This chapter surveys the literature on the political-economy of oil and gas governance by focusing on the exploration, production and revenue sharing in the hydrocarbon sector. Emphasis is placed on the extent to which oil and gas governance is shaped by geopolitics and interpartyparty politics....

Persistent and significant privately-held stockpiles of crude oil have long been an important empirical regularity in the United States. Such stockpiles would not rationally be held in a traditional Hotelling-style model. How then can the existence of these inventories be explained? In the...