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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

Publish What You Pay - 0 views

www.publishwhatyoupay.org/...index.shtml

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shared by Arabica Robusta on 03 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 03 Jul 08
     
    The Publish What You Pay coalition of over 300 NGOs worldwide calls for the mandatory disclosure of the payments made by oil, gas and mining companies to all governments for the extraction of natural resources. The coalition also calls on resource-rich developing country governments to publish full details on revenues. This is a necessary first step towards a more accountable system for the management of natural resource revenues.
Arabica Robusta

Oil: Fueling Another Debt Crisis? - 0 views

www.multinationalmonitor.org/...watkins.html

corporations debt development industry international jubilee multinational petroleum

shared by Arabica Robusta on 22 Apr 08 - Cached
  • it is clear that soaring oil prices are undermining the benefits of debt cancellation in some countries, especially poor oil-importing nations.
  • In Escaping the Resource Curse, Columbia University professors Macartan Humphreys, Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz identify a vast array of contributing causes to the resource curse. Corruption is among the most severe, they conclude. “The short run availability of large financial assets increases the opportunity for the theft of such assets by political leaders. Those who control these assets can use that wealth to maintain themselves in power, either through legal means (e.g., spending in political campaigns) or coercive ones (e.g., funding militias).” Local corruption, they note, is often aided and abetted by international companies. “International mining and oil companies that seek to maximize profits find that they can lower the costs of obtaining resources more easily by obtaining the resources at below market value — by bribing government officials — than by figuring out how to extract the resources more efficiently.”
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 23 Apr 08
       
      Corporate and government underpinnings of "resource curse."
  • High oil prices have a clear economic effect. But for highly indebted, impoverished countries, climate change, fueled significantly by CO2 emissions from cars and other gas-guzzling vehicles in the North, will have serious ecological, social and economic impacts as well.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Says Saul, “A key way to transition away from dependence on oil is through debt cancellation. Countries need fiscal space in order to invest in the post-fossil fuel economy — but the debt trap keeps countries from meeting a wide variety of social needs.”
  • Arabica Robusta on 22 Apr 08
     
    it is clear that soaring oil prices are undermining the benefits of debt cancellation in some countries, especially poor oil-importing nations.
Arabica Robusta

allAfrica.com: Ghana: Government Prepares to Battle the 'Oil Curse' (Page 1 of 2) - 0 views

allafrica.com/...200804220669.html

curse development economic ghana industry international petro-capitalism petroleum resource

shared by Arabica Robusta on 28 Apr 08 - Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 28 Apr 08
     
    "At this point we acknowledge that we lack the know-how to manage this enormous resource but we are blessed with the experience of others," said Francis Ackah, engineering manager of the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC), the agency which oversees the country's petroleum resources.
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

3,000 soldiers to serve in Africa next year - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq ... - 0 views

www.armytimes.com/...rve-in-africa-next-year-060812

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 11 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 11 Jun 12
     
    The boots on the ground, of course, would have nothing to do with U.S. trying to control resources (oil, minerals, etc.) and pacify resisting populations.
Arabica Robusta

allAfrica.com: Africa: Oil is a Far Cry From Being Continent's Curse - 0 views

allafrica.com/...201010110934.html

industry petroleum development international oil extractive transparency curse resource

shared by Arabica Robusta on 16 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 16 Oct 10
     
    Clark is a valuable resource for understanding petroleum exploitation from the hard-nosed business perspective.
Arabica Robusta

Oil and Turmoil - chad - 0 views

www.policyinnovations.org/...000042

chad curse industry oil resource saleemali violence

shared by Arabica Robusta on 07 May 08 - Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 07 May 08
     
    Despite oil's tortured history and eventual demise as a fuel, it must not be summarily dismissed as a cause of turmoil in Africa. Rather it should be considered as a resource that needs to be managed with effective development planning.
Arabica Robusta

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

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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

REFILE-REUTERS SUMMIT-Newly oil-rich Ghana struggles to please | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...it-ghana-idUSL5N0CP35Z20130409

ghana petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource africa

shared by Arabica Robusta on 10 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • "Because of oil production, rising expectations in Ghana will have to be met. But at the same time, past policy choices constrain the room for manoeuvre and Ghana is toeing a very delicate line," said Razia Khan, Africa analyst at Standard Chartered Bank in London.
  • Across the capital Accra, evidence of new resource wealth abounds - brightly-lit multi-storey buildings, cranes looming over construction sites, well-paved roads and billboards advertising banks, cars and mobile phones.But many Ghanaians remain excluded. An influx of rural workers hoping for jobs in Accra, has spawned a sprawl of outlying shanty towns and spilled vendors across the streets.Standing in a trash-strewn courtyard, 49-year-old school teacher Monica Quansah wonders where the oil money is going."Our children are still attending school under trees," she said. "Those of us in the city don't have reliable power and water, let alone those in the regions."
Arabica Robusta

Exxon 'loses' Venezuela nationalisation case - Features - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...201215194512924679.html

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource venezuela csr publicprivatepartnerships

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • In the latest showdown between western oil companies and Venezuela’s populist president, Exxon Mobil is widely seen as the loser, after the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ruled that the world’s biggest oil company would not be entitled to most of the damages it demanded after its fields were nationalised.
  • Despite this recent victory, PDVSA is facing some trouble. Under Chavez, the energy giant has undertaken ambitious social spending, running subsidised food distribution programmes and international aid projects as if it were a state unto itself. Critics say oil companies should not be delivering government services. And the money used for "Bolivarian" projects means the corporation has less to invest in developing new reserves; production has dropped from about 3.3m barrels per day in 1998 to about 2.25m in 2011, The Economist reported.
  • Like many of its South American neighbours, Venezuela has drastically reduced poverty in the past decade; the Bolivarian Republic’s poverty rate fell from 48.6 per cent in 2002 to 27.8 per cent in 2010, according to the UN Commission for Latin America's 2011 report. Inequality also declined sharply. This progress is linked to tough negotiations with foreign oil companies, so the state can have more resources to invest in local communities, Chavez’s supporters contend.
  • Arabica Robusta on 08 Jan 12
     
    This kind of oil company development is certainly more sustainable than self-interested CSR and public-private partnerships by corporations legally required to maximize their own profits.
Arabica Robusta

Premium Times - 0 views

premiumtimesng.com/...ed_with_corrupt_officials.html

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 05 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • In its bid to take control of one of the most lucrative oil fields in Nigeria, OPL 245, oil giant, Shell, ably assisted by senior Nigerian officials, condoned illegalities, subverted laid down rules and then lied repeatedly to cover its track, an ongoing PREMIUM TIMES investigation has shown.
  • Further investigations by PREMIUM TIMES have however shown that 10 years before Shell made the controversial payment in 2011, the oil giant had tolerated illegalities committed by Malabu and colluded with the company in compromising Nigerian officials and subverting the regulations and guidelines under which the oil block was awarded.
  • Fully aware of the huge reserve OPL 245 holds, Mr. Etete and Mohammed Sani (Abacha) used executive fiat to discretionally award the block to themselves, through Malabu, a company they hurriedly cobbled together. Mr. Etete was petroleum minister at the time while General Sani Abacha, Mohammed’s father, was Nigeria’s head of state. To conceal the fact that he awarded the block to himself and shield himself from public scrutiny, Mr. Etete designed an ingenious scheme. He created a fictional character, Kweku Amafegha, and made him one of the three shareholders of Malabu, the others being Mr. Abacha and Hassan Hindu (wife of Hassan Adamu, former Nigerian Ambassador to the UK, who is popularly known as Wakili Adamawa).
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Jeffery Tesler, a Briton, who distributed the infamous $180 million Halliburton bribes to senior government officials, also told a French court that Mr. Etete tricked him into believing that Mr. Amafegha was a real person and how he had paid millions of dollars into Mr. Amafegha’s account.
  • Insiders in Shell said before partnering with Malabu, the Dutch firm did an extensive due diligence on the Nigerian company and was aware that a fictional character was on the board of the company.
  • Apart from the illegality in partnering with Malabu, the outright purchase of OPL 245 license from Malabu (through the Nigerian government) was also an illegal act by Shell and ENI as it contravened condition 4b of the approval letter for the oil block given to Malabu.
  • Sources say the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Nigerian agency overseeing the licensing of and regulation of companies operating in the upstream and downstream sectors of the country’s oil and gas industry, would not have approved the sale of OPL 245 had President Goodluck Jonathan not suddenly “restructured” the agency to plant favourite officials with specific instruction to subvert the law and due process in the Malabu-Shell deal.
  • “There was pressure on Obaje to approve the sale, but he did not. That is why they brought the new Director, who is a Shell man all through,” an industry source said. “Do you think it is a coincidence that a Shell VP was brought in as head of DPR at a time when Shell and the FG wanted the DPR to approve the sale of one of Nigeria’s richest oil blocks,” the source queried.
  • “Shell cannot say it was not aware that Etete gave the oil block to himself, they cannot say that they were not aware that the guideline on the block prevented them from partnering or buying it from Malabu,” an oil industry source with links to the multinational company stated
Arabica Robusta

Kenya, Oil and Populism: Learning from Germany | Global Policy Journal - Practitioner, ... - 0 views

www.globalpolicyjournal.com/...-and-populism-learning-germany

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource kenya

shared by Arabica Robusta on 12 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Unlikely as it may seem, Africa can learn from Germany: Germany is the best managed economy in Europe. Of course, it does not have natural resources, and so its economic management addresses entirely different issues. However, the political foundations for Germany’s success can be generalized beyond the particularities of economic policies. Germany is today the best-run economy in Europe because it used to be the worst. Three generations ago, Germany collapsed into hyperinflation. From that searing experience Germans too emerged with that inchoate sense of ‘never again’. The German genius was to harness those sentiments into practical measures.
  • The most important and remarkable step taken by Germany was the third. The sentiment of ‘never again’ was turned into a critical mass of ordinary citizens who understood the economic issues underlying hyperinflation sufficiently to support the new rules and institutions. Collectively, these citizens provided the political defences that made the rules and institutions robust to the pressures for dysfunctional policy choices: this has persisted for three generations.
  • Political leaders self-flatteringly see their role as that of taking decisions. In fact, in large part they should leave decisions to their technocrats who are better informed. But only leaders, not their technocrats, can communicate with citizens, presenting a narrative of responsibility towards the next generation in managing good fortune.
Arabica Robusta

Pan-African News Wire: Western Oil Exploration Could Further Destabilize Somalia - 0 views

panafricannews.blogspot.com/...exploration-could-further.html

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource somalia

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • In the U.N. Monitoring Group’s latest annual report to the Security Council’s sanctions committee on Somalia and Eritrea, the experts said the Somali constitution gives considerable autonomy to regional governments to enter commercial oil deals.But a petroleum law that has not yet been adopted by the country’s parliament but is being invoked by federal officials in the capital Mogadishu says that the central government can distribute natural resources.“These inconsistencies, unless resolved, may lead to increased political conflict between federal and regional governments that risk exacerbating clan divisions and therefore threaten peace and security,” the experts group said in an annex to its annual report, which was seen by Reuters.
  • “It is alarming that regional security forces and armed groups may clash to protect and further Western-based oil companies interests,” it said.
  • The U.N. experts also expressed concern about a clash between a longstanding bid by Norway to urge Somalia to implement an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off its coast with commercial interests by a Norwegian oil company.
Arabica Robusta

Can indigenous operators cope after foreigners' exit? - The Nation - 1 views

thenationonlineng.net/...operators-cope-foreigners-exit

industry petroleum development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Akabogu added: “Local content in the oil industry is supposed to be a long term thing; it is supposed to be implemented in a gradual manner because the enabling environment is not there. The ideal thing would have been to retain the IOCs by addressing the issues that necessitated their divestment.” He said the IOCs were merely shifting their risks to the local operators who would now deal with issues of oil bunkering and theft.
  • To renowned environmental expert and coordinator of Oil Watch International, Mr. Nnimmo Bassey, the development is hardly surprising. According to him, divestment is a business strategy by the IOCs to cut losses and maximize profits. “You will notice that they are divesting mostly from onshore and swamp fields that intersect with communities that they have massively polluted and abused. Their aged facilities in those locations will certainly bring on more resource ownership and social conflicts. So, if local companies are happy to step in and take the flak that means ‘good’ business for the IOCs,” he observed
  • Bassey also said that on the other hand, the IOCs mostly divested to the extent of their equity holdings in such fields and production also activities. “They still own the pipelines and related facilities. What that means is that they are renovating their image, collecting rents from their facilities and generally smiling to the bank while the local companies will eventually take the beating for the pollutions, conflicts and other social disruptions. We see the divestment as a business strategy that benefits the IOCs and leaves the oil field communities and the environment at risk,” he told The Nation.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Bassey noted, for instance, that although the PIB is a good first step, the document as packaged, is not as strong as it ought to be. According to him, the PIB does not have stringent pro-people and pro-environment provisions, as the country, despite the PIB, will still be having illegal routine gas flaring. He blamed the delay in passing the bill on what he described as ‘toxic politics’ and pressure from the IOCs who have openly said they would not accept laws that curb their excessive profits as well as wrong perception by some legislators that provision of funds for communities mean more money to the oil-bearing states.
  • Nnimmo argued that although, the PIB makes the offer of money to oil-bearing communities on one hand, it takes it away on the other. “The PIB criminalises communities when it says that if oil facilities are tampered with then the communities, local government areas, and states would pay. Communities are not the policemen of oil facilities. The PIB speaks the old language of subsisting laws that free IOCs of responsibility where facilities are interfered with by third parties. That has made the claim of sabotage the favourite refrain of the oil companies even before incidents are investigated. The PIB fell into the same anti-people trap,” he explained.
  • Bassey insisted that what Nigeria needs to do right now is to “massively increase oil revenues by halting oil theft. We are not talking about poor villagers scooping crude oil in buckets and jerry cans. Those also need to be stopped. We are talking about the industrial-scale oil theft going on in the oil sector. The official figure bandied by the Ministry of Finance as well as the National Assembly is that 400,000 barrels of crude oil are stolen everyday,” he said As for local operators, Bassey and other experts and stakeholders said the ability of local operators to hold their own would depend, to a very large extent, on better collaboration, better host community management, proper valuation and raising smart financing. They also require huge investment in knowledge, research and development (R&D).
  • Mutiu Sunmonu, Managing Director of SPDC, said the divestment of his company’s assets was a deliberate measure to encourage indigenous participation in the upstream oil and gas industry. His words: “We want to create a new set of indigenous players in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry within the next 10 to 20 years from now, while the IOCs concentrate on more difficult issues and also allow us focus on material oil and gas fields.” The divestments are seen by some industry watchers as representing the single largest opportunity for Nigerian operators with the requisite expertise and capital to emerge as major upstream players.
Arabica Robusta

Oil companies in emerging markets: Safe sex in Nigeria | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...ni-win-huge-nigerian-oil-block

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource nigeria

shared by Arabica Robusta on 19 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Malabu then sued the government. After much legal wrangling, they reached a deal in 2006 that reinstated the firm as the block’s owner. This caught Shell unawares, even though it had conducted extensive due diligence and had a keen understanding of the Nigerian operating climate thanks to its long and often bumpy history in the country. It responded by launching various legal actions, including taking the government to the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.
  • Tom Mayne of Global Witness, an NGO, has followed the case closely; he believes things were structured this way so that Shell and ENI could obscure their deal with Malabu by inserting a layer between them. Mr Agaev, Malabu’s former fixer, lends weight to this interpretation. It was, he says, structured to be a “safe-sex transaction”, with the government acting as a “condom” between the buyers and seller.
  • Shell and ENI reject the suggestion that their joint purchase was a thinly disguised transaction with a dodgy brass-plate company. Shell says it made payments to the Nigerian government only and that it has acted at all times in accordance with Nigerian law. It previously said it had “not acted in any way that is outside normal global industry practice”. ENI says its payments to the government “were made in a transparent manner through an escrow arrangement with a major international bank”. That bank was JPMorgan Chase. A Lebanese bank had earlier declined to handle the payments, it emerged in court.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The companies’ claim that they bought the block from the state, not Malabu, is disingenuous, says Mr Mayne of Global Witness. It is also contradicted by Nigeria’s attorney-general, Mohammed Bello Adoke, who told a parliamentary committee last July that the companies “agreed to pay Malabu”, with the government acting as an “obligor” and “facilitator.”
  • The EFCC’s report states: “Investigations conducted so far reveal a cloudy scene associated with fraudulent dealings. A prima facie case of conspiracy, breach of trust, theft anmd [sic] money laundering can be established against some real and artificial persons.” Officially, the EFCC’s investigation is still open, but a source familiar with it says that its sleuths have been discouraged by higher-ups from moving forward. However, other countries’ fraudbusters have taken an interest. At least one of the parties involved in the oil-block sale has been contacted by America’s Department of Justice.
  • The saga is a striking example of an ethical dilemma that is growing more acute for international oil companies. They are desperate to replace their shrinking reserves with new finds, but many of the most attractive fields are in unstable or poorly governed places.
  • Mr Hughes argues that when foreign companies turn a blind eye to questionable aspects of a deal, it can sometimes benefit developing countries with natural resources. The publicly traded oil majors are, on balance, a force for good, raising overall standards of behaviour by trying to operate as cleanly as possible in most circumstances, he says; better that than leaving the field to less scrupulous operators.
  • Global Witness prefers to see the OPL245 affair as “a lesson in corruption” that demonstrates how important it is for rich-world governments to press on with transparency initiatives
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Review of Duncan Clarke's Crude Continent: the Struggle for Africa's Oil Prize - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...53066

petroleum development international oil extractive transparency curse resource industry

shared by Arabica Robusta on 16 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • The thrust of Crude Continent is precisely (and often, not so precisely) this: oil, far from being a curse, could actually save Africa. It is oil that will modernise Africa and oil that will lead it out of what Clarke dubs – without ever defining – ‘African medievalism’. Clarke argues that those countries without oil are the ones that are truly cursed, for they will be left ‘largely backward’.
  • This intriguing notion is preached throughout Crude Continent, with Clarke seeking to expose as fools those who argue that Africa's oil-rich countries are being poisoned to the core by the so-called ‘resource curse’. Our candid author is particularly incensed by two experts' ‘scribblings on oil’, both released last year: Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea by Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, an Oxford lecturer; and Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil by Nicholas Shaxson, an associate fellow at Chatham House, London.
  • Clarke asks us to consider what he calls the long-term ‘multiplier effects’, the direct and indirect benefits of the oil and gas industry, including employment creation, foreign exchange inputs and capital inflow, technology transfers, fiscal funding and ‘indirect supply chain effects’. These are much more significant than the ‘palliative band-aid…of corporate social investment’ that Clarke clearly detests. He berates the fact that no one has ever ‘properly identified and measured’ the social and economic benefits of oil and gas projects in Africa.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Regularly tumbling into appalling metaphor and analogy, Clarke nevertheless concludes: ‘North and south Sudan may be bound by the umbilical cords of a chequered politics and oil history, but as with Siamese twins these links can also be severed.’
  • Parts three and four provide the reader with 140 pages of comprehensive information on corporate oil operations in Africa and the global scramble for the big prize. Leaving aside his irritating penchant for metamorphosis – lions becoming countries, rhinos turning into multinationals – Clarke offers readers the chance to delve into his vast wealth of knowledge. Together with a comprehensive index, these two sections make it easy to find out which company is drilling what wells, where and with whom. Our expert guide also leads us around the world explaining how different nations are capturing Africa's oil and gas potential. All fascinating stuff.
  • The perpetuation of the petroleum age might make the current crop of oil executives and certain political leaders happy, but it is dangerously optimistic to suggest that the future well-being of African people depends primarily on drilling oil.
  • Arabica Robusta on 16 Oct 10
     
    The thrust of Crude Continent is precisely (and often, not so precisely) this: oil, far from being a curse, could actually save Africa. It is oil that will modernise Africa and oil that will lead it out of what Clarke dubs - without ever defining - 'African medievalism'. Clarke argues that those countries without oil are the ones that are truly cursed, for they will be left 'largely backward'.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Oil-dependency and food: Livelihoods at risk - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...66792

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource food security foodsecurity agribusiness agriculture miles sovereignty

shared by Arabica Robusta on 07 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Without diminishing the severity of the Gulf spill, several observers have pointed out the asymmetrical political reactions to oil disasters in the US and in other parts of the world.[6] Nnimo Bassey, Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth International, explains the sense of frustration: ‘We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the US, but in Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments…This has gone on for 50 years in Nigeria. People depend completely on the environment for their drinking water and farming and fishing. They are amazed that the president of the US can be making speeches daily, because in Nigeria people there would not hear a whimper.’[7]
  • Presumably, companies are not only put off by the prospect of increased red tape in the US, but also attracted – as they have been for decades – by the limited capacity of African States to regulate extractive activities. To attract foreign investment, most countries in sub-Saharan Africa also enter into generous production-sharing agreements that allow foreign oil companies to turn a relatively small upfront investment in exploration into billions in downstream profits.[11]
  • Even after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the company has moved full-steam ahead with plans to sell off US$30 billion in onshore and shallow-water production assets in order to aggressively pursue deepwater drilling in West Africa, Angola, Egypt and, yes, Louisiana.[17]
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Critics also point to Ghana’s long history of extractive activities and primary commodity exports: Ghana produces gold, bauxite, manganese, diamonds, timber and cocoa, none of which have generated appreciable benefits for the majority of Ghanaians.
  • Ghana has chosen to accept so-called ‘stabilisation clauses’ in its contracts with companies that lock in current laws and regulations. If the country should decide to strengthen its regulatory framework, companies with existing contracts could claim that the new laws do not apply to them, or require the government to provide financial compensation for the cost of compliance.[13] As foreign companies reap handsome rewards, and Ghana gains uncertain benefits (much of the content of these contracts remains secret), coastal communities are sure to pay the highest cost. At a recent Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) workshop held in the coastal town of Takoradi, representatives of six districts located closest to the oil find responded angrily to refusals to commit part of the petroleum royalties to an environmental mitigation or compensation fund, as is legally required in the mining sector.[24] No such provision has thus far been established for the oil and gas industry.
  • corporate interests are often recast as national security concerns. It was President Jimmy Carter who cemented the connection in his 1980 State of the Union address by stating that any foreign attempt to gain control of Middle Eastern oil would be regarded as ‘an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America.’ The policy, now known as the Carter Doctrine, set a dangerous precedent of using military might to secure ‘strategically important’ resources throughout the world.
  • In another case, the European Commission on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) has accused oil companies of complicity in crimes against humanity in a Southern oil field known as Block 5A. ECOS charges companies with pressuring armed groups to ‘clear the ground’, leading to a wave of repression in which 12,000 people were killed and another 20,000 displaced.
  • Farming accounts for as much as 32 per cent of total emissions, a significant portion of which are created by industrial agriculture through the use of petroleum-based fertilisers, pesticides and forest clearing.[38] The issue of ‘food miles’ – the distance our food travels from farm to table[39] – has been well documented, while new data shows that the production phase accounts for as much as 83 per cent of the average US household’s carbon footprint for food.[40] Changing the way we produce food, therefore, constitutes a necessary step towards reducing oil dependence, its enormous carbon footprint and its human toll.
  • Food sovereignty, the political project put forward by the international peasant movement Via Campesina, offers a promising road map.
  • Industrial agriculture may be more ‘efficient’ in terms of labour (output per worker), but its productivity is achieved through massive applications of fossil fuel-based inputs such as tractor fuel and agrochemicals. Small organic farms, however, are generally more efficient in terms of land (output per acre), since they grow a variety of plants and animals, taking full advantage of each ecological niche.
Arabica Robusta

WorldStage News | Shell, Exxon, Chevron, others endorse new law to boost Nigerian content - 0 views

www.worldstagegroup.com/...index.php

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency nigeria curse resource

shared by Arabica Robusta on 05 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Minister of Petroleum Resources Diezani Alinson-Madueke who also addressed the forum, said that by enacting the law and establishing a formidable Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), which would help to implement the provision of NOGICD Act, the Federal Government had taken the lead with the provision of the enabling environment and would continue making the improvements required.She said that with the new drive, there would be “transformation of ownership profile of marine assets supporting industry activities from a current ratio of 20 Nigerian-owned vessels: 280 Foreign-owned vessels to a more equitable ratio of 180 Nigerian:120 (Foreign).”She noted that the Nigerian content would not only integrate indigenes and businesses residing in the oil producing areas into the mainstream of industry economic activity, but it would also capture of over 70 per cent of banking services, insurance risk placements, and Legal services supporting industry activities and transactions.
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