IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v100y2017icp68-78.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pro-cyclical petroleum investments and cost overruns in Norway

Author

Listed:
  • Dahl, Roy Endré
  • Lorentzen, Sindre
  • Oglend, Atle
  • Osmundsen, Petter

Abstract

Development projects in the oil industry often have cost overruns. Through analysis of data from Norwegian development projects in the petroleum industry, this paper investigates the common effect of business cycle developments on cost overruns. Lack of capacity and expertise in a tight supplier market yield cost inflation and difficulties in managing projects. Unlike previous analyses of cost overruns, we analyze projects over a long time period to capture the cyclical effects. We document a statistically significant positive relationship between oil price developments and cost overruns, and a positive relationship between changes in number of employees in the sector and cost overruns. We also show that surprises to the oil price during the project implementation having a larger impact on cost overruns than the oil price level itself. Cost overrun ultimately leads to reduced competitiveness for the industry, and we discuss consequences and policy implications for business and society of these cost overruns.

Suggested Citation

  • Dahl, Roy Endré & Lorentzen, Sindre & Oglend, Atle & Osmundsen, Petter, 2017. "Pro-cyclical petroleum investments and cost overruns in Norway," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 68-78.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:100:y:2017:i:c:p:68-78
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.10.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151630547X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.10.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Petter Osmundsen, Magne Emhjellen, Thore Johnsen, Alexander Kemp and Christian Riis, 2015. "Petroleum Taxation Contingent on Counter-Factual Investment Behaviour," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Adelman S).
    2. Helm, Dieter, 2002. "Energy policy: security of supply, sustainability and competition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 173-184, February.
    3. Benes, Jaromir & Chauvet, Marcelle & Kamenik, Ondra & Kumhof, Michael & Laxton, Douglas & Mursula, Susanna & Selody, Jack, 2015. "The future of oil: Geology versus technology," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 207-221.
    4. Speirs, Jamie & McGlade, Christophe & Slade, Raphael, 2015. "Uncertainty in the availability of natural resources: Fossil fuels, critical metals and biomass," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 654-664.
    5. van Moerkerk, Mike & Crijns-Graus, Wina, 2016. "A comparison of oil supply risks in EU, US, Japan, China and India under different climate scenarios," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 148-158.
    6. Osmundsen, Petter & Roll, Kristin Helen & Tveteras, Ragnar, 2012. "Drilling speed—the relevance of experience," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 786-794.
    7. Odeck, James, 2004. "Cost overruns in road construction--what are their sizes and determinants?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 43-53, January.
    8. James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Understanding Crude Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 179-206.
    9. John H. Cochrane, 1994. "Permanent and Transitory Components of GNP and Stock Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 241-265.
    10. repec:bla:obuest:v:61:y:1999:i:0:p:631-52 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Klaus Mohn & Petter Osmundsen, 2011. "Asymmetry and uncertainty in capital formation: an application to oil investment," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(28), pages 4387-4401.
    12. Emhjellen, Kjetil & Emhjellen, Magne & Osmundsen, Petter, 2002. "Investment cost estimates and investment decisions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 91-96, January.
    13. -, 2014. "Evaluaciones del desempeño ambiental: Colombia 2014," Coediciones, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 36663 edited by Ocde.
    14. Mohn, Klaus & Osmundsen, Petter, 2008. "Exploration economics in a regulated petroleum province: The case of the Norwegian Continental Shelf," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 303-320, March.
    15. Roland A. Matsouaka & Junlong Li & Tianxi Cai, 2014. "Evaluating marker-guided treatment selection strategies," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 489-499, September.
    16. Stirling, Andy, 2010. "Multicriteria diversity analysis: A novel heuristic framework for appraising energy portfolios," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1622-1634, April.
    17. Flyvbjerg,Bent & Bruzelius,Nils & Rothengatter,Werner, 2003. "Megaprojects and Risk," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521009461, September.
    18. Hosseini, Seyed Hossein & Shakouri G., Hamed, 2016. "A study on the future of unconventional oil development under different oil price scenarios: A system dynamics approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 64-74.
    19. Klaus Mohn, 2008. "Efforts and Efficiency in Oil Exploration: A Vector Error-Correction Approach," The Energy Journal, , vol. 29(4), pages 53-78, October.
    20. Bentley, Roger & Bentley, Yongmei, 2015. "Explaining the price of oil 1971–2014 : The need to use reliable data on oil discovery and to account for ‘mid-point’ peak," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 880-890.
    21. Owen, Nick A. & Inderwildi, Oliver R. & King, David A., 2010. "The status of conventional world oil reserves--Hype or cause for concern?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4743-4749, August.
    22. Yang, Yuying & Li, Jianping & Sun, Xiaolei & Chen, Jianming, 2014. "Measuring external oil supply risk: A modified diversification index with country risk and potential oil exports," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 930-938.
    23. G. S. Maddala & Shaowen Wu, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 631-652, November.
    24. Osmundsen, Petter & Roll, Kristin Helen & Tveterås , Ragnar, 2009. "Exploration drilling productivity at the Norwegian Shelf," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2009/34, University of Stavanger.
    25. Osmundsen, Petter & Rosendahl, Knut Einar & Skjerpen, Terje, 2015. "Understanding rig rate formation in the Gulf of Mexico," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 430-439.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dahl, Roy Endre & Lorentzen, Sindre & Oglend, Atle & Osmundsen, Petter, 2016. "Pro-Cyclical Petroleum Investments and Cost Overruns in Norway by Roy Endré Dahl, Sindre Lorentzen, Atle Oglend, and Petter Osmundsen," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2016/7, University of Stavanger.
    2. Petter Osmundsen & Kristin Helen Roll, 2016. "Rig Rates and Drilling Speed: Reinforcing Effects," CESifo Working Paper Series 5895, CESifo.
    3. Skjerpen, Terje & Storrøsten, Halvor Briseid & Rosendahl, Knut Einar & Osmundsen, Petter, 2018. "Modelling and forecasting rig rates on the Norwegian Continental Shelf," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 220-239.
    4. Khalifa, Ahmed & Caporin, Massimiliano & Hammoudeh, Shawkat, 2017. "The relationship between oil prices and rig counts: The importance of lags," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 213-226.
    5. Roy Endré Dahl & Petter Osmundsen, 2014. "Estimating Fluctuations in Oil and Gas Investment," CESifo Working Paper Series 5011, CESifo.
    6. Pernille Parmer & Steinar Strøm & Helge Sandvig Thorsen & Inger Ubbe & Bjørnar Andreas Kvinge, 2018. "Investments on the Norwegian Continental Shelf - An Empirical Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 7370, CESifo.
    7. Sato, Masahiro & Kharrazi, Ali & Nakayama, Hirofumi & Kraines, Steven & Yarime, Masaru, 2017. "Quantifying the supplier-portfolio diversity of embodied energy: Strategic implications for strengthening energy resilience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 41-52.
    8. van Moerkerk, Mike & Crijns-Graus, Wina, 2016. "A comparison of oil supply risks in EU, US, Japan, China and India under different climate scenarios," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 148-158.
    9. Osmundsen, Petter & Rosendahl, Knut Einar & Skjerpen, Terje, 2015. "Understanding rig rate formation in the Gulf of Mexico," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 430-439.
    10. Vivoda, Vlado, 2022. "LNG export diversification and demand security: A comparative study of major exporters," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    11. Osmundsen, Petter & Rosendahl, Knut Einar & Skjerpen, Terje, 2012. "Understanding Rig Rates," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2012/9, University of Stavanger.
    12. Øglend, Atle & Osmundsen, Petter & Lorentzen, Sindre, 2016. "Cost Overrun at the Norwegian Continental Shelf: The element of surprise," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2016/3, University of Stavanger.
    13. Vivoda, Vlado, 2019. "LNG import diversification and energy security in Asia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 967-974.
    14. Mohsin, M. & Zhou, P. & Iqbal, N. & Shah, S.A.A., 2018. "Assessing oil supply security of South Asia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 438-447.
    15. Johannes Mauritzen, 2017. "The Effect of Oil Prices on Field Production: Evidence from the Norwegian Continental Shelf," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(1), pages 124-144, February.
    16. Cantarelli, C.C. & Flyvbjerg, B. & Buhl, S.L., 2012. "Geographical variation in project cost performance: the Netherlands versus worldwide," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 324-331.
    17. Dalheimer, Bernhard & Herwartz, Helmut & Lange, Alexander, 2021. "The threat of oil market turmoils to food price stability in Sub-Saharan Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    18. Cantarelli, C.C. & Molin, E.J.E. & van Wee, B. & Flyvbjerg, B., 2012. "Characteristics of cost overruns for Dutch transport infrastructure projects and the importance of the decision to build and project phases," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 49-56.
    19. Bergholt, Drago & Røisland, Øistein & Sveen, Tommy & Torvik, Ragnar, 2023. "Monetary policy when export revenues drop," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    20. Osmundsen, Petter & Roll, Kristin Helen & Tveterås, Ragnar, 2010. "Faster Drilling with Expercience?," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2010/7, University of Stavanger.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cost overruns; Petroleum projects; Business cycle; Oil price;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:100:y:2017:i:c:p:68-78. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.