Resize Text: The spike in oil prices between 2003 and 2008 has transformed the dynamics of hydrocarbon investment. From South America to Central Asia, resource-rich countries have unilaterally renegotiated contracts and imposed national control over long-term hydrocarbon projects. Commentators and analysts have described these partial or full-scale nationalizations in the developing world as a return to a “1970’s style of resource nationalism riding along the crest of high prices” and typical of nations with a weak rule of law. They have been particularly critical of post-Soviet countries, describing recent state-forced renegotiations in Russia and Kazakhstan as short-sighted and politically motivated.
The reality, however, is far more complex. Rapid, full-scale nationalizations, which typified the 1970s, have not been the order of the day. Many of these contractual disputes have resulted in negotiated solutions: resource-rich countries have offered international oil companies (IOCs) reduced shares, and many IOCs have accepted. Finally—and most strangely—other resource-rich, developing countries like Azerbaijan, despite weak rule of law and the potential of capturing skyrocketing revenue streams, have resisted the temptation to override their long-term contractual obligations and capture skyrocketing rents.
This article will seek to understand the stability of hydrocarbon contracts in the former Soviet Union. In the absence of a strong rule of law, can IOCs expect resource-rich countries to respect the bargained-for terms in long-term hydrocarbon contracts if oil prices rise or political circumstances change? In other words, are there factors other than courts that can constrain the “grabbing hand” of the state in the high stakes hydrocarbon contracting game? The answer to these questions will help shed light on the complex relationship between law and investment risk in long-term, cross-border hydrocarbon contracting.
Back to the 1970s: No Courts, No Protection
The dominant paradigm for understanding post-Soviet hydrocarbon contractual renegotiations goes as follows. The recent oil boom has freed resource-rich, post-Soviet countries from dependence on IOCs. Unconstrained by independent judiciaries, these countries are now reneging on recent contractual agreements and renationalizing. In trampling on property rights and bargained-for contractual terms, however, host countries trade short-term benefits for long costs: by taking resource rents that fuel corruption, host countries will eventually undermine their own economies in a phenomenon called the “resource curse.” One solution, according to this paradigm, is stronger domestic and international public enforcement and the rule of law; only then will host countries be able to accomplish the Ulyssean task of resisting the short-term siren song of bulging resource rents.
This critique has been particularly strong in relation to post-Soviet countries. Following the renegotiation of the massive Sakhalin II project in Russia’s far east, commentators portrayed this incident as the typical behavior of a country that has a weak rule of law and refuses to uphold its moral obligation to honor long-term commitments. For instance, the New York Times writes, “Moscow also needs to be reminded that threatening property rights will eventually dissuade all investments. Even Mr. [Vladimir] Putin’s allies should remember that without a clear rule of law, their own assets might be threatened if political winds shifted.” The Financial Times makes a similar point: “It is wrong to tear up the contract now, a decade later. The costs dispute should have been settled as envisaged under the PSA by arbitration, not by expropriation.” The Economist comments: “It is natural to be miffed when a deal that seemed shrewd turns out worse than you thought. It is especially galling if it involves a prized asset. The civilised response—if the other party is disinclined to renegotiate—is to shrug and move on. But with the gigantic energy developments on Sakhalin Island, the Kremlin prefers to bully its partners into surrender.” The Wall Street Journal is even more blunt, equating investment in Russia as foolish and misguided as the rigged craps game in Guys and Dolls: “[I]nvesting in a nation in which there is no established rule of law is to shoot craps with Big Vladimir of Leningrad.”
In comparing these renegotiations with the nationalizations of the 1970s, scholars have brought back an old model for understanding the dynamics of hydrocarbon investment: the obsolescing bargain model (OBM). Drawn from the experiences of the 1970s, the OBM focuses on the internal political and economic balance of power between the IOC and the government over the course of the contract. In the beginning, the OBM predicts, resource-rich countries need IOC investment; thus, IOCs exploit this powerful position by forcing favorable contractual provisions. However, as IOCs make the large up-front investments to explore and extract hydrocarbon resources, bargaining power shifts to the host country: IOCs cannot credibly pull out of the contract if a dispute arises because they would lose their up-front investment. Furthermore, as production begins, it is politically and economically tempting for the host country to make a show of sovereignty and expropriate the fruits of the IOC’s sunk investment. Thus, the OBM predicts that the host country will increasingly have incentives to force new terms into the contract with time.
Long criticized by scholars as obsolete, the dynamics of the OBM are now viewed as being at play in post-Communist contractual renegotiation. IOCs exploited their powerful position to negotiate favorable long-term contracts to develop resources in the post-Soviet world during the 1990s. Just as IOCs had made the up-front investments to locate and extract hydrocarbons, however, rising oil prices have drastically changed the political and economic context of these long-term hydrocarbon contracts. Post-Soviet states, therefore, have taken this opportunity to renegotiate, reasserting control over their resources in a demonstration of political sovereignty to their populace and increasing their access to rising hydrocarbon revenue streams.
Thus, the OBM predicts that as long as oil prices remain high, contractual relations will be conflictual and post-Soviet countries will continue to squeeze out IOCs, filling state coffers with resource rents and asserting sovereignty over their natural resources. In this picture, IOCs will continue to weaken and, ultimately, “lack resilience to survive on their own in the long term.”
This approach explains the renegotiations. But it does not explain a phenomenon that is admittedly less attention-grabbing: Why, with rising oil prices and weak judiciaries, have many long-term contracts not been renegotiated in the post-Soviet world?
William Partlett holds a law degree from Stanford University and a master's and doctorate in Russian studies from Oxford University. He is currently a clerk for Judge Phyllis A. Kravitch of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and is working on scholarship exploring legal theory, research methodology, and comparative political transformation. His most recent publication explores the shifting comparative classifications of Russian law during the 20th century and proposes a more empirically based approach for the future (“Reclassifying Russian Law,” Columbia Journal of East European Law 2, no. 1).
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