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Purpose – Study the investment and risk management approach of sovereign wealth funds when national wealth including natural resources is accounted for rather than only financial asset.

Methodology/Approach – Using a range of widely used asset classes, we simulate sovereign wealth fund returns when considering only financial assets but also under varying levels of national wealth holdings in oil. We optimize two-asset financial portfolios and three-asset portfolios when including oil to maximize the risk-adjusted returns.

Findings – Sovereign wealth funds by failing to invest for the national wealth portfolio are overlooking a major source of volatility. To reduce the level of volatility associated with yearly national wealth returns, allocating a higher percentage of fixed assets to high-quality fixed income and low-risk equities will maximize the risk-adjusted returns of national wealth for sovereign wealth fund states.

Social implications – By focusing solely on the financial assets managed by sovereign wealth funds, states are exposing themselves to significant national wealth risk.

Originality/Value of the paper – This is the first work to estimate the impact on national wealth of oil-dependent states by failing to account for volatile commodity prices through the investment strategies of sovereign wealth funds.

Oil market VAR models have become the standard tool for understanding the evolution of the real price of oil and its impact on the macro economy. As this literature has expanded at a rapid pace, it has become increasingly difficult for mainstream economists to understand the differences between alternative oil market models, let alone the basis for the sometimes divergent conclusions reached in the literature. The purpose of this survey is to provide a guide to this literature. Our focus is on the econometric foundations of the analysis of oil market models with special attention to the identifying assumptions and methods of inference.

The chapter considers the significance of the oil and gas industry for the Russian economy. The authors analyze the current state of the oil and gas industry, their specific weight in the structure of Russian GDP, and tax revenues from this industry to the Russian budget that was estimated. We give scenario analysis that considers the problems that the Russian economy may face because of the sanctions, the price fluctuations at the commodity market, and the crisis phenomena in the world economy. The chapter points out that localization of technology production and development of technologies for offshore oil and gas production in the Arctic zone may become an incentive to further ensure import substitution for Russia. At present, the experience of Arctic defense enterprises in the production of equipment for oil and gas production and processing is becoming increasingly popular. The chapter elaborates the most significant examples of the creation of new industries in the Arctic zone, the prospects of seismic exploration on the Arctic shelf, and that localization of production capacities and service bases will allow obtaining a multiplicative incentive for a qualitatively new industrial and infrastructure development of the northern territories. Also, we provide an assessment of the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, which makes economically attractive use of natural gas on a regional level as LNG opens the way to fuel high-power needs and to long-distance transport.

The Malaysian oil palm has seen steady progress. Started in Malaysia as an ornamental plant, it has turned into a huge industry. Oil palm production has yielded unlimited economic profits and is currently an emerging Malaysian economic sector. Malaysia currently accounts for an overwhelming contribution to the production and export of palm oil worldwide, which is 39% and 44%, respectively. From around 4.49 million hectares of land, a massive 17.73 million tons of palm oil and 2.13 tons of palm kernel oil were produced. It has been widely use as food products, cosmetics, livestock feed, as well as in bioenergy industry. This is in line with the fast-growing global demand for the palm oil products. Nevertheless, it is currently experiencing a period of slow or less growth in terms of contributing naturally to gross national productivity. Issues such as extreme weather, aging trees, and plant diseases are most prominent among the natural factors that are hindering the growth of the industry. The global pandemic of COVID-19 is also contributing to the current slow growth of palm oil sector. Malaysia has a crucial role to play in meeting the growing global need for oils and fats, as Malaysia is one of the palm oil and palm oil products' major producers and exporting countries.

Using the case of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, I argue that the catastrophe was less an example of a low probability-high catastrophe event than an instance of socially produced risks and insecurities associated with deepwater oil and gas production during the neoliberal period after 1980. The disaster exposes the deadly intersection of the aggressive enclosure of a new technologically risky resource frontier (the deepwater continental shelf) with what I call a frontier of neoliberalized risk, a lethal product of cut-throat corporate cost-cutting, the collapse of government oversight and regulatory authority and the deepening financialization and securitization of the oil market. These two local pockets of socially produced risk and wrecklessness have come to exceed the capabilities of what passes as risk management and energy security. In this sense, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was produced by a set of structural conditions, a sort of rogue capitalism, not unlike those which precipitated the financial meltdown of 2008. The forms of accumulation unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico over three decades rendered a high-risk enterprise yet more risky, all the while accumulating insecurities and radical uncertainties which made the likelihood of a Deepwater Horizon type disaster highly overdetermined.

Purpose – Although research has shown that people in developing countries perceive environmental problems and have high levels of concern for the environment, their actions might not always reflect that concern. This study examines how villagers in rural wetland communities in Trinidad and Tobago perceive environmental issues related to oil and gas development that might impact their communities.

Methodology – One hundred and thirty villagers in three communities in and around the Nariva Swamp were interviewed to find out about perceptions of, support for oil and gas drilling policies, or opposition to the development of this resource.

Findings – The study found that respondents living closest to the swamp and those whose livelihoods depended on the wetlands were more likely than other respondents to perceive oil and gas drilling as dangerous and expressed greater opposition to it. Given that direct actions such as protests were not seen among the villagers, an analysis revealed that there are a number of indirect environmental actions that contribute to the protection of the Nariva Swamp. Villagers were seen as having pro-environmental actions such as sustainable farming and fishing practices, carpooling and nongovernmental activity.

Originality/value of paper – This study adds to the body of environmental research in the Caribbean particularly providing an understanding about rural people's perceptions of environmental issues.