2011 Report on Revenue Transparency of Oil and Gas Companies
2010 Revenue Watch Index
2008 Report on Revenue Transparency of Oil and Gas Companies

The 2011 Report on Oil and Gas Companies, which is based on research conducted in 2010 and is an expanded version of a report published in 2008, rates 44 companies on the public availability of information on their anti-corruption programmes and how they report their financial results in all the countries where they operate.

The companies evaluated represent 60 per cent of global oil and gas production. By disclosing anti-corruption measures and key organisational and financial data, especially on a country-by-country level, companies demonstrate their commitment to stop the misappropriation of revenues. In particular, detailed publication of fiscal payments allows citizens to hold governments to account.

The findings of the new report show improvements from 2008:

• In 2011 only eight companies failed to score any points for reporting on anti-corruption programmes. In 2008 21 companies out of 42 scored zero in this category.
• In the 2011 report 24 out of 44 companies reviewed their data. In 2008 only a handful of the companies surveyed agreed to review and comment on the data.

This increase in company involvement may reflect a growing awareness by companies that they have responsibility to help stop corruption and that investors are looking for ways to measure sustainable reporting.

To push for greater transparency, the report recommends that investors include corporate transparency (or lack of it) in their analysis and valuation models.

Several companies scored well across the board, even in countries that are considered difficult environments, indicating that it is possible for companies to be transparent without compromising results. The report shows that companies can lead the way. There is a standard for best practice in transparency that can help ensure that oil and gas revenues are used well. But what companies do is just part of the puzzle. Governments have a role to play too: they have to commit to using natural resource wealth for the greatest public good.

Downloads and links:

Download report

Download summary:
[English] [Español] [Français]

Download Press releases
[English] [Español] [Français]

Download Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
[English] [Español] [Français]

Policy Position 03/2011: Achieving Greater Transparency in the Oil & Gas Industry

The second report in the Promoting Revenue Transparency project

The Revenue Watch Index 2010 assesses information disclosure by governmental bodies in 41 resource-rich countries, as well as the legal and regulatory framework in place to govern the extractive industries. In nearly all these countries, natural resources are public assets, and the revenues should be managed in trust by the government on behalf of its citizens.

The majority of the countries are considered to have only partial or scant information available publicly about the money they receive. Brazil and Norway head the list as the most transparent. Equatorial Guinea and Turkmenistan bring up the rear.

Greater public knowledge of the scale of extractive industry revenues, how these flow from oil producers to governments, as well as greater understanding of the oversight systems that are in place, can help citizens hold their governments to account. Absent such transparency, governments and companies may behave in ways that will enhance the wealth of the few and yield no benefit to the many: otherwise known as the resource course. The accuracy or completeness of the information is not checked at this stage of the project. However, it is also important for citizens and civil society organisations to have public information available, so that they can ask questions, raise issues, and if needed challenge the information itself. The accuracy or completeness of the information is not checked at this stage of the project.

The Promoting Revenue Transparency is a joint project between Transparency International (TI) and the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) aimed at making extractive industries’ revenues of most benefit to society by increasing transparency and accountability. In 2008 TI published the first report in this series on Revenue Transparency of Oil and Gas Companies, which showed that of the 42 companies evaluated, two-thirds fell into the middle or low performance categories as defined in the report. In 2011 TI will publish a new companies report, in consultation with all the companies covered.

Downloads and links

Press Release, Washington DC

Download the Revenue Watch Index 2010

Download the 2008 Report on Revenue Transparency of Oil and Gas Companies

TI calls on leading oil and gas companies to increase revenue transparency

New report shows companies should provide greater accountability

A majority of leading oil and gas companies are far from transparent when it comes to the payments they make to resource-rich countries, leaving the door open to corruption and hampering efforts to fight poverty, according to a report published today by Transparency International (TI).

read more..

Backgrounder

Fact Sheet on the Oil and Gas Sector
In Focus

• Current project developments
• The Project
• 2008 Report on Revenue Transparency of Oil and Gas Companies
• Host Governments Report
• How does the Promoting Revenue Transparency Project complement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative?
• In Focus: Explaining Revenue Transparency

The Promoting Revenue Transparency Project is run by Transparency International in partnership with the Revenue Watch Institute and builds on the work of the Save the Children UK ‘Beyond the Rhetoric’ report from 2005.The Promoting Revenue Transparency Project seeks to raise awareness in both government and the private sector of the various steps required for revenue transparency to be achieved, sustained and mainstreamed.

High revenues from the extractive industries have often fuelled corruption, economic stagnation, inequality and conflict. This paradox has been labelled the ‘resource curse’. One step towards reversing this curse lies in the transparent and accountable management of revenues generated from the extractive industries. For more information, click below or navigate using the left hand menu.