EconAir

Middle East Oil Wells OVERVIEW Outside of the United States and Canada, most of the world’s oil and natural gas is owned and produced by governments or government-dominated companies with minority shareholders. Two examples of the latter, public companies with stockholders, are Petrobras in Brazil and Gazprom in Russia.   But government officials, especially the president, control management and make the important decisions. Production and investment decisions are not made based on financial criteria alone.   Often, internal political or foreign geopolitical factors are more important. Many countries' economies and government budgets depend critically on oil and natual gas revenue from exports. Maintaining internal peace and welfare programs are more important than rational economic considerations. What this means is that production and distribution decisions in these countries are made using different criteria than by private companies in the United State...