Resource management policy

This chapter examines offshore petroleum policy from the 1960s through to the present. Australia is characterised by its federal system and broad policy to maximise national prosperity by creating a framework for companies to explore and produce with limited state intervention. In contrast the Norwegian state’s policy has set objectives to benefit Norwegian society and uses a greater degree of state intervention. UK policy was similar to Australia’s and was based on attracting companies to become energy suppliers. The Wood Review in 2014 identified a need to evolve the licensing system to deal with the maturity of the UKCS. This saw the introduction of MERUKS and a new independent regulator, the OGA. The chapter compares the different approaches and discusses how they perform against those of the State Petroleum Governance Criteria dealing with stewardship.