This paper updates estimates of fossil fuel subsidies, defined as fuel consumption times the gap between existing and efficient prices (i.e., prices warranted by supply costs, environmental costs, and revenue considerations), for 191 countries. Globally, subsidies remained large at $4.7 trillion (6.3 percent of global GDP) in 2015 and are projected at $5.2 trillion (6.5 percent of GDP) in 2017. The largest subsidizers in 2015 were China ($1.4 trillion), United States ($649 billion), Russia ($551 billion), European Union ($289 billion), and India ($209 billion). About three quarters of global subsidies are due to domestic factors—energy pricing reform thus remains largely in countries’ own national interest—while coal and petroleum together account for 85 percent of global subsidies. Efficient fossil fuel pricing in 2015 would have lowered global carbon emissions by 28 percent and fossil fuel air pollution deaths by 46 percent, and increased government revenue by 3.8 percent of GDP.

With their phenomenal growth rates, India and China are surging ahead as world economic powers. Due to increasing instability in the Middle East, they have turned to Africa to procure oil to fuel their industrialisation process. Africa’s economy stands to be impacted in various ways due to the increasing interaction with these ‘Asian Giants’. This book analyses the acquisition of oil blocks by Indian and Chinese oil corporations in eleven West African countries. It describes the differences in how India and China mobilise oil externally to meet their respective goals and objectives. The book examines the rate of return on capital, rate of interest on loans and the ease of availability of loans, the difference in the level of technology and ability to acquire technology, project management skills, risk aversion, valuation of the asset and the difference in the economic, political and diplomatic support received by the Chinese and Indian oil companies from their respective governments. It is argued that the difference in the relative economic and political power of India and China accounts for the ability of Chinese oil companies to outbid their Indian competitors and/or be preferred as partners by international oil companies. Containing interviews from Indian and Chinese oil company executives, government officials, industry officials, former diplomats and scholars and academics from India, China and the UK, this book makes a valuable contribution to existing literature on India, China and the oil industry in West Africa. It will be a valuable resource for academics in the field of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Asian Business and Economics.

Attempts to Import Weapons

This book focuses on the history, key industry and policy actors, and political economic outcomes in oil-producing African states, filling a gap in the literature on resource-abundant countries by providing an optimistic assessment of circumstances in contemporary Africa.

This text presents a comprehensive analysis of the oil and gas resources in Africa. It uniquely highlights, through country examples, and with an African focus but a global perspective, the specific challenges and constraints facing the continent as a whole in the exploitation and utilization of its oil and gas resources.

An evenhanded and insightful picture of the obstacles, fiscal incentives, and growing potential for Western oil companies to ameliorate or even prevent conflict in the areas where they operate.

The African Economic Outlook, a joint project of the African Development Bank and the OECD Development Centre, is an annual review of the recent economic situation and the likely short-term evolution of selected African countries. The analysis is ...