What is the future of the oil and gas sector in Lebanon? Following the recent discovery of these valuable resources in the southern Mediterranean, including in the Cypriot and Israeli offshore reserves, the possibility of Lebanon also becoming a petroleum-producing country has been raised. This collection of essays addresses the major challenges and opportunities that accompany the country's hope to join the petroleum club. Covering the key policy issues - from Lebanon's susceptibility to the oil curse, to the environmental risks of production - this book brings together expert analysis to offer answers at the institutional level. Of central importance, the contributors argue, is that for Lebanon to benefit from the discovery of petroleum, it must first reform its institutions with the full support of the voting public and civil society. Combining rigorous quantitative and qualitative research, the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies has produced here an essential book that puts petroleum in Lebanon, and the important questions that come with it, within a global perspective.

What is the future of the oil and gas sector in Lebanon? Following the recent discovery of these valuable resources in the southern Mediterranean, including in the Cypriot and Israeli offshore reserves, the possibility of Lebanon also becoming a petroleum-producing country has been raised. This collection of essays addresses the major challenges and opportunities that accompany the country's hope to join the petroleum club. Covering the key policy issues - from Lebanon's susceptibility to the oil curse, to the environmental risks of production - this book brings together expert analysis to offer answers at the institutional level. Of central importance, the contributors argue, is that for Lebanon to benefit from the discovery of petroleum, it must first reform its institutions with the full support of the voting public and civil society. Combining rigorous quantitative and qualitative research, the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies has produced here an essential book that puts petroleum in Lebanon, and the important questions that come with it, within a global perspective.

As OPEC has loosened its grip over the past ten years, the oil market has been rocked by wild price swings, the likes of which haven't been seen for eight decades. Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations. Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how—even from the oil industry's first years—wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions—first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC—succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations—including mistakes to avoid—as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.

The downhill slide in the global price of crude oil, which started mid-2014, had major repercussions across the Middle East for net oil exporters, as well as importers closely connected to the oil-producing countries from the Gulf. Following the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the oil price decline represented a second major shock for the region in the early twenty-first century – one that has continued to impose constraints, but also provided opportunities. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle Eastern political economy in response to the 2014 oil price decline, this book connects oil market dynamics with an understanding of socio-political changes. Inspired by rentierism, the contributors present original studies on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The studies reveal a large diversity of country-specific policy adjustment strategies: from the migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, who lost out in the post-2014 period but were incapable of repelling burdensome adjustment policies, to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who have never been able to fulfil the expectation that they could benefit from the 2014 oil price decline. With timely contributions on the COVID-19-induced oil price crash in 2020, this collection signifies that rentierism still prevails with regard to both empirical dynamics in the Middle East and academic discussions on its political economy.