0.15 Natural capital: energy  (Page 14/15)

Figure 17-4 shows first the life cycle of the asset under present technology, as indicated by the curve F _1. With present technology, the exploration phase covers 10 years (with negative cash flows), while the development and production period lasts for about 15 years, up to exhaustion at about year 27.

Prospects for these offshore deposits would be greatly improved by advances in drilling technology under the difficult conditions found in very deep water.

An advance in this technology, portrayed as curve F ₂ , would extend the life cycle of the asset and vastly enhance financial returns: the exploration phase would be shorter, the development and production phases would be longer, and exhaustion of the deposit could be pushed out 5 years or more.

Of course, offshore drilling involved environmental risks that may cause host countries and foreign oil firms to have some second thoughts about undertaking very expensive and difficult-to-manage deepwater deposits. These risks become much in evidence after the May 2010 oil spill in waters off the Gulf of Mexico, involving British petroleum and several other firms.

Capturing benefits from energy endowments for emerging nations

As earlier noted no emerging nation, even those with large NOCs such as China’s CNooc or Brazil’s Petrobras has the technology to tap all available hydrocarbon sources, especially the relatively inaccessible and expensive newly diverse shale and pre-sal deposits and deposits lying under 10,000 feet of salt water.

For both types of deposits, there will be for some time need for foreign technology and capital to get hydrocarbons out of the shale, or out of deepwater deposits. That being the case, how can emerging nations best protect their interests in dealing with foreign firms such as Exxon, Chevron, Statoil, and Total.

One option would be to merely hire the firms to bring their exploration and drilling technology to the table and pay just for the technology? Ecuador attempted to do this in 1981. The State Oil Co. asked the author to advise them on whether or not they could just pay the foreign oil companies just to bring their technology capital, but with no share of any oil produced. It was clear that this would not work, for at least two reasons:

1. Large oil companies are organized to be big oil companies. They do not see themselves of simply sellers of technology or suppliers of the billions of dollars of capital required for oil exploration and development. They seek a share of oil or gas produced. They are, after all, oil companies.
2. For many emerging nations, such as Ecuador, Thailand, Colombia, the revenues of the oil companies are as big or usually even bigger than your EDP. That meant they are better able, or at least as able, to shoulder the major risks in all oil business:
   1. Market risk (what will be the price of oil internationally 2-5 years down the road, given volatile energy markets such as the world has experienced for decades).
   2. Technological risk – typical oil and gas projects today run into several billions of dollars. But there is no guarantee that commercial reserves will be found when this money is spent.