This paper focuses on low-capacity countries courted by investors seeking access to petroleum resources during the exploration boom. In emerging oil hotspots, there has been growing interest in promoting national participation, largely by securing stakes in projects for national oil companies (NOCs). Some of these countries are new producers or remain in the exploration phase without having made any significant commercial discoveries, while others are established producers on a relatively modest scale and are now attracting renewed interest. The key question that emerges in all cases is how to organize and manage the petroleum sector in order to maximize the public benefit derived from oil and gas resources. In particular, what role should the NOC and other governing bodies have? This paper addresses the relationship among institutional structure and the goals of economic development and political accountability. It also examines the argument that oil producers are most likely to succeed when they separate commercial, policymaking and regulatory functions across distinct public bodies and restrict NOCs from performing any regulatory duties. Following on existing literature, this paper argues that the capacity level of a country at the time it seeks to establish an institutional structure has a major impact on which sorts of arrangements are most likely to succeed.
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