ABSTRACT
The governments had to create a certain harmony between external tasks and internal organisation. The analysis emphasises the service functions of government agencies over the co-ordination and policy formulated by central government organisations. The pattern of government organisation for dealing with oil is now in the UK and Norway. In fiscal matters the Treasury Department is involved in the UK and in Norway the Finance Ministry and its subordinate organisation, the Central Tax Board, are responsible. In the UK and Norway, British Petroleum and Norsk Hydro are examples of semi-public oil companies which are in practice independent. In a system of licensing through auctioning there would be a tendency for the richest companies to get the most prospective areas. The reliance of the North Sea model upon administrative licensing rather than licensing by auctioning means, at least implicitly, giving a higher priority to political control, and to control of the micro-economic aspects, than to the capture of the economic rent.
