Person:
Tordo, Silvana
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Petroleum sector,
Sovereign wealth funds,
Strategic investment funds,
Climate change adaptation finance
Degrees
ORCID
Departments
Energy and Extractives Global Practice
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Silvana Tordo is a Lead Energy Economist at the World Bank’s Energy and Extractives Global Practice where she co-leads the Extractives-led Local Economic Development (ELLED) program. Silvana’s publications cover a wide range of topics, including value creation by national oil companies, allocation of petroleum rights, oil and gas taxation, strategic investment funds, industrial policy, and climate-smart policies.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 14
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Publication
Options for Increased Private Sector Participation in Resilience Investment: Focus on Agriculture
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-12)The presence of a revenue stream and a commercial return are an absolute prerequisite for investment for the private sector. However, often adaptation benefits or the value added (resilience) of adaptation investment are difficult to quantify in financial terms. There is no accepted methodology to price the adaptation feature of an investment, that is to quantify whenan investment has successfully adapted to climate change. While the risks from extreme weatherand climate change are clearly recognizable, and many investors see these risks in the present ornear term, uncertainty about the precise nature, timing and severity of climate impacts makes the return on investment of adaptation projects difficult to measure. In many cases adaptation is embedded into project design and engineering. The fact that the adaptation component is often not able to be separated, or treated as an add-on feature, has consequences for fund raising and project financing. Particularly for infrastructure projects, the difficulty in ring-fencing adaptation components, and the uncertainty around the time and magnitude of climate impacts, make it difficult to charge separate/properly priced tariffs. These difficulties are compounded in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs), where users’ ability to pay is limited. Blended finance solutions are used to make projects bankable by closing viability gaps. Blended finance consists in the complementary use of concessional (grants or low interest instruments) and non-concessional financing from public and private sources to make projects financially viable and/or financially sustainable. Applying this approach to climate finance allows leveraging of limited public funding, enhances the overall effectiveness of aid, and potentially triggers an increase in private investment once the long-term viability of a market is demonstrated. This report analyzes the potential and need for blended finance solutions in four economic sectors - water, agriculture, transport, and energy. For each economic sector, two broad classes of investment, infrastructure and value chains, are discussed. Investing in infrastructure or in value chains (that is, the range of goods and services that link the producer to the customers or end-consumer) requires different competencies, investment processes, project selection criteria, and attracts different classes of investors. Each investment theme is assessed for its resilience relevance and potential for commercial returns. An in-depth analysis of financing needs and potential blended finance solutions for resilience investment in the agriculture sector is presented, because of the economic relevance of agriculture in EMDEs, and its exposure to climate and natural hazards. -
Publication
Managing Resource Rents : The Special Challenges in Postconflict Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-02)Resource flows from extractive industries can be a lifeline for postconflict countries, helping to fund critical reconstruction needs. But these resources present issues not found elsewhere in the economy and need to be well managed. Sector governance principles that apply to oil-producing countries in general are even more important in postconflict countries. This note discusses these principles and shows how they apply in two cases, Timor-Leste and Sudan. -
Publication
Crude Oil Prices : Predicting Price Differentials Based on Quality
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-10)Many developing countries are becoming oil exporters, producing crude oils that often differ markedly in quality from those principally traded. Governments must predict the prices of such crudes, to forecast revenue and evaluate the fairness of the price they receive from companies selling on their behalf. Oil companies, and industry consultants, have models for analyzing price differentials with well-known "marker" crudes, but these models have not been widely known, or adapted to account for increasingly important quality characteristics, such as acidity. This note explains a methodology for price analysis, and a new extension for incorporating acidity, which can have a big effect on the price differential. -
Publication
Natural Oil Companies and Value Creation : Volume 2. Case Studies
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-03)Approximately two billion dollars a day of petroleum are traded worldwide, which makes petroleum the largest single item in the balance of payments and exchanges between nations. Petroleum represents the larger share in total energy use for most net exporters and net importers. While petroleum taxes are a major source of income for more than 90 countries in the world, poor countries net importers are more vulnerable to price increases than most industrialized economies. This paper has five chapters. Chapter one describes the key features of upstream, midstream, and downstream petroleum operations and how these may impact value creation and policy options. Chapter two draws on ample literature and discusses how changes in the geopolitical and global economic environment and in the host governments' political and economic priorities have affected the rationale for and behavior of National Oil Companies' (NOCs). Rather than providing an in-depth analysis of the philosophical reasons for creating aNOC, this chapter seeks to highlight the special nature of NOCs and how it may affect their existence, objectives, regulation, and behavior. Chapter three proposes a value creation index to measure the contribution of NOCs to social value creation. A conceptual model is also proposed to identify the factors that affect value creation. Chapter four presents the result of an exploratory statistical analysis aimed to determine the relative importance of the drivers of value creation. In addition, the experience of a selected sample of NOCs is analyzed in detail, and lessons of general applicability are derived. Finally, Chapter five summarizes the conclusions. -
Publication
Sovereign Wealth Funds and Long-Term Development Finance : Risks and Opportunities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02)Sovereign wealth funds represent a large and growing pool of savings. An increasing number of these funds are owned by natural resource exporting countries and have a variety of objectives, including intergenerational equity and macroeconomic stabilization. Traditionally, these funds have invested in external assets, especially securities traded in major markets. But the persistent infrastructure financing gap in developing countries has motivated some governments to encourage their sovereign wealth funds to invest domestically. This paper proposes some basic elements of a conceptual framework to create a system of checks and balances to help ensure that the sovereign wealth funds do not undermine macroeconomic management or become a vehicle for politically driven "investments." First, the risks and opportunities of domestic investment by sovereign wealth funds are analyzed. Central issues are the relationship of sovereign wealth fund financing to the budget process and to the procurement systems of sector ministries, as well as the establishment of appropriate benchmarks and safeguards to ensure the integrity of investment decisions. The paper argues that a well-governed sovereign wealth fund, with a sound mandate and professional management and staffing, can possibly improve the quality of the public investment program. But its mandate should not duplicate that of other government institutions with investment mandates, such as the budget, the national development bank, the investment authority, and state-owned enterprises. Establishing rules on the type of investment (for example, commercial and/or quasi-commercial) and its modalities (for example, no controlling stakes, leveraging private investment) is one way to ensure separation between the activities of the sovereign wealth fund and those of other institutions. The critical issue remains that of limiting the sovereign wealth fund's investment scope to that appropriate for a wealth fund. If investments that generate quasi-market returns are permitted, the size of the home bias should be clearly stipulated and these investments should be reported separately. -
Publication
Experiences with Oil Funds : Institutional and Financial Aspects
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-06)This study brings together detailed information on the creation, operation, and financial performance of 12 oil funds and 3 other resource funds. The report looks at various funds in Alaska, Alberta, Azerbaijan, Norway, Chad, Sao Tome Principe, Timor, Chile, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Oman, Venezuela, and Russia. The purpose of the study is to provide comparative information on the backgrounds of the creation of these funds, the legislation used to do so, the details of the organization and management of the funds, and of their financial performance. The report opens with a brief review of the reasons for establishing an oil fund and the principal issues involved. The report then provides detailed coverage of four oil funds where there is substantial public information about the operation and performance of the funds. The final chapter provides some comparative material on the different funds and explores the construction of a set of indicators for good practice in the design of the funds. The appendixes contain the legislation which created the governing funds. -
Publication
Crude Oil Price Differentials and Differences in Oil Qualities : A Statistical Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-10)This report updates and extends previous work by a statistical analysis of the relationship between crude price differentials and three quality differentials, as well as transport costs and seasonal effects. In addition to the API (American Petroleum Institute) gravity number and the sulfur content of the crudes, which are the qualities generally included in existing analysis, the report presents the impact of acidity (measured by the Total Acid Number - TAN) on the price differential. This is because acidity has become increasingly important as the volume of high acid crudes, particularly from West Africa, has steadily increased in recent years. -
Publication
Natural Oil Companies and Value Creation : Volume 3. Data Set
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-03-01)Approximately two billion dollars a day of petroleum are traded worldwide, which makes petroleum the largest single item in the balance of payments and exchanges between nations. Petroleum represents the larger share in total energy use for most net exporters and net importers. While petroleum taxes are a major source of income for more than 90 countries in the world, poor countries net importers are more vulnerable to price increases than most industrialized economies. This paper has five chapters. Chapter one describes the key features of upstream, midstream, and downstream petroleum operations and how these may impact value creation and policy options. Chapter two draws on ample literature and discusses how changes in the geopolitical and global economic environment and in the host governments' political and economic priorities have affected the rationale for and behavior of National Oil Companies' (NOCs). Rather than providing an in-depth analysis of the philosophical reasons for creating aNOC, this chapter seeks to highlight the special nature of NOCs and how it may affect their existence, objectives, regulation, and behavior. Chapter three proposes a value creation index to measure the contribution of NOCs to social value creation. A conceptual model is also proposed to identify the factors that affect value creation. Chapter four presents the result of an exploratory statistical analysis aimed to determine the relative importance of the drivers of value creation. In addition, the experience of a selected sample of NOCs is analyzed in detail, and lessons of general applicability are derived. Finally, Chapter five summarizes the conclusions. -
Publication
Strategic Investment Funds: Opportunities and Challenges
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-10)Over the past 15 years, the number of government-sponsored strategic investment funds has grown rapidly in countries at all income levels. This paper identifies some of the challenges that these funds face in their endeavor to achieve economic policy objectives while also securing commercial financial returns—the so-called double bottom line. Through the review of the objectives, investment strategies, and operations of a sample of strategic investment funds, this paper outlines ways in which these challenges have been addressed. The paper suggests that properly structured and managed strategic investment funds can be effective vehicles for crowding in private investors to priority investments, thus magnifying the impact of public capital. However, their success rests on the funds' ability to balance policy and commercial objectives, source investment opportunities, and secure the right fund management capacity. -
Publication
Financing Solutions to Reduce Natural Gas Flaring and Methane Emissions
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-18)Global oil and gas emissions fell to historic lows in 2020 as a result of the decline in global demand associated with the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. Data released by the International Energy Agency suggest that CO2 emissions are on the rise as energy demands increase after the pandemic. Whether emissions will rebound to precrisis levels largely depends on governments’ emphasis on clean energy transition in their efforts to reboot economic growth. In 2019, direct and indirect emissions from the oil and gas sector represented about 15 percent of the global energy sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. More than half of these emissions came from flaring and methane released during oil and gas operations. This book aims to create awareness of the business case for reducing gas flaring and methane emissions. It provides a framework for policy makers to evaluate the feasibility and financial attractiveness of flaring and methane reduction (FMR) projects, analyzes investment barriers, and identifies key variables and success factors, backed by lessons learned from case studies. Simplified financial modeling templates are suggested to help policy makers to assess FMR options. The book focuses on midsized flares that collectively represent 58 percent of the global flare volumes. These flares are typically too small to be prioritized by oil companies but still allow for profitable monetization. Smaller FMR projects are unlikely to be economically viable, unless clustered in larger projects or propelled by an enabling and compulsory regulatory framework. Large-scale capture projects require tailored projects, large ancillary infrastructure, government planning, and capital injections costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Although potentially attractive in terms of equity returns to developers, midsized flares face various barriers to the financing and execution of FMR solutions. Navigating these barriers requires project developers with specific FMR expertise, as highlighted through six detailed case studies discussed in this book.