Regulation of the Upstream Petroleum Sector. A comparative Study of Licensing and Concessions Systems

摘要

There are 193 members of the UN today. In 2009 they were one less. Among these 192 states, 177 possessed their petroleum legislation, according to late Gordon Barrows, including 111 countries which implemented so-called "Tax plus Royalty" (T+R) systems (either licensing or concession systems (LCS) for subsoil use regulation), 55 states preferred upstream petroleum regulation based on production -sharing agreements/contracts (PSC), and 11 states used combined/hybrid approach (where both T+R/LCS and PSC regulatory systems of the upstream petroleum sector were in place in these states simultaneously). Among 177 states with petroleum legislation, 104 were oil-producing countries (73 states have in place their upstream petroleum legislation, but no commercial oil production), including 55 with T+R/LCS upstream petroleum regulation, 38 with PSC regime and 11 with combined availability of both T+R/LCS and PSC upstream petroleum regulatory regimes.