The Financial Governance Committee (#FGC) has issued a damning advisory note concerning the #FGS Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources' (MPMR's) oil & gas licensing efforts.

Current approach provides "poor value for money...that may last for 40 years or more."

(thread)

The FGC raises concerns over "incomplete compliance with the FGS legal framework, and inadequate protection of FGS’s financial interests." Current MPMR approach risks "future legal and/or compensation claims against FGS."
The FGS makes seven principal recommendations. #7: "PSA negotiations do not prioritise short-term revenue (i.e. signature bonuses) at the expense of longer-term value."
The note confirms that Coastline Exploration (https://t.co/YztVl7wCZi) -- a company formed in 2018 and based in the Cayman Islands -- is in fact a rebranding of the discredited Soma Oil & Gas.
"Minimum bidder qualifications are set at relatively low thresholds... By comparison, the 2019 tender protocol required that a bidder include at least one party who has drilled multiple offshore exploration wells."

Grandfathering in "Coastline"? 🤔
"...certain provisions seem to allow the award of PSAs even where a single, potentially incomplete or otherwise non-compliant, bid is received."
"The PSA and the tender protocol issued in November 2020 offer considerably more attractive terms to oil companies than previously contemplated."
Per FGC, no stakeholder consultation appears to have occurred. "A group claiming to represent one clan has recently expressed their rejection of petroleum operations in areas inhabited by their clan."
The FGC also recommends that Federal Member States be properly included in the process.
Conclusion: "...there is a significant risk that any contracts awarded under the license round or through direct negotiations will not protect the interests of the FGS and oil-producing FMS or extract appropriate value for #Somalia’s oil over the lifetime of the PSA."

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Across Telegram, Twitter and Facebook disinformation is being peddled on the back of these tragic events. From false photographs to the tactics ofwhite supremacy, the far right is clumsily trying to drive hate against minority groups and figureheads.


Declan Ganley’s Burkean group and the incel wing of National Party (Gearóid Murphy, Mick O’Keeffe & Co.) as well as all the usuals are concerted in their efforts to demonstrate their white supremacist cred. The quiet parts are today being said out loud.


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I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.


I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.