Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : TLM.TSE Talisman Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: VisionsOfSugarplums who wrote (1025)	8/31/2000 9:49:35 PM
From: Tomas	Respond to of 1713

Oil Man: Jim Buckee Of Talisman Tells J. Timothy Hunt About The Challenges Of Going Global Financial Post, September 1 BY J. TIMOTHY HUNT In the past seven years, Jim Buckee, CEO of Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc., has spent about $4 billion on takeovers to transform the former British Petroleum branch plant into Canada's largest oil producer by volume. The company now has operations in North America, Africa, Indonesia and the North Sea. Yet controversy surrounding his company's stake in a Sudanese oil venture has recently overshadowed Buckee's impressive track record. PB: You've turned Talisman into a world player through acquisitions. What do you look for when acquiring a company? JB: The acquisition in itself is not the end point. If I've got a train set and you've got a train set, and we add them together to get a bigger train set, that doesn't get you forward. You have to have some strategic purpose. We have the people and a combination of technical and commercial skills to generate value from the assets. PB: Did all the criticism about your company in the Sudan catch you by surprise? JB: I suppose so. In Africa, of 52 countries, 28 have civil wars going on. I don't see that Sudan is unique in that sense. We are one of the few people who are actually doing something in there and generating some wealth. And it is barely wealth. The GNP per head is like $50 a year, so I'm convinced now more than ever development is the key, in the long run, to human rights. BP: How do you ensure your company acts responsibly in these developing countries? JB: Well, everywhere we go, particularly Indonesia as well as the North Sea, we try to stick to our code of ethics. We try to observe the same environmental standards, health standards, safety standards everywhere and we've tried to stick with our fundamental universal values and stay well out of politics. PB: What do you think is the biggest misconception that people have about Talisman? JB: I think it's that somehow the Canadian operations suddenly change their spots when they go somewhere else. I mean, the people who go down to work in Sudan are the same tolerant, open-minded, fair people here in Canada. And our people aren't going to work down there if it's bad. You don't suddenly become an evil person by going to work in Sudan.

To: VisionsOfSugarplums who wrote (1025)	9/1/2000 12:17:57 AM
From: Douglas V. Fant	Respond to of 1713

toowit, Here's an Economist article that frames Talisman's dilemma.... Sudan's oil - Fuelling a fire THE ECONOMIST September 2, 2000 KHARTOUM WHEN Talisman bought a chunk of oil rights in Sudan two years ago, Jim Buckee, the Canadian company's chief executive, talked of its "spectacular potential". Spectacular it has been, but not always in ways that pleased Mr Buckee. The Heglig field lies across all the faultlines that have caused Sudan's civil war: political, religious and ethnic. Like Shell in Nigeria, Talisman has found itself in the middle of a war and under fire from activists back home. The Greater Nile Oil Project, which is 25% owned by Talisman, Canada's largest independent oil- and gas-exploration firm, could transform Sudan into a medium-sized oil producer. But history suggests otherwise. The very discovery of oil contributed to the renewal of the war in 1983 and, when oil first started flowing in June last year, the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) pledged to stop it. They blew up the oil pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea three times. Problems on the ground are matched by a row in Canada, where human-rights activists have demanded that Talisman withdraw and that Canada impose sanctions on Sudan, whose government, they say, has enslaved its southern peoples. America has already imposed sanctions on Sudan, accusing it of supporting terrorism. Under pressure, the Canadian government sent a mission to investigate conditions in Sudan, and Talisman's shares promptly fell by 15%. But the company has fought back. To comply with American laws, it built a financial firewall between its Sudan operations and the rest of its business, to ensure that no American citizens were involved in its C$800m investment. Then Mr Buckee tried to head off criticism in Canada by arguing that oil would increase Sudan's wealth and help bring peace. He spoke of Talisman's "positive engagement", bringing "western values". Talisman even signed the International Code of Ethics for Canadian Business. Implementing this has proved difficult. Sudan's war is nearly 50 years old and nasty. Since 1983 it has killed an estimated 2m people and displaced a further 4.5m. In the area just south of Talisman's Heglig field there are at least five armed bands roaming around, including the government forces and the SPLA rebels. Others are militia bands led by warlords who tend to fight for the highest bidder. Into this violent chaos Talisman is trying to introduce human-rights monitoring. It has designed a form for monitors to record violations in its area and it is even offering to give human-rights training to the government soldiers designated to protect the oil installations. Talisman is also offering "development" in the form of water-wells, roads, schools and hospitals in its area. When some 50,000 displaced people arrived last month in Bentiu, the oil town where Talisman is based, it was able to fly in emergency help. The company is also looking for partners for development, but all the NGOs in the area have so far turned up their noses. The other foreign partners in the Greater Nile consortium, the state oil companies of China and Malaysia, are reported to be wryly amused by their partner's earnest efforts to observe human rights. The UN will not even use the oil company's tarmac airstrip at Bentiu for fear of being compromised. Nor is the Sudanese government particularly interested in Talisman's problems. It is resentful of the company's political activists. Awad al-Jaz, the oil minister, insists it is not Talisman's business "to talk about human rights", adding ominously that Sudan does not need Talisman to extract oil. Talisman claims to have convinced the government to set up a fund to help war-ravaged areas, an idea the government claims as its own. But, even if the fund is set up and oil money is used for it, there is still plenty to spend on weapons. That is the crunch for Talisman. Sudan's government finances are obscure but, according to one minister, Sudan's top priority is to refurbish the army. Some of the estimated $300m the government will get from oil this year is already being spent on weapons. For all its concern for ethical business, human rights and development, the ugly truth is that Talisman is helping the government extract oil, and oil is paying for the war.