Comparative Analysis of Oil and Gas Production Contracts for Multinational Corporation Strategy Development

The purpose of the research is to evaluate the attractiveness of different types of oil & gas production contracts for multinational oil and gas corporations (MOCs) to discover the most and the least favorable conditions to contribute to MOCs’ strategy development. This purpose is achieved by consequently conducting the following steps: 1) to identify the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of each type of oil and gas production contract for the company using the literature analysis method; 2) to analyze the project portfolios of market-leading companies (Shell, BP and Total) to identify their preferences for types of contracts using the analysis of the payments to governments reports for the period 2015-2018; 3) to compare the theoretical findings of the study with the results of the analysis of the project portfolios of the companies using the induction method; and, 4) to propose implications for multinational oil and gas corporation strategy development regarding the choice of contact types and the proportion of contract types in the project portfolio using the synthesis method. Each step corresponds to a separate chapter of this study. The result obtained is the analytically grounded rank of contract types’ attractiveness to MOCs, which is made taking into account various factors, such as the external environment and the size of the company, and it can be used as input data in strategic planning and strategic management for the MOCs, hence the results ultimately contribute to MOCs’ strategy development. The total research volume is 91 pages, of which 36 pages are Appendices comprising of financial data of the analyzed companies for the period 2015-2018.