A lot of economic research uses the discovery of large oil- or gas depositions as an quasi-experimental shock to study causal relations between resource abundance, economic wealth and social dynamics. Chapter 2 in the dissertation discusses this literature. Now a major concern. whether the discovery of resource is really unpredictable and therefor exogenous. Oil and gas companies invest a lot of money to improve their exploration operations, such as advanced seismic imaging techniques to locate and map oil and gas reserves. Factors like armed conflict determine where one can explore resource deposits. So its obviously not random when and where a exploration activities take place and discoveries can be made.
That's why transparency helps to validate the usefulness of quasi-experimental research design. This page compares the economic activity, exploration activities and gas discoveries across Mozambique over time. The left map plots the exploration wheels, discovered gas fields and registered companies at the district level (adm2) in 2008. The super giant Windjammer gas field was discovered in December 2009. A supergiant gas field is an exceptionally large and economically significant natural gas reservoir with reserves exceeding 10 trillion cubic feet. The right maps shows the same activities in 2020
The figures also show the location of exploration drilling wells, as documented by the National Institute for Petroleum, and actual giant or super giant discoveries by Cust, Mihalyi, and Rivera-Ballesteros. The location of private companies is defined based on their headquarters location documented in the Boletim da Republica, Serie III (Bd3). Two trends are remarkable. First, substantial exploration activities were carried out all over Mozambique, making it almost impossible to predict the discovery of the Windjammer field in 2009. Second, economic activities remain highly centralized in Maputo and the larger cities. Only a few companies registered their headquarters in rural areas, not even near the giant gas fields. For instance, satellite images (the legend icon at the top right corner of the map includes the current Esri images) show a major FDI project in the district of Palma, near the Areas 4 LNG. However, these projects operate under special legal status and have very little relation to local economic activities. Only three private companies have their headquarters in this district.