Alaska’s Petroleum Industry, Institutions and Sovereign Wealth Fund

Abstract

Alaska is a unique petroleum-producing region in that it is a state within the USA and therefore both an independent oil-producing and gas-producing region with an independent State government as well as a region dependant on, and intertwined with, a more powerful developed U.S. economy and its U.S. Federal Government. As such, it is possible to better observe political characteristics in the formation of petroleum policies and how they relate to the larger governmental institutions since some policies are based on State government policies and therefore the State’s citizens’ desires. Moreover, some policies are driven by the more powerful U.S. Federal Government policies and its American citizens’ desires. The chapter looks at Alaska’s oil and gas fiscal system, the State’s petroleum industry, its petroleum institutions and its sovereign wealth fund and how all those items work together within the broader government functioning.

I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most;

‘Tis better to have loved and lost; than never to have loved at all.

—Lord Tennyson In Memoriam: 27

It is better to have loaned and lost; than never to have loaned at all

—The Economist

It is better to have explored and produced oil and lost;

than never to have explored and produced oil at all.

—Logic