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June 2016 News and Analysis from NRGI

  • News from NRGI

  • 30 June 2016

U.S. mandatory payment disclosure, Tunisia oil contracts, commodity trading corruption risks

Highlights

U.S. Oil and Mining Companies to Disclose Payments to Governments
Transparency advocates hailed the 27 June adoption of a rule by the Securities and Exchange Commission requiring oil, gas and mining companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges to publicly disclose the billions of dollars in payments they make to governments of producing countries in exchange for natural resources.

Tunisia Embraces Emerging Global Norm of Contract Disclosure
Tunisia joined a growing list of over 25 countries that have released all or some of their extractive sector contracts. NRGI also published a briefing on the different steps and considerations that could be involved in moving forward with contract publication.

Initial Evidence of Corruption Risks in Government Oil and Gas Sales
Physical oil trading transactions merit greater transparency and oversight, as is illustrated in this review of historical cases of corruption risk.

NRGI Receives Top Rating from Transparency Watchdog
Transparify has awarded NRGI its top rating for a second consecutive year in a report analyzing over 200 groups. Only 14 U.S.-based think tanks earned this distinction.

2016 Women Leaders in Extractives Fellowship: Applications Due Today
In a field where the meaningful participation of women is often missing, this program is uniquely designed to prepare leaders for engagement in technical debates on the extractive industries.

Spotlight on data


Extracting Trends and Truths from Oil, Gas and Mining Contracts: Text Analytics and ResourceContracts.org
As a global repository of more than 1,000 mining and petroleum contracts between governments and extractive companies, ResourceContracts.org now provides a large corpus of data for advanced text analytics. This blog illustrates what is available on the platform and explores some examples of possible analysis.

Parsing Myanmar's First EITI Report

The information in Myanmar's first EITI report has shed light on its historically opaque extractive sector and helped to build a case for further transparency. This fact sheet, in English and Myanmar language, describes what the lay reader needs to know.

Video

Voices From Budapest: Advanced Resource Governance Course Students Talk Challenges, Solutions

These video clips were filmed at the NRGI-Central European University School of Public Policy course Reversing the Resource Curse: Theory and Practice in April 2016. They include perspectives from Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Libya, Mongolia, Myanmar and South Africa.

U.N. University World Institute for Development Economics Research Talks to NRGI Specialists
As part of an UNU-WIDER interview series in Helsinki, NRGI's director of research and data Jim Cust discussed international initiatives like EITI and the Natural Resource Charter. Director of legal and economic programs Patrick Heller described the influence and role of national oil companies in their home countries.

Blog

Glencore Discloses Payments, But Omits Trading Activities
To comply with new U.K. reporting regulations, global commodities giant Glencore published a report yesterday that summarizes the payments it made to governments in 2015. The figures shed light on the company’s extensive exploration and production activities. Glencore’s even larger trading business, however, remains in the dark.

Can Natural Resources Can Pay for Myanmar's Needs?

Villagers pass in front of crude oil tanks in Myanmar. (Credit: Yu Yu Myint Than for NRGI)

Myanmar's new government is under enormous pressure to prove that it can transform its budget into tangible benefits for citizens.

Every Manat/Lari/Som/Tenge Counts: Eurasian Trainers Learn How to Teach Revenue Management Skills
Civil society organization experts and activists—as well as journalists—must have the capacity to analyze and advocate for change. To that end, NRGI and the Eurasia Extractive Industries Knowledge Hub last month hosted a three-day session aimed at bolstering the capabilities of advanced revenue management trainers.

Morocco in Refinery Limbo as Buyers Sought

High demand at Morocco’s petrol pumps (Credit: photo by Flickr user Dewet, via Creative Commons license)

On 1 June, an appeals court in Morocco upheld a decision to put the country’s sole oil refinery into liquidation. A lesson from Morocco is that refineries can often turn into fiscal black holes.

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