3. The Extractive Industries

The oil, gas, and mining sectors possess features that present special challenges to their management by governments. Many of these are common to all EI sectors, but a number of differences exist as well.  Good practice requires recognition of these common and different features in the design of sector policies and institutions.

The oil, gas, and mining sectors have features that present particular challenges to policy makers. They arise from the outset, at the policy design and legal framework stage, and are evident in subsequent stages to the management and allocation of revenues and ultimately the sustainable development of these resources.  Some, perhaps many, of these features are common to all three sectors (and some features are certainly common to developing countries in general)[1], but others are unique to each. For example, oil and gas are very alike at the so-called upstream stage, but natural gas takes on distinct ‘network’ characteristics in its transportation and distribution phases. This Chapter reviews the key features or fundamental characteristics that are relevant to policy-making and institutional arrangements in the EI sector, including best-fit practice. In Chapters 5 to 9 the influence of these features on good practice will be apparent in the treatment of particular topics.

Box 3.1 below shows information relating to the mapping of the EI sector, and Box 3.2 below gives examples (and links) of EI sector resources held on a linked World Bank website, CommDev.

Box 3.1: Mapping of the Extractive Industries sector:

 

Box 3.2: 'CommDev' resources on the Extractive Industies

The Oil, Gas and Mining Sustainable Community Development Fund (CommDev) is a funding mechanism for practical capacity building, training, technical assistance, implementation support, awareness-raising, and tool development. Extractive industries resources include a feature on EI Source Book partner the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM) and the GOXI social network, also a partner, and the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED), which promotes private sector development in developing countries. 

An event in March 2012, How To Manage Social and Environmental Risk for Oil, Gas And Mining, is featured, is also featured on a separate tab, and website downloads include the ICMM's Planning for Integrated Mine Closure: Toolkit. The above represent just one set of CommDev resources; further links to CommDev are showcased throughout the EI Source Book website.

 

Additional Reading:

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Africa

Latin America

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  • Job Kahigwa: I don't understand with this campaign about China's capital investment in extractive industries is all about. How does it become evil when Euro-American investors have been investing in Africa like for ever? Is this really about feeling petty for… read more
  • daniel gilbert: Most people in the sector, so to speak, actually see themselves as being on one side or other of the mining / hydrocarbons divide, rather than the Extractive Industries per se. Oil and Gas specifics and Mining specifics areas of the Source Book… read more