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Gold/Mining/Energy : Lundin Oil (LOILY, LOILB Sweden) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tomas who wrote (2591)	6/27/2001 2:03:57 AM
From: Greywolf	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2742

Riots and death in PNG Upstream 01:07 GMT Lundin Oil getting the hell out of Dodge City is a very prudent action as the PNG is set to feel more of the same... sadly I might ad! Papua New Guinea's army was on standby on Tuesday night after student protests against IMF-backed economic reforms degenerated into violence in which at least three people were shot dead and 13 injured. Local hospital officials said three people had been killed. Acting police commissioner Joseph Kupo told reporters he had met the country's army commander and agreed on a call out order for the military if the situation deteriorates, Reuters said. "The army is on standby," Kupo said. Police used teargas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators outside Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta's office and in a separate incident fired warning shots in the air. "We now have three confirmed dead from gunshots to the abdominal region and head," Dr Chris Marjen, chief executive of the Port Moresby General Hospital, told Reuters. Police denied they were responsible for the deaths. The government district of the city looked like a battleground, with streets strewn with rocks, warehouses looted and cars and shops burnt, said an Australian journalist who flew over the area in a helicopter. "Today was a sad day for the country as criminals...took advantage of the opportunity to cause massive destruction to properties in the city," Kupo said. The former Australian colony has been plagued by political and economic chaos since independence in 1975. Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta's economic reforms and privatisations, backed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are aimed at getting the resource-rich but impoverished South Pacific nation back on an even economic keel. The riots will do the $2.18 billion Papua New Guinea Gas project no favours. The landmark project will draw some 6 trillion cubic feet of gas and close to 200 million barrels of liquefied petroleum gas from two main permits in the Southern Highlands, PDL-1 and PDL-2. A co-operative pact between the two permit groups marries abundant gas reserves in ExxonMobil's Hides gas field (PDL-1) with processing and transportation facilities in Chevron's ageing Kutubu field (PDL-2).

To: Tomas who wrote (2591)	6/28/2001 1:06:43 PM
From: Tomas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2742

Sudan: Oil and death on the real Field of Martyrs Sunday Business Post (Ireland), June 24 sbpost.ie Field of Martyrs is one of the star attractions on Sudan's otherwise nondescript state TV channel. A hybrid of Rambo and a wartime newsreel, the programme glorifies the exploits of the army of the Islamic government in its long-running struggle to suppress rebels in the south of the vast country. In the action-packed show, troops are shown spraying bullets against an unseen enemy or parading down the Nile on a gunboat, weapons aloft. It cuts to an airstrip, where bombs are being rolled onto a cargo plane; then switches to a parade of young men wearing red headbands signifying they expect to meet death in battle: the martyrs. "We know that we are advancing our cause in the name of Allah most gracious," a solemn voice intones. These are the faces of the bloody African war that western oil companies are accused of fuelling. The riches of oil bring only death and destruction to ordinary civilians, according to human rights campaigners. The western companies - from Canada, Sweden, Austria and Britain - should be forced to pull out, they say. But in the capital, Khartoum, local activists and western diplomats disagree. Western involvement in the oil business is keeping Sudan in the spotlight, they say. Making them leave would not end the war and might even make it worse. Sudan, a country of two nations, has been at war with itself since 1983. The government of the north, which is dominated by Arab Muslims, has been fighting rebels based in the south, populated mainly by black Africans who practice Christianity, Islam and traditional religions. Exploitation of the country's huge oil reserves - which lie along the front lines between north and south - was thought impossible until 1998, when the government started drilling in co-operation with Talisman of Canada. Fiercely guarded by government troops and tribal militia, the oil project has been a massive commercial success. Production has soared to 225,000 barrels a day, thought to earn the government as much as $500 million last year - a cut that will rise steeply in the future as the foreign shareholders recover their capital. The other shareholders are the national oil companies of China and Malaysia, but it is the association with Talisman which has given the government - branded a terrorist nation by US - some of the international credibility it desperately needs. Other European companies have since started drilling - most notably Lundin Oil of Sweden - and the French giant TotalFinaElf has the rights to a giant concession that remains unexplored. The western companies have been frequently attacked by human rights groups that accuse them, through their work with the government, of fuelling a war that has claimed two million lives and ruined millions more. Villagers living in the oil zone have reported being viciously cleared from their homes by government helicopter gunships. The Khartoum regime is accused of using its share of the profits to buy more tanks, guns and gunships to try to prosecute the war instead of negotiating for peace. The Irish Catholic agency Trocaire recently called on the Irish government to use its influence within both the EU and the UN to force the westerners out of Sudan until the war is over. But few in Khartoum, including western diplomats and local human rights activists, are convinced that such a move would staunch the flow of either oil or blood. Things may be bad now, they say, but if the vacant shareholding was taken up by China - which has a terrible human rights record of its own - the situation could get even worse. "Talisman pulling out would not benefit us," said Alfred Taban, a southerner who edits the independent Khartoum Monitor newspaper and reports for the BBC. "We need them. They are our eyes in those areas so that we can exert pressure." Most European diplomats agree. "In the real world there is a $1 billion investment. The idea that you can just turn off the tap is just not practical," said one ambassador. "At least Talisman is spending money on hospitals and schools. I don't think you would find such generosity in a Russian or Chinese project." Talisman has gone to some lengths to tackle its image as an opportunistic multinational. Last year it hired a seminary student as a human rights consultant and auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers to produce a glossy Corporate Social Responsibility report outlining its good works in Sudan. In the area surrounding the main Heglig oil well, the company has dug many wells and built a well-equipped hospital and four schools in the last year. The cost of the projects is between $5 million and $6 million, a company spokesman told The Sunday Business Post, or about 2 per cent of last year's post-tax oil revenues. Such measures have not been enough to convince the US House of Representatives, however. Two weeks ago it voted for legislation that would bar foreign oil companies working in Sudan from accessing US capital markets. The move provoked a panicked reaction from Talisman ceo Jim Buckee, who said he would sooner pull out of Sudan than be delisted on the New York stock exchange. Analysts say the bill has little chance of making it through the Senate and into law, but it nevertheless underscores the wide gulf between European and US policy regarding Sudan. The US sees Sudan as a rogue state that should be isolated, but the EU believes only a policy of constructive engagement will bring peace. Six weeks ago a group of EU diplomats flew to the area where oilfields are to check the reports of massive human rights abuses. One diplomat on the trip said he believed only three of the government's ageing helicopter gunships was working. He described flying over the oil area at low altitude but seeing no evidence of the "scorched earth policy" described by the aid agency Christian Aid. "There was dense population near the oil rigs, but we didn't see any villages burned out," he said. But others disagree. John Ryle, a respected Sudan analyst, recently travelled to the edge of the oil zone. "There were eyewitness reports of repeated and direct government attacks," he said. Population movements into the towns represented a "distress migration". "People face the choice of going deeper into the swamps or moving into the government-held towns - and that's the whole idea." Nevertheless, Ryle wasn't sure if the western companies should be forced to pull out. "It is very difficult to get to these areas. The onus is on Talisman to prove there are no abuses. We need neutral observers to be allowed in."