The Legal Governance of Oil and Gas in Europe: An Indicator Analysis of the Implementation of the Hydrocarbons Directive

Hydrocarbons are traditional subjects to European Union (EU) law (“acquis communitaire”). A short historical review reveals that quasi all aspects of upstream and downstream segments are covered by the legislation. The results of applied information extraction and elaborated quantitative analysis indicate that the intensity of legislation making correlates with global drivers such as oil price booms, and technology developments such as extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons by hydraulic fracturing. A quarter of a century after the Hydrocarbons Directive was published and transposed by Member States (MS), data allow us to make a semi-quantitative assessment on the implementation, the major drivers of governments’ publication activity, and the impact on the oil and gas production. Another specific relevance of this study is on non-energy minerals management of the EU, whether the introduction of similar competitive bidding rules would induce a greater interest of investors, and the enhanced competition could bring more benefits to the states by the rejuvenation of the critical minerals extractive sector. The preliminary findings show that in some MS there is a positive correlation between the concession call publication activity and hydrocarbons production. To confirm these conclusions the analysis of an extended dataset including exploration data, investments, and social impacts is needed in order to screen the effect of global market trends, the exhaustion of domestic geological reserves, and the different policy environments.