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Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Leave new oil in the soil in Africa - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...66289

industry petroleum development oil international extractive nigeria transparency curse resource

shared by Arabica Robusta on 31 Jul 10 - Cached
  • The desire to capture more oil reserves is driving exploration and development of oil and gas fields in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Puntland, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, the Comoros, Seychelles and the coast of Durban in South Africa.
  • The National oil spill detection and response agency (NOSDRA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have identified over 2,000 spill sites that need to be remediated. Some of these spills happened over 40 years ago. The Ebubu spill that occurred in 1970, has not been cleaned up and Shell, the company implicated in the disaster, is vigorously appealing a judgement of a federal high court which ordered it to pay US$40 million compensation as at 2001.[3]
  • Even though Ikiogha is the government bureaucrat in charge of penalising Shell for the spill and signing off on the cleanup, he is also the contractor hired by Shell to do the cleanup… His cleanup operation consists of four shirtless men scooping oil from the surface of the polluted river with Frisbees… he claims that most of the oil had earlier been removed with absorbent foam and blankets.’[5]
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 31 Jul 10
       
      Kenneth Feinburg.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The idea of leaving oil in the ground within the Yasuni forest was taken up in far away Ecuador by no less than the government of the country itself and is receiving widespread acceptance.
  • The world’s ecosystem is one and we have merely scratched the surface in understanding the intricate interconnectedness of nature at different levels. It is therefore short sighted to continue the reckless expansion of drilling around the world because in the long run the revenue we may earn today from oil extraction would not be sufficient to adequately return our environment to what it was before extraction when incidents like these occur.
  • We must begin by acknowledging that the sensible use of our ecosystem has the capacity in the long-term to provide much more benefits and revenue than oil can ever provide. We must individually and consciously take up the responsibility of drastically reducing our use of oil and its by-products. We must also set up international tribunals that would try entities and individuals for their role in destroying the ecosystem. But more importantly we must begin to have the consciousness and think along the lines of building capacities within our communities to ensure as much as possible that the role of oil our energy matrix becomes inconsequential by investing more in renewable energy, energy efficiency, better public transportation and small decentralised energy projects.
Arabica Robusta

Shell's Nigerian PR Strategy Exposed | The Price of Oil - 0 views

priceofoil.org/...s-nigerian-pr-strategy-exposed

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria shell

shared by Arabica Robusta on 14 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • The document outlined a key PR tactic of divide and rule, where Shell would work with some of its critics but isolate the others. Under the ”Occupying New Ground” scenario the document outlined how the company wanted to “Create coalitions, isolate the opposition and shift the debate.” The company would “Prepare a game plan for those NGOs considered key” and emphasised the need to “work with [and] sway ‘middle of the road’ activists”. Others who offered the “possibility of beginning to build trust and understanding” included Pax Christi, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Differentiating the interest groups into friends and foes, Amnesty was singled out as one NGO to approach for a dialogue.
  • This new evidence reveals that Shell’s cooperation with Amnesty – that would last a decade – was a part of a plan to seek “third party endorsement” for its operations in Nigeria. Getting third parties to endorse you is another classic PR tactic that Shell employed.
  • To improve its green image, the company had to counter accusations of “environmental devastation”, so Shell planned to produce a video “to publicise successes” and “to turn the negative tide”. The most important topic to be included in the film was “oil spills generally, focusing on sabotage.”
Arabica Robusta

BIC's new handbook for advocacy on extractive industry revenues | Bank Information Cent... - 0 views

www.bicusa.org/...Article.3836.aspx

bic civil development extractive finance imf industry international movements petroleum social society

shared by Arabica Robusta on 06 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 06 Jul 08
     
    The Handbook is intended as a tool for civil society organizations, journalists and other members of the public interested in learning more about transparency and fiscal management in the natural resource sectors. It distills and builds upon information contained in the IMF's document, with a focus on areas especially pertinent for civil society groups seeking to better understand how extractive industry (EI) sectors are managed. The Handbook aims to help civil society groups hold governments and private companies accountable for the exploitation of natural resources in their country.[2] In producing this Handbook, BIC is not endorsing the extractive industries or asserting that improved transparency, alone, would address the myriad social, environmental and economic impacts associated with natural resource exploitation. Rather, this document aims to provide citizens in resource-rich countries with one more tool to strengthen their efforts to hold industry actors and governments accountable.
Arabica Robusta

Extractive Industries Advisory Group, September 11-12, 2007 Meeting Minutes - 0 views

siteresources.worldbank.org/...WBGEISept07.pdf

bank development eir extractive industry international petroleum world

shared by Arabica Robusta on 24 Apr 08 - No Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 24 Apr 08
     
    "It was noted by an Advisor that work done by ICMM (International Council on Metals and Mining) showed that the resource curse was not inevitable. The ICMM studies showed that some countries did manage to use the development of their mineral endowment as a base for faster growth although experience had been variable. The key difference between countries that had been successful in doing this and those that had been less successful was in the overall policies adopted by governments. The issue was how to ensure that appropriate pro development policies were adopted and implemented effectively and to ensure that the World Bank was engaged where its support was needed."
Arabica Robusta

Analysis of implementation of revenue transparency commitments of IFC and EBRD loans | ... - 0 views

www.bicusa.org/...Article.3685.aspx

development ebrd extractive ifc industry international revenue transparancy

shared by Arabica Robusta on 24 Apr 08 - Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 24 Apr 08
     
    After visiting the companies' websites in search for information on revenue payments to host county governments, BIC wrote emails to the contacts specified in the respective Summaries of Proposed Investments and Project Summary Documents, respectively. From research on the websites, only one company, Cadogan Petroleum (EBRD investment) had very accessible and transparent statistics on its payments to governments.
Arabica Robusta

Ghana Crude Oil - Cocoa Curse And Gold Curse | Feature Article 2010-12-26 - 0 views

www.ghanaweb.com/...artikel.php

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource ghana

shared by Arabica Robusta on 28 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • The question to Ghana, Cameroon,Chad, Sudan, Angola, Gabon is, What did you do with your natural resources and other producct to better your people before and after oil discovery and the answer is nothing - zero -nil
  • Corruption i is endemic in Ghana despite their showing good face and conducting good election. Corruption is a big problem in Ghana, Example is the recent world cup Tournamant in South Africa, when Ghananian Players did quite well, but as they came back to Ghana, corrupt officials in Ghananian Football Association stole the world cup players money (fees) and some of the players have not been paid in full till today, and Ghana footbal body has been suspened by the Government, and investigation is on going and FIFA has suspended Ghana from International competition for corrupt practices.
  • Ghana cannot compare to Nigeria in any tangible thing now or in the near future, yes they have been conducting good elections and thats its for a small poor country, and Ghanaians and their leaders should stop camparing with Nigeria what they have not been able to do with cocoa and Gold.*
Arabica Robusta

West Africa Rising: Will a sovereign wealth fund really help reverse Nigeria's 'oil cur... - 0 views

www.csmonitor.com/...lp-reverse-Nigeria-s-oil-curse

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 05 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • On Dec. 1 last year, Nigeria’s cabinet approved the creation of a sovereign wealth fund that would invest any excess revenues generated from the sale of the country’s oil, which it exports at a rate of roughly two million barrels per day.
  • This isn’t the first time that the country has made such an effort. In 2003, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, Nigeria set up the Excess Crude Oil Account, or ECA, to serve a similar purpose.
  • If Nigeria’s new fund succeeds in delivering tangible infrastructure improvements and other development outcomes from its oil profits, the country could become a role model for other poverty-stricken but resource-rich countries in West Africa.Ghana just began pumping oil in December, and significant reserves have recently been found off the coasts of Liberia and Sierra Leone. No doubt those countries will look to their larger neighbor to the east, the region’s economic heavyweight, in deciding how to manage their own oil revenues.
Arabica Robusta

Shell: Clean-up goes on for Niger Delta - and oil company's reputation | Business | The... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...is-environmentalist-criticisms

shell oil petroleum industry development international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 05 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • At a parliamentary hearing in the Netherlands last week, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, Nigerian and British activists, Dutch MPs and others accused the company of breaches of safety, human rights abuses, destroying lives and the environment, hiding information, gas flaring and blaming locals for oil pollution in Nigeria.
  • Shell Holland's president, Peter de Wit, denied all the charges and insisted that the company applied "global standards" to its operations around the world. He argued that Shell had provided thousands of well-paid jobs, brought know-how, education and technology and had launched numerous community projects in the west African nation.
  • The UN Environment Programme, using money from Shell, has spent four years investigating and assessing thousands of oil spills in Ogoniland, the small oil-rich region of the Niger Delta where the company was active until forced out over pollution by Ogoni leaders including Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged by the Nigerian military regime in 1995.The UN report will not say who caused the spills but will confirm that large areas of land remain polluted, drinking water wells are still highly toxic and many of the fishing creeks are unproductive.
Arabica Robusta

African Democracy and Oil: A Combustible Mix | Revenue Watch Institute - 0 views

www.revenuewatch.org/...ocracy-and-oil-combustible-mix

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource ghana sierraleone tanzania uganda

shared by Arabica Robusta on 10 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • I was motivated by the conviction that parliaments are central to good governance—representing the voice of the people, making laws and holding the executive to account. I still believe that, but the complex challenges posed by oil wealth in today's Africa means parliaments across the continent struggle to fulfil these roles.
  • The message was clear: to be an MP representing the voice of your constituents against the interests of the elite can be dangerous. African MPs need not only to be wealthy, but also brave.
  • Tribalism is never far beneath the surface and is a major barrier to achieving a national consensus. For many Africans, tribal allegiances are strong, but there is weak identification with the nation. Crafting unity in a nation created by imposed colonial boundaries remains a distant concept—witness the imminent breakup in Sudan—and often impedes efforts to garner widespread support for a national oil or mining policy. Failed efforts to build national consensus around policy objectives can lead to situations like Ghana's, where the country has begun oil production without coming to agreement on a national oil policy, instead following an outdated law drafted in 1984 with few regulations to ensure the country derives the maximum benefit from its finite resources.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Oil laws are still written without a national consensus on the role of the oil sector in the country's development. Detailed regulations are unwritten or unenforced. Lack of information and knowledge leave MPs with formal power but no means to actually hold government to account.
  • Foreign oil companies and their contractors effectively regulate themselves in places like Ghana and Sierra Leone. The lack of explicit regulations gives too much leeway for officials' discretion in approving activity, and too much risk of their making personal gain from their official position.
  • Most Ugandans I met assumed that they had been sold short by either their government or the oil companies. In fact, in my review of the contracts the Ugandan government negotiated, the agreements were tough and compared favourably with other countries.
Arabica Robusta

Revealed: More Slick Moves by Jarch Capital in Oil-rich Southern Sudan - Is It About Fr... - 0 views

rogerpociask.posterous.com/lick-moves-by-jarch-capital-in

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource sudan spla aig jarch

shared by Arabica Robusta on 24 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Jarch is chaired by Philippe Heilberg, who during the 1990s worked as a Wall Street banker in the commodities division of American International Group, a giant American financial company that nearly collapsed in 2008.
  • On the same BBC program, Steve Wiggins, a Research Fellow at the think-tank the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) said the deal raised concerns over land rights. “The concerns are very clearly first and foremost alienation of the land rights of people who are already there. And particularly some of the marginal and poor people who may not have legal title to their land and these people are obviously vulnerable to losing the means of their livelihoods.”
Arabica Robusta

Oil City: Where are the Jobs, pt. 2 | Pipe(line)Dreams - 0 views

www.pipelinedreams.org/...l-city-where-are-the-jobs-pt-2

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse 419

shared by Arabica Robusta on 09 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Both Tullow Oil and Kosmos Energy have posted scam alerts on their websites. Here’s the warning from Kosmos: NOTE: POTENTIAL RECRUITMENT FRAUD Kosmos Energy has learned that job applicants in the international oil and gas business, as well as other industry sectors, may be contacted by individuals or organizations that offer false employment opportunities. These communications are often via email and may request personal information or money. Kosmos only makes job offers after candidates have completed a formal interview process and does not ask applicants to pay fees during recruitment. Specifically, please note that any communications from or about the “Kosmos Group” are not associated with Kosmos Energy. This is good, but I don’t know how useful these alerts are. There are a lot of people in Takoradi who don’t have internet access. And even when you get to the Tullow or Kosmos websites, it’s not easy to get information.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 09 Apr 11
       
      Corporate websites as greenwashers.  They know that consumer "stakeholders" are the audience because producing areas have very limited access to Internet.
Arabica Robusta

ECUADOR: Fate of Untapped Oil Hangs in the Balance - of Trust Fund - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

ipsnews.net/news.asp

shared by Arabica Robusta on 17 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • The initiative for not extracting the oil was originally proposed 20 years ago by Fundación Natura, the largest environmental organisation in Ecuador, and has since been supported by a number of environmental and indigenous groups defending the Yasuní National Park and its buffer zone, where the oilfields are located.
  • But there are strong supporters for drilling, like the deputy minister of non-renewable natural resources and former manager of the state oil firm Petroecuador, Carlos Pareja, and President Correa himself has talked extensively about "Plan B".
  • Meanwhile, the German government said it will not support the Yasuní-ITT initiative, because the precedent might be imitated by other countries. The announcement came as very bad news for the initiative.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Correa cheerfully replied that he would continue to talk about "Plan B" because his main concern is the future of Ecuadorians, and if international cooperation is not forthcoming he will have to authorise it. In the circumstances, it appears increasingly unlikely that the oil under the Yasuní nature reserve will remain untapped for long.
  • The proposal is for Ecuador to forego extracting the oil, in return for the international community contributing 50 percent of the cost of the greenhouse gas emissions that would be saved by not extracting and burning the oil – at least 3.6 billion dollars.
Arabica Robusta

Tomgram: Michael Schwartz, The New Oil Wars in Iraq | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...tz%2C_the_new_oil_wars_in_iraq

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource iraq us intervention

shared by Arabica Robusta on 05 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • It was a moment of remarkable contradictions.  Obama managed, for example, to warn against “mission creep” even as he was laying out what could only be described as mission creep.  Earlier that week, he had notified Congress that 275 troops would be sent to Iraq, largely to defend the vast U.S. embassy in Baghdad, once an almost three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar symbol of imperial hubris, now a white elephant of the first order.  A hundred more military personnel were to be moved into the region for backup.
  • In tandem with the military moves, the president and his national security team, perhaps reflecting through a glass darkly the “democracy agenda” of the Bush era, also seemed to have dipped their fingers in purple ink.  They were reportedly pressuring Iraqi politicians to dump Prime Minister Maliki and appoint a “unity” government to fight the war they want.  (Adding to the farcical nature of the moment, one name raised for Maliki’s position was Ahmed Chalabi, once the darling of Bush-era officials and their choice for that same post.)
  • There is, however, no way that an American intervention won’t be viewed as a move to back the Shia side in an incipient set of civil wars, as even retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus warned last week.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Fortunately, sociologist Michael Schwartz, an old-time TomDispatch regular, is back after a long absence to remind us of The One Fact in Iraq, the one we should never forget. Tom
  • Under the seething ocean of Sunni discontent lies a factor that is being ignored. The insurgents are not only in a struggle against what they see as oppression by a largely Shiite government in Baghdad and its security forces, but also over who will control and benefit from what Maliki -- speaking for most of his constituents -- told the Wall Street Journal is Iraq’s “national patrimony.”
  • When, in 2009, the Obama administration first began withdrawing U.S. combat troops, Iraqis everywhere -- but especially in Sunni areas -- faced up to 60% unemployment, sporadic electrical service, poisoned water systems, episodic education, a dysfunctional medical system, and a lack of viable public or private transportation. Few Westerners remember that, in 2010, Maliki based his election campaign on a promise to remedy these problems by -- that figure again -- increasing oil production to six million barrels per day.
  • none of this oil wealth trickled down to the grassroots, especially in Sunni areas of the country where signs of reconstruction, economic development, restored services, or jobs were hard to discern. Instead, the vast new revenues disappeared into the recesses of a government ranked by Transparency International as the seventh most corrupt on the planet.
  • In a rare moment of ironic insight, Time magazine concluded its coverage of the F-16 purchase with this comment: “The good news is the deal will likely keep Lockheed’s F-16 plant in Fort Worth running perhaps a year longer. The bad news is that only 70% of Iraqis have access to clean water, and only 25% have clean sanitation.”
  • With conditions worsening, Sunni communities only became more insistent, supplementing their petitions and demonstrations with sit-ins at government offices, road blockades, and Tahrir Square-type occupations of public spaces. Maliki’s responses also escalated to arresting the political messengers, dispersing demonstrations, and, in a key moment in 2013, “killing dozens” of protestors when his “security forces opened fire on a Sunni protest camp.” This repression and the continued frustration of local demands helped regenerate the insurgencies that had been the backbone of the Sunni resistance during the American occupation. Once lethal violence began to be applied by government forces, guerrilla attacks became common in the areas north and west of Baghdad that the U.S. occupiers had labeled “the Sunni triangle.”
Arabica Robusta

Obama on Wrong Side in Shell Oil Human Rights Case | Black Agenda Report - 0 views

blackagendareport.com/...-shell-oil-human-rights-case-0

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 09 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • But now, under these circumstances, Shell Oil claims it is not a person, subject to human law, but an entity possessing corporate immunities.
  • When Shell Oil walked into the U.S. Supreme Court building, this week, claiming that it is not responsible for the torture and murder of Nigerians in its oil fields in the Niger River Delta, the Dutch corporation had a friend in the courtroom: the Obama administration.
Arabica Robusta

West using terror to plunder oil resources of Nigeria | nsnbc - 0 views

nsnbc.wordpress.com/...under-oil-resources-of-nigeria

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 09 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • With a population of 160 million, Nigeria is the known as the “giant of Africa”. In addition to crude oil, Nigeria has also the biggest reserves of natural gas among Sub-Saharan nations. Western energy companies are gearing up to tap this wealth even further in the coming years. Balkanising the country into North-South entities would undermine the central government in Abuja and bolster exploitation by these corporations.
  • However, some Nigerian analysts believe that the organization is being used by powerful external forces as a conduit for destabilizing Nigeria. Political analyst Olufemi Ijebuode says: “The upshot of this latest massacre is to destabilize the state of Nigeria by sowing sectarian divisions among the population. The killers may have been Boko Haram operatives, but Boko Haram is a proxy organization working on behalf of foreign powers.”
  • Campbell reiterated the significant observation: “The Mubi atrocity will feed a popular perception that the government can no longer ensure security in large parts of the country.”
Arabica Robusta

PressTV - West using terror to plunder oil resources of Nigeria - 0 views

presstv.com/...-terror-to-destabilize-nigeria

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 09 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Balkanising the country into North-South entities would undermine the central government in Abuja and bolster exploitation by these corporations.
  • Political analyst Olufemi Ijebuode says: “The upshot of this latest massacre is to destabilize the state of Nigeria by sowing sectarian divisions among the population. The killers may have been Boko Haram operatives, but Boko Haram is a proxy organization working on behalf of foreign powers.”
  • Campbell reiterated the significant observation: “The Mubi atrocity will feed a popular perception that the government can no longer ensure security in large parts of the country.”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • However, the fragmentation of Nigeria would undermine the political base of the central government. Nigeria’s political class has an unenviable reputation for institutionalized corruption and graft. Those flaws would most probably intensify in splintered and weakened political administrations. In that scenario, the powerful Western oil companies stand to gain by extracting even more favorable terms for oil production.
  • Political analyst Olufemi Ijebuode is convinced that Britain, France and Israel have also stepped up covert military involvement in Nigeria over the same period.
  • The same Western objective of fracturing, balkanising and weakening countries is also seen to be playing out in Sudan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria. Nigeria’s oil and gas riches and its position as a natural leader of African nations underscores the Western objective with regard to West Africa.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 09 Oct 12
       
      Frynas, citing Ahmad Khan, makes the same point in his work on instability and corporate exploitation in Nigeria.
Arabica Robusta

Archbishop Justin Welby: The shady 'Monsieur Africa' and a £6billion mission ... - 0 views

www.dailymail.co.uk/...-snap-Nigerias-oil-riches.html

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria elfoil welby

shared by Arabica Robusta on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • He was quickly handed responsibility beyond his years. For instance, he  was directly involved in an attempted hostile takeover of an American oil company, Kerr-McGee. Hours before it was due to go ahead, the takeover was halted after the intervention of the French prime minister who feared it would damage French-US relations.Before it was stopped, Mr Skjevesland recalled Mr Welby was instructed by Elf’s group treasurer to transfer $2 billion. ‘One morning Justin came in to the office and told me, “I got a phone call from New York last night. We’re going to go ahead with the acquisition.”
  • Mr Welby had been a committed Christian since university yet rarely discussed his faith with colleagues. But some recall him wearing a cross pinned to the breast pocket of his tweed jacket. Isobel Gil-Noble, the warden of St Michael’s, the English-speaking Paris church Mr Welby attended, said: ‘Justin was a bit of a yuppie – and a real slick professional.’Mr Skjevesland, who was the company’s assistant treasurer for most of Mr Welby’s time with Elf, also attended the monthly talks in Lagos on the Bonny LNG project.It was at this time, unbeknown to Mr Welby who only learnt of the allegations last year, that abuses were being carried out in Elf’s name in the Delta.
  • Archbishop Welby said in a statement last night: ‘During my time at that company [Elf] I worked in a junior finance capacity on a project in Nigeria, travelling to Lagos from Paris. ‘To suggest that I was in some way responsible for making strategic decisions, or that I was even aware of any alleged dubious confidential strategy by Elf, is absurd given my youth and lack of seniority. ‘In the case of the Bonny LNG project, Elf only had a five per cent stake, so even the company itself had minimal influence in decision making.’
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