January 2017 News and Analysis from NRGI

News from NRGI
31 January 2017

Highlights

Proposed Repeal of U.S. Extractives Transparency Rule Would Increase Corruption and Poverty
Yesterday Republican members of Congress introduced a resolution seeking to eliminate the June 2016 rule implementing the bipartisan Cardin-Lugar extractive industries payment transparency provision. “We are deeply concerned at the attempt to gut this trailblazing U.S. law," said NRGI president and CEO Daniel Kaufmann, who also described the move to Bloomberg as a "complete abdication of U.S. initiative and leadership." NRGI is calling on members of Congress to abandon this assault on an important transparency and anti-corruption measure and is working with partners to prevent the repeal of this rule.

Mexico Petroleum Regulator Aims to Implement and Surpass Contract Transparency Best Practice

Mexico's National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) has the opportunity to help advance the government’s transparency commitments, set a new global benchmark for disclosures and empower experts and citizens at large to access relevant, timely, and understandable information. An NRGI report (also available in Spanish) reviews what CNH has achieved so far and the transparency approaches of energy regulators worldwide in an effort to showcase best practices and illuminate a way forward. Its U.S. launch at the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace was webcast. (Read about the Mexico City launch here.)

A Letter From an Inmate of the Southern Gas Corridor
In this opinion piece, jailed NRGI advisory council board member Ilgar Mammadov writes about the complex relationships between international investment in fossil fuel extraction and the plight of political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

Training courses

Natural Resources for Sustainable Investment: the Fundamentals of Oil, Gas and Mining Governance

This free online course outlines the various complex and interrelated aspects of natural resource governance and is open to learners of all levels of experience. The course is offered in English, with transcripts of lectures available in French and Spanish. Register now.

2017 Training Courses
NRGI and its partners have announced course offerings for 2017. With generous donor support, a number of scholarships are available to eligible participants from select countries.

Blog

Nigeria’s 2017 Oil Sale Contract List Shows New Names, Old Tendencies
NRGI's Aaron Sayne writes that the Nigerian state oil company's new transparency and due process commitments for oil sales contract awards, while welcome, are not sufficient responses to the company's governance problems.

Oil Companies Face Stranded Assets, But Producer Countries Have It Worse
The working paper “Stranded Nations? The Climate Policy Implications for Fossil Fuel-Rich Developing Countries” explains why many fossil fuel-rich developing nations are between a rock and a hard place. If the world does not switch to low carbon consumption, these countries will bear the brunt of global warming. If the world embraces clean energy, they face a dramatic depreciation in the value of their fossil fuel wealth.

Improving Natural Resource Taxation in Developing Countries
The move toward income-based levies has brought serious, and intractable, administrative difficulties, since the measurement of a taxpayer’s net income is far more difficult than measurement of the fair market value of extracted product.