Authors: James Henderson and Alastair Ferguson
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan – 327 pages
Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram
This book is a must read for energy economists, senior executives at oil and gas companies with exposure to Russia and other countries where local knowledge is vital for success, as well as for finance practitioners working in energy markets.
This work, which took a decade to complete, is very important for the types of people we mention above. This is because, in the words of James Henderson and Alastair Ferguson, the two authors with extensive and intensive experience in the oil and gas industry, this unique book:
- Is a fascinating example of the contrast between the attractions of a vast hydrocarbon resource base to major oil and gas companies and the problems that can be encountered in trying to invest in it.
- Is a unique insight into the joint ventures which have been formed between domestic and international partners in Russia during the post-Soviet era.
- Outlines the highs and lows in their fortunes and analyzes the reasons for their successes and failures.
- Develops an original theory on the bargaining relationship between foreign and domestic partners in a weak institutional environment such as Russia.
- Provides a new strategy for partner engagement based on theoretical analysis, interviews with key players, and the experience of one of the authors at Russia’s largest international partnership to date, TNK-BP.
In their mission to provide the above-mentioned benefits to readers, the authors share their knowledge and rare insight on the following key matters, which form the Contents of International Partnership in Russia:
- The Turbulent History of Foreign Investment in the Russian Oil and Gas Industry
- A Review of Academic Theory on Joint Ventures, Partnership, and the Importance of Local Knowledge
- Joint Ventures From the 1990s
- The Key Drivers of Foreign Partner Success – A Quantitative Analysis
- Experience in the Putin Era
- Reflections on Partnership at TNK-BP
- Conclusions on a Strategy for Foreign Partners
The above outline of the chapters of this book does not reveal to you the various subtopics – more than 50 of them – that the authors cover and discuss in length. Each of the chapters has an Introduction, and most of them end with Conclusions.
In addition, for your further study on particular topics, the authors provide you about 20 pages of the sources of their Notes, which you can refer to, followed by a 10-page Bibliography.
This is an extensively researched study that provides a good perspective of the oil and gas industry in Russia, in particular on the historical experiences of the foreign investing firms.
James Henderson has more than 25 years of experience in the oil and gas industry as a commercial manager, consultant, and investment banker and in his current role as Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, UK. He has written numerous articles and papers on the Russian oil and gas sector and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences. He has been analyzing Russian for the past 17 years and spent five years living in Moscow in the late 1990s.
Alastair Ferguson has worked in the oil and gas industry for more than 30 years, most recently for eight years as the Head of Gas for TNK-BP in Moscow. He continues to live and work in Moscow as an adviser on energy issues to a range of financial and corporate clients. He is also a Non-Executive Director of JKX Oil and Gas and Kazmunaigas.
