The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

…there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries…

There’s plenty of private capital to invest in E&P programs, so under-investment per se is not the issue, IMO. Rather, the problem is that the governments of certain countries get greedy and seek to retain nearly 100% of the profit pie from new projects, which has the predictable result that oil companies are uninterested in participating.