View From a Height

Oil: Canary in a Coal Mine?

I'm now trying to get out of the web development biz, and into equity analysis, and interviewers are going to want to see work product. I don't actually have much work product, but one of the analyst positions I've applied for is an oil equity analyst. I'm sure once I'm finished writing them up, I'll post them over here, but for the moments, I'm following the industry news pretty closely.

Then, I noticed the Washington Post had an article about the creeping takeover of oil reserves by governments:

Peter J. Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron, worries about the increasing dominance of national oil firms. Given that they already control more than three-quarters of the world's oil reserves, "if governments can come along and gobble up the rest of it at a percent or 2 percent at a time, pretty soon the commercial business looks pretty thin," Robertson said.

You'll notice, by the way, that every country with nationalized oil companies and oil reserves is a prosperous, peaceful example of the democratic rule of law.

I can't see any way this is good - for the countries, where it will just perpetuate corruption; for the independent companies, who will have to pay higher prices and will likely face a future of endless technology transfer; for the world economy, which will pay to subsidize Hugo Chavez's not-so-excellent adventures.

International oil companies and national companies, while sometimes rivals, often work together. In many cases, national oil companies lack the money, technology or managerial skill needed to develop big projects and seek to work with the bigger firms.

But some national oil companies have gained enough know-how to begin closing that gap. According to PFC data, more deals are being made between national oil companies, allowing one to operate in another's home country -- leaving the international firms out altogether.

Time to go back and re-check those growth estimates...

Posted by joshuasharf at August 5, 2005 12:55 PM | TrackBack