energy transition is happening, but too slowly to limit climate change to acceptable levels, for diverse reasons. Carbon emissions policies and measures focus too little on absolute emission targets and too much on relative measures such as carbon intensity. Focus is needed on early...

This paper, the first of two on global oil theft and fraud, discusses the prevalence, methods, and consequences of global oil theft, valued at US$133 billion per year and equivalent to 5-7 per cent of the global market for crude oil and petroleum fuels. However, the impact of oil theft is...

This second of two papers on global oil theft discusses ways to reduce oil theft, misappropriation, and fraud. At US$133 billion per year, oil is the largest stolen natural resource globally, while fuel is the most smuggled natural resource. Oil theft equates to 5-7 per cent of the global market...

Underlying the management of revenues from natural resource extraction is a set of assumptions about how abundant and how valuable these resources are. Nevertheless, existing approaches to measuring the value of extractive resources are seriously flawed. This paper proposes two avenues for...

The taxation of the mining industry varies considerably from nation to nation. This paper reflects on the evolving use of various taxation approaches applied by governments to the mining sector. It includes a description of the principal tax types and investment tax incentives and briefly...

In the context of falls in extractive commodities prices since 2011, this paper examines the history of thinking about the interplay between extractives and economic development. Just as 'the resource curse' fails as a generic explanation on account of the huge diversity in country contexts, so...

This paper discusses the channels of impact of an extractives activity on an economy by presenting a brief description supported by graphics of the different routes through which the direct economic and social impacts of these activities might be enhanced. These routes include those that often...

This paper synthesizes statistical information evidencing the proposition that extractive industries are of great significance in many low- and middle-income developing economies. It examines the scale of the current dependence of low- and middle-income economies on both types of extractive...