Covering Oil: A Reporter’s Guide to Energy and Development

According to the publishers of this guide, in most resource-rich countries, natural wealth does not translate into prosperity for the majority of inhabitants, but instead leads to environmental and economic devastation, and hampers democratic reform. While an informed public can hold leaders to account, local reporting often overlooks the legal, economic, and environmental implications of resource extraction. A collaborative work of the Open Society Institute’s Revenue Watch programme and the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, this publication aims to encourage rigorous reporting on these issues by providing practical information about the petroleum industry and the impact of resource wealth on a producing country. The guidebook outlines the fundamentals of petroleum contracts, provides a glossary of relevant economic theory, and presents case studies of major public policy issues.

Chapters include:

1. Making Natural Resources into a Blessing rather than a Curse
2. Understanding the Resource Curse
3. A Primer on Oil
4. Oil Companies and the International Oil Market
5. The ABCs of Petroleum Contracts: License-Concession Agreements
6. Joint Ventures, and Production-sharing Agreements
7. Protecting Developing Economies from Price Shocks
8. The Environmental, Social, and Human Rights Impacts of Oil Development

The guidebook is a result of a series of workshops for journalists in the oil-exporting countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria, during which participants expressed a need for more information to help them understand the issues surrounding resource exploitation. It is the second in a series of Revenue Watch guidebooks designed for various audiences involved in the promotion of transparency and democratic accountability.