Regulation of The Upstream Petroleum Sector: A Comparative Study of Licensing and Concession Systems edited by Tina Hunter Published by Edward Elgar, 2015, 392 pp. + xxxiii, £115, hardback.

• Date: 01 July 2019
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Author: Hephzibah Egede
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12297

RECIEL. 2019;28:223–229.    

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/reel

DOI: 10 .1111/reel .12297

BOOK REVIEWS

REGULATION OF THE UPSTREAM

PETROLEUM SECTOR: A COMPARATIVE

STUDY OF LICENSING AND CONCESSION

SYSTEMS edited by Tina Hunter

Published by Edward Elgar, 2015, 392 p p. + xxxiii, £115, har dback.

Tina Hunter’s edi ted book provide s a comprehensive s tudy of the

key legal regimes t hat regulate the upstream petr oleum sector. It is

a useful guide for r eaders who want to have a clearer unde rstand‐

ing on how the petr oleum industr y is regulated in the twenty‐firs t

century. The book i s a highly relevant co ntribution to th e practice

and study of pet roleum law, policy and governan ce and the growing

specialism of pet roleum law could do with mo re comparative studi es

of this nature.

Divided into fou r thematic parts, the b ook begins with an examina‐

tion of the princi ples of petroleum law. Part I provid es an introductory

overview of the fu ndamentals in petrole um law such as lex petrolea and

the differen t types of legal regi mes for upstream pe troleum exploit ation.

In this part, A lex Warwyk provides an i nteresting critique of th e elusive

concept of lex petrolea. Other key work s have extensively discus sed this

concept, but War wyk’s contribution is a he lpful addition to the exist ing

body of literatu re. It provides a readable acco unt of the role of industry

agreements and investor–State disputes in determining whether there is

an establish ed concept of lex petrolea. However, the chapter could have

distinguishe d itself from other works on lex petrolea if it had di scussed

in more detail th e concept of the social/community licen ce to operate.

While the chapte r does briefly to uch on this point, i t could have been

further en riched if it had provided some r eflections on how this licen ce

affects t he current under standing of the scope of lex petrolea. Further

perspect ives could have been proff ered on how the concept imp acts on

other stakeholders outside the international petroleum industry.

The other chapte r in Part I, by Tina Hunter, focuses on a ccess

to petroleum through the licensing and concessionary framework.

While the title of H unter’s chapter (‘Access t o Petroleum unde r

the Licensing an d Concession Syste m’) suggests a fo cus on these

two petroleu m regimes, its d iscussion exten ds to other contra ct‐

ing regimes such as s ervice contr acts and pro duction‐sha ring

contracts ( PSCs). The explan ation of the diff erent types of co n‐

tracting regimes is particularly useful to students and researchers

requiring an overview of the system, explaining how each type

of regime regulates exploitation of petroleum resources in pe‐

troleum‐producing jurisdictions. Hunter’s chapter also provides

some meaningful perspectives on how North–South geopolitics

impacts up on the choice and utilization of leg al regimes in petro‐

leum exploitation.

Part I leaves th e reader with som e unanswered que stions. For

instance, de spite its state d focus on ‘Princ iples of Petroleu m

Regulation’, it neither defines nor explains the term ‘principles’. Some

readers may have wa nted to see some engagement wit h the debate

on principle fo rmulation in ene rgy law in genera l. Other auth orita‐

tive works have arg ued that ‘there a re few legal prin ciples of law

specific to the e nergy field and that most en ergy issues have to be

resolved by gener al principles of law esta blished in other context s’.1

It would have been use ful if this part of t he book had discu ssed

whether there is a repertoire of identifiable principles in petroleum

law, as is the case with ot her fields of law such as pu blic international

law and environme ntal law.

Parts II an d III provide a salutar y comparative study on t he regu‐

lation of petrole um provinces. The c hapters in Part II f ocus on mature

petroleum prov inces while Part III focus es on developing provinces .

Again, this re viewer would have liked to h ave seen some deta iled

conceptual disc ussion on the term inologies ‘matur e’ and ‘develop‐

ing’ provinces . The discourse of t hese concepts w ould have been

particularly useful to those studying and researching petroleum law

and regulation . At first glance , the countries ch osen for the com‐

parative stud y in Part II sugg est that the focu s is on mature basins

in the developed N orth. However, Part III shows th at this is not the

case as Japan is inc luded in the study on develo ping provinces. This

inclusion of an OECD (Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and

Development) St ate suggests that the classif ication of ‘mature’ and

‘developing’ provi nces is not exclusively based on the N orth–South

geopolitica l dichotomy. To aid further understa nding, it would have

been benefic ial to see some explanator y text at the beginning of t he

book providing clarification of these terminologies.

This does not mea n that there is a comp lete absence of defi ‐

nitional langu age in these chapte rs. For instan ce, Greg Gordon

and John Paters on’s chapte r attempts to describe the con cept of

a ‘mature basin’. Hunter also p rovides furt her reflecti ons on the

concept of ‘mature pr ovinces’ in Part IV of the book . But this may

also raise new que stions for peo ple new to this fiel d: is a ‘prov‐

ince’ the same as a ‘ba sin’? To aid the learning pr ocess, Part s II

and III could have inc luded an instr uctional ope ner that explain s

what both terms invo lve. This obser vation also appl ies to other

technical ter ms within the boo k. A glossar y of terms could have

been include d, especially si nce the back cover sug gests that it is

meant to be a ‘useful e ntry point for student s embarking on study

in petroleum law’.

1 See,e.g.,A JBradbroo k,‘Energ yLaw:TheNegl ectedAsp ectofEnviron mentalLaw ’

(1993) 19 Melbourne U niversity L aw Review 1; and R Hef fron et al, ‘A Treatise for E nergy

Law’ (2018) 11 Jou rnal of World Ener gy Law and Busin ess 34.

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