ABSTRACT
Should the energy sector be in private hands or run by state-owned companies? Most of the world’s major energy-producing countries have decided that their energy sectors should be state-controlled. After the global wave of privatization during the 1980s and 1990s, there has been a marked trend toward re-nationalization of the oil and gas sectors. As a result, as of 2008, state-owned companies accounted for over 85 percent of worldwide production and over 95 percent of global reserves. Only four of the world’s 20 largest oil and gas companies, measured by oil equivalent reserves, are in private hands. And the world’s largest private oil company, Russia’s Lukoil, ranks only fifteenth, closely followed by ExxonMobil, BP, and Chevron.1
