Abstract
At the commencement of petroleum production in the North Sea in the 1970s, both the UK and Norwegian governments implemented similar policies and governance strategies. However, UK governance was altered greatly from 1979 when state-owned oil and gas resources were privatised. During this period, the Norwegian government continued along the governance path that had been implemented in the early 1970s, guided by the ten ‘oily commandments’, where oil was developed for the social and economic benefit of the Norwegian state and the people.
After the election of the Tory government in 1979, the UK focused on placing oil and gas production resources into the hands of private actors, reflected in the UK legal and governance framework. However, in 2013, in an era of declining North Sea oil and gas production, the UK government undertook the Wood Review to establish how UK oil and gas in the North Sea can be developed in a way that maximises the economic recovery of the resources. The Wood Review identified the need to alter the existing governance framework in order to maximise recovery, akin to that which has evolved in Norway since the early 1970s. Similar to Norwegian legal requirements that have been enshrined in law since 1985, the implementation of the Wood Review has focused on collaboration between participants and the need for third-party access to infrastructure.
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Notes
- 1.
This was enacted in the UK as the Continental Shelf Act 1964, and in Norway as the Royal Decree of 9 April 1965 relating to exploration for and exploitation of petroleum deposits in the seabed and its subsoil on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
- 2.
The full name of this directive is Directive 94/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 1994 on the conditions for the granting and using authorizations for the prospection, exploration and production of hydrocarbons.
- 3.
Royal Decree of 31 May 1963 No. 1 Relating to the Sovereignty of Norway over the Sea-Bed and Subsoil outside the Norwegian Coast http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/NOR_1963_Decree.pdf (5 January 2017).
- 4.
The term ‘exploitation’ in this context is not negative. Rather it means the exploration, development and production of petroleum resources.
- 5.
‘Recovery’ refers to the extraction of petroleum from an oil field.
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Hunter, T. (2018). Converging Energy Governance in Mature Petroleum Provinces: Political, Legal and Economic Dimensions in Governing Mature Petroleum Fields in the North Sea. In: Raszewski, S. (eds) The International Political Economy of Oil and Gas. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62557-7_11
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