John Paterson教授做客珞珈环境法讲坛

Prof. John Paterson visits Luojia Lecture Series on Environmental Law

On the afternoon of June 15, 2016, the Celebration Series for the 35th Anniversary of RIEL and 32th Luojia Lecture Series on Environmental Law invited Prof. John Paterson, the vice-president of Aberdeen University, UK. He gave a wonderful lecture entitled “The Legal Dimension of State Control of Oil and Gas Resources”.

Started from the typical characteristics of oil and gas resources, Prof. Paterson made a detailed explanation and description of the its geology, mining costs and duration, return ratio, price risk and policy risk, and he pointed out that the state chose to establish national or international oil companies in view of the particularity and complexity of the exploration and development of oil and gas resources. Next, Prof. Paterson analyzed the focus of concern and the value orientation of government and oil companies, respectively, pointing out that most effective way is to provide legal basis for national oil and gas resource management in order to coordinate and alleviate the conflicts between different stakeholders. Finally, he introduced three kinds of management models for oil and gas resources, namely, taxes, Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), and contracts, and made a comparison from the perspective of the state control, pre-investment, ownership transfer and public participation.

Dr. Hu Bin summarized that the state should actively use comparative research methods to make good use of oil and gas resources and clarify its exploration and development management in order to strengthen national management and control as well as pursue the win-win situation of oil exploitation and environmental protection.