ABSTRACT
National governments play an especially important role in offshore petroleum exploitation, because initially they own most of the resource base. They also establish policies for developing these resources. Government policies are, in turn, influenced by internal and external political pressures and economic forces not under their control. Furthermore, in contrast to the petroleum industry, governments usually have only a limited expertise and technology for developing petroleum resources. These realities, as Øystein Noreng noted in his incisive volume The Oil Industry and Government Strategy in the North Sea, put industry and government in a ‘bargaining situation’. 1
