This book examines the relationship between foreign companies and government within the Indonesian oil industry. It is concerned in particular to identify those factors which determine the balance between central regulation and untrammelled company activity, in order to evaluate the choices which the government has to make in the creation of its policies. Given the extent of foreign investment in the mineral extractive industries of many of the less-developed countries, such policies are of major importance. From his study of the operation of Indonesian oil contracts, Dr Khong concludes that the formal terms of an agreement may well give a misleading impression of the actual allocation of the benefits from petroleum extraction. The common perception that a basic shift in favour of host governments has occurred is shown to be largely misplaced, whatever relative advances they may have achieved.
