As China is dependent on oil and gas imports to maintain its high growth rates, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Central Asia have become increasingly important for the country's economic development. In May 2014, China and Russia signed a new gas deal, for example, and in recent...

Governments in extraction countries are anxious to estimate expected investment in development projects, since they represent an essential element of the macro economy. The overall level of activity is also crucial to oil companies, since the macro picture affects cost levels, the supplies...

This paper attempts to offer specific inputs to the debate on local content promotion in the oil industry, using the specific case of São Tomé and Príncipe as point of reference. Our approach emphasizes inter-sectoral linkages and institutional pre-conditions for local content promotion....

This paper explores from a regional perspective the distorted nature of trade in energy products within the CIS countries. The persistence of pricing distortions, barter arrangements, and discriminatory access to pipelines, as well as failure to honor contracts, has disrupted and distorted...

We discuss and reconcile two diametrically opposed views concerning the future of world oil production and prices. The geological view expects that physical constraints will dominate the future evolution of oil output and prices. It is supported by the fact that world oil production has...

This paper analyses the conditions under which the Surinamese State Oil Company (Staatsolie) has been consolidated, not only as a firm oriented at the production of oil, but also as a development agent. Staatsolis chances to success seemed rather slim at its creation in the beginning of the...

The paper employs a heuristic comparative approach suggested by Ismail (2009) to search for evidence of Dutch disease in oil-rich countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). While these countries have benefitted from high international oil prices in recent years,...

This paper explores whether asymmetric pricing can be identified in the eleven euro zone countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) by utilizing Error Correction Model on the weekly price changes in order to assess current and...

This paper analyses the conditions under which the Surinamese State Oil Company (Staatsolie) has been consolidated, not only as a firm oriented at the production of oil, but also as a development agent. Staatsolis chances to success seemed rather slim at its creation in the beginning of the...

The wave of privatization in the 1980s and 1990s increased productivity of many previously state owned enterprises (SOEs). However, governments often do not have su±cient support to privatize SOEs. We provide evidence that threatening privatization and market competition (entry of new firms)...