The 2011 Fraser Institute Global Petroleum Survey presents the results of the Fraser Institutes 5th annual survey of petroleum industry executives and managers regarding barriers to investment in upstream oil and gas exploration and production in various jurisdictions around the globe. The survey responses have been tallied to rank provinces, states, and countries according to the extent of the investment barriers. Those barriers, as identified by the survey respondents, include high tax rates, costly regulatory schemes, and security threats. A total of 502 respondents representing 478 companies completed the survey questionnaire this year, providing sufficient data to evaluate 135 jurisdictions. This compares with the 2010 survey, in which 133 jurisdictions were rated, and the 2009 survey, in which 143 jurisdictions were rated. The exploration and development budgets of these participating companies totaled about $300 billion in 2010, which represents more than 60 percent of global upstream expenditures last year. The jurisdictions were assigned scores for each of 17 factors that affect investment decisions. The scores are based on the proportion of negative responses a jurisdiction received. The greater the proportion of negative responses for a jurisdiction, the greater were its perceived investment barriers and, therefore, the lower its ranking.
