The decision pathway
Who has formal authority, who can influence implementation, and which institutional milestone comes next?
Oil & gas / Government affairs
Judgment you can
defend to a board
Political intelligence for government affairs teams navigating the connections between policy, stakeholders, and operating assets.
Discuss a government affairs briefPOLICY ACTORS ASSETS EXPOSURERESEARCH WITH A DEFINED MANDATE
Your question, in focus
Permission on paper is only half the story
An announcement tells you what an institution intends. To understand what it means for your asset, trace who must act, which conditions remain, and what evidence would show that implementation has begun.
Which decisions and relationships could change the conditions around our asset?AN ILLUSTRATIVE RESEARCH MANDATE
The stakeholder landscape
Which documented roles, public positions, and local relationships matter to the question?
The operating context
How do official statements compare with evidence about access, labour, community concerns, or implementation?
A briefing with substance
What a focused
mandate can cover
These are possible research formats. Scope, source access, and delivery are agreed in a briefing conversation.
Stakeholder brief
A map of documented roles and positions, with source dates and unresolved relationships.
Policy milestone note
The relevant documents, formal status, next decision point, and questions requiring specialist review.
Asset-context brief
Local observations, competing accounts, and the implications to investigate for the operating footprint.
Lead development programme
Venezuela
Closer to the asset
Explore the five risk dimensions, scenario framework, and six decision tests alongside an anonymised historical assessment and fictional asset-level examples.
Inside the Venezuela programmeA briefing built for the decision
Where it is heading
Whether it clears your bar
Country direction and commercial viability belong alongside one another. Keep the evidence, the interpretation, and the client’s requirements distinct.
Recognise the research problem
The next stakeholder meeting
The national story misses the asset
A country briefing does not tell you which local authority or operating dependency matters to the next decision.
Stakeholder notes are scattered
Names, appointments, and public positions sit in separate files without a dated relationship record.
The meeting is approaching
The team needs a defensible set of questions, the supporting evidence, and a clear account of what remains unresolved.
Where the approach fits
Get more from
a defined mandate
- Your mandate spans national policy and a local operating footprint.
- You need to distinguish formal authority from reported influence.
- Your team prepares stakeholder meetings or internal policy briefings.
- You can define an asset, project, approval process, or access question.
- You value a source-linked record and explicit uncertainty.
BEFORE AFTER / FICTIONAL WORKFLOW
From a list of names
to a decision pathway
- Starting point
- A general stakeholder list and conflicting accounts of terminal access.
- Research work
- Define the question, compare the documentary record, preserve contradictions, and name the next observation.
- Resulting format
- A source-linked actor view, access question, and meeting brief.
Explore the work in more detail
See the method
Inspect the output
How to assess the fit
Bring one asset, not your entire agenda
We can scope a first briefing around the decision that matters most: who holds authority, what still has to happen, and which local evidence would establish a change.
Judge the proposed work by whether it gives your team a sourced view of the decision, clear gaps to investigate, and sharper questions for the next meeting.
Inspect the fictional asset-access briefStart with the question that matters
What are the three decisions over the next twelve months that depend on the policy environment around your assets?
See how we can help youTell us your decision and what you would need to see to judge whether our research is useful.