Nationalization of Energy Assets and Regional Welfare; Sakhalin 2007

Between 2001 and 2007, rising prices of oil and gas provided a gigantic domestic windfall for Russia’s government in the form of export duties and resource taxes. However, the windfall created incentives for the federal government to re-capture control rights to natural resource stocks. Thus, the pa...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Judith Thornton
Format: Report
Language:unknown
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.econ.washington.edu/user/thornj/ThorntonEnergyRegWelfare6_07.pdf
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Summary:Between 2001 and 2007, rising prices of oil and gas provided a gigantic domestic windfall for Russia’s government in the form of export duties and resource taxes. However, the windfall created incentives for the federal government to re-capture control rights to natural resource stocks. Thus, the past four years have seen a substantial transfer of effective ownership from private firms to government control. This study explores why multinationals were willing to commit billions of dollars of FDI to a remote Russian island in the North Pacific. It asks how the de facto re-nationalization of energy assets will impact the availability of advanced technologies, investment efficiency, and environmental risks to the North Pacific fishery.