Study of optimum incentive mechanism based on principal-agent theory for petroleum licence

Abstract

Government take of oil producing country can be enhanced by optimising the incentive mechanism of petroleum fiscal system. This paper establishes a principal-agent model to improve the production sharing contract (PSC), which is the most popular fiscal regime in hydrocarbon exploitation. It also conducts a numerical analysis to achieve the optimum fiscal design and applies the new model into a deep-water petroleum contract of China. The application results show that the expected income of host government increases by 18% compared with the old fiscal system.