The impact of taxation on oil exploration and production efforts: the case of West African producing countries.

Summary Oil taxation can be built in a perspective of confrontation or cooperation with foreign oil companies. However, a well-designed tax system is a sine qua non condition for encouraging investment and achieving other objectives of the state's oil policy. A thorough comparative analysis of oil taxation in the producing countries of the West Coast of Africa between 1974 and 1987 leads to the conclusion that a poorly adapted institutional framework, particularly at the level of the tax system, cannot be considered to be the main reason for the inadequacy of the exploration-production effort or for its unequal distribution among the countries of the region. This phenomenon can be explained by a series of industrial factors, of which those related to the strategy of international companies occupy a predominant phase.