Abstract

Ghana is often cited as one of Africa’s most stable democracies. Since 2004, the country has awarded 18 petroleum agreements to various international oil companies (IOCs) and their local partners to explore for hydrocarbons in its offshore basins. In 2010, Ghana became an oil-producing country following earlier commercial discoveries in 2007. Nevertheless, the likelihood of the Ghanaian State getting its fair share of petrodollar revenues primarily depends on its ability to negotiate good petroleum contracts and effectively regulate the industry. This article examines the legal and political economy factors that influence contract outcomes in Ghana’s oil and gas industry. It sheds light on how the inner workings of the political economy, especially in a competitive clientelist setup involving intense electoral competition between two dominant parties in an emerging oil-producing country, influence contractual outcomes—an area less explored in the literature. We find that the country's emerging oil and gas industry has become deeply intertwined with the pervasive, entrenched and clientelist multi-party politics of the day. As such, entrenched rentier social groups—business and political elites—have sometimes sabotaged institutional reform to create conditions that favour rent capture. This is evident, for example, in the award of oil and gas licensing and other supply chain contracts. Ghana’s post-1992 ‘winner takes all’ political mindset and the perceived big financial bonanzas the oil industry offers, resulted in suspicions of impropriety regarding the award of some oil acreages. We argue that if the laws were allowed to work, as they should in practice, Ghana’s oil and gas industry would be better regulated, and better outcomes would arise from the contracting process. Discretionary power should be limited as much as possible and, where granted, subject to a high level of scrutiny.

中文翻译：

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政治重要吗？加纳上游油气行业承包决策的法律和政治经济学分析

摘要

加纳经常被认为是非洲最稳定的民主国家之一。自 2004 年以来，该国已向多家国际石油公司 (IOC) 及其当地合作伙伴授予 18 份石油协议，以在其近海盆地勘探碳氢化合物。2010 年，加纳在 2007 年的早期商业发现之后成为石油生产国。然而，加纳国家获得石油美元收入的公平份额的可能性主要取决于其谈判良好石油合同和有效监管该行业的能力。本文探讨了影响加纳石油和天然气行业合同结果的法律和政治经济因素。它揭示了政治经济学的内部运作方式，尤其是在涉及新兴产油国两个主要政党之间激烈的选举竞争的竞争性客户主义设置中，会影响合同结果——这是文献中较少探索的领域。我们发现，该国新兴的石油和天然气行业已经与当时普遍、根深蒂固和客户主义的多党政治紧密交织在一起。因此，根深蒂固的食利者社会群体——商业和政治精英——有时会破坏制度改革，以创造有利于获取租金的条件。例如，在授予石油和天然气许可以及其他供应链合同时，这一点就很明显。加纳 1992 年后“赢家通吃”的政治心态和石油行业提供的巨大金融财富，导致有人怀疑在授予一些石油种植面积方面存在不当行为。我们认为，如果允许法律发挥作用，就像它们在实践中应该的那样，加纳的石油和天然气行业将得到更好的监管，并且合同过程会产生更好的结果。自由裁量权应尽可能受到限制，并在授予的情况下接受高度审查。