Insights on Oil Discovery and Development

I think that's an interesting thing. This one piece will make 52 layers. Watch on mobile devices or the big screen. All for free. No subscription required. Download Veely now. Where are we right now? Where are we standing? This place is called Ulebri Well 1. They found traces of oil here in 1956. I am from Ulebri community. That is where I come from, my ancient home, my home. I've heard stories many times that when oil is found in a place, everyone starts thinking about what it can get for himself. Yes, for example, our closest neighbor, the Nembe people. Oil has caused a lot of problems. Excuse me. Don't go green. I'm dragging a point. You people enter this camp, leave this place. Enter this camp, leave this place. Enter this camp, leave this place. Nothing will be done yet. Enter this camp, leave this place. Enter this camp, leave this place. Stock indexes all hit multi-year highs yesterday, but it was the Dow that generated the headlines. The market has been on something of a tear. Oil prices started edging towards a record last week. The price of oil hit another high overnight, $92 per barrel. We've never been where we are today. This is Cutter 4. Do you read me? We read you Cutter 4. I should be touching down in just a few minutes. The price of crude oil climbed $10 a barrel in the last month, $20 a barrel higher than a year ago. Some analysts say it's supply concerns. We've had reports in the past few days of pipelines being blown up in the Niger Delta. Investors are looking for a place to make money, and the thing that seems to be going up is the price of crude oil. Risk is an important piece of this. Just the notion of Cosmos looking for oil in a country that had never had it before was extremely risky. There was a high probability that you would invest some amount of money and you'd get nothing back. But if they were successful at achieving what their goal was, that the prize would be very, very large. and hence the reason to do it. In the plan, we got first oil in second half of 2010. It takes a couple of years to design the plan, build the equipment, install it. We're looking at an $11 billion development on a billion barrels, net to us $2.2 billion net to the company. This is a substantial oil project. It's important we generate enough reward to justify our risk. But when there's a lot of money at stake, then people's focus gets more intense, and more people from the outside and on the periphery will look to get a piece of it. There's hundreds of examples of that around the world outside of the oil business. I don't think that's endemic to the oil business. But in the oil business, it is quite large. In our discussion today, we're talking hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. That doesn't happen very often. So you just got back the news we recovered oil out of our sample too. Yes. Good oil. It is about 54 liters. About what? About 54, yeah, 54 liters. Okay. Previously it was 15 and you found... I'm going to eat more. Yeah. It's good. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Cosmos was an idea that Jim Musselman had back in 2002. Jim came to visit me. He was just thinking about starting his new business at the time. Jim is bigger than life, first of all, physically quite large, as you know, and I don't mean that in a negative sense. He's just a tall guy, and he's very charismatic. And Jim has this unique entrepreneurial aspect to him. He's a great optimist, and he has a lot of self-confidence. And that's what came through. Can you see a little of these umbrellas? I need one of those. You think I could buy one of those umbrellas? Do you think it would be alright if I carried one of those over you? Yeah. The work you are coming to do in Ghana merits respect. All of us give you that full recognition. Well, you're very kind. We take the responsibility very seriously because we know how important it is for the country and we intend to do a really good job. So you're going to be proud of us, I promise. We're going to be proud of you. Okay, let's not make the king wait. Jim has always been my senior partner, and I looked up to him. He's always there to support me, and I'm there to support him. And this is an old drill bit from a well that we drilled in Egypt many, many years ago. And I just kept it as a memento of those days and as an inspiration for... The dreams that we have to work in Africa and to find more oil. The king is very well respected in the country. Yes. He tells us all our senses to stand and stand. The king needs to know who we are. Exactly. Your Majesty, my name is Jim Musselman. I'm president of Cosmos Energy. We hope that we can serve you well and we hope we lead to a lot of prosperity for this country as we go forward with our oil and gas investment in this country. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity. It's a wonderful place here, so thank you so much. Thank you. We like to make the name of the company and welcome you to the company. Yeah, the name of the company is Cosmos Energy. We're based in Dallas, Texas. TMPC is a very good company that runs your energy business and together we're going to do our best to make Ghana much more profitable in the future. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Alright, see you. Thank you. Thank you. George, and away we go. That was spectacular. How often do you get to see something like that? That was wonderful. We came to Ghana because of George Owusu. We got our contract for the block from him. I went to one shop after the other, all the major companies, and nobody, some of them have not even heard of Ghana. I mentioned Ghana, they said, Ganda? Somebody mentioned, there's some guys in Dallas. They were walking around with lots of money. His name was Muslim Man. So one night, I called for the outreach assistant, and I said, OK, give me all the Muslim men you have in Dallas. OK, so John Muslim Man, Peter Muslim Man, Joseph Muslim Man. It was a cold call. Until finally, about 10.15, to be exact, I got hold of Mr James Muslim Man. So I found Cosmos, and they came in. When I came here, I was the only employee. I was a partner and employee. I didn't have an office. My office was my car. And there's a place called Busy Internet here in town. If I want to send information out... I went there, plugged my computer in. That's how we exchanged information between Dallas and here. I did that for two years. This place is gorgeous. This is one of the best places I've ever been. So we just moved here about a year ago, after the discovery. Discovering oil health. Exactly. See, we are moving on up, you know? Like the Jeffersons. Mr. President, before you leave office, would you want to do some sort of a press conference? It's very important. Okay. Especially if we would capture the flaring or gushing or whatever. so that Ghana would see. Yes. We're testing the well to see what the reservoir is going to deliver. Unfortunately, we're having to burn the oil. We don't have any way to collect it right now. So you mean you pump up how many? barrels. We open the wellbore to the atmosphere and the oil flows out of the formation at around 4,000 barrels a day right now. We're doing it in the name of science. That's about $2 million. Don't do the risk with that. It'll hurt your heart if you think about it. He's a banker by profession. I understand. Mr. President, this is a marvelous reservoir, world class. We've got a tiger by the tail, but that's a high class problem. have to learn to deal with it. There must be a magician to be holding a tiger by the tail. Yes, sir. I've got the CEO on board. Five passengers total. We should be on the rig in about five minutes. No problem. We're coming in from the southeast winds behind us, clear of the flare. You heard about our welds flowing back nicely? Yes. That's exciting. Very exciting. This field is going to be worth a lot, a lot of money once we're all set in time. The price of oil went up $15 between Tuesday and tonight. The flowing well economy. A flowing oil. A flowing oil. For the first time in the history of the country. Exactly. A flowing oil. See? It's my favorite place in the world, right here. Isn't it pretty? The light is just spectacular. I don't know. I was always comfortable starting companies where it's just been me and a secretary to help me out. I guess I've always been somewhat of a gambler and so the gambling nature of it sort of appealed to me. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, move, move. This is my grandfather and grandmother's headstones, and this is my mother and father. What did your dad do? He was a rancher. Everybody here ranched. Are you the first oil guy in your family? Uh-huh. What did your dad think about you? I think he was proud of me, I guess. I don't know. I mean, we do, people, we're not great communicators out here, you know. You don't tell one another how one feels too much, and so, you know, I don't really know, but I think he was proud. These people worked hard. You're working to make this a better place and make sure that it gets passed on to your children. I want to give to my children more than I received. That's important to me, to add to it. The American model for people making money off of a single oil well is so different from the rest of the world. Oh yeah, because the minerals in the state of Texas, for instance, are owned by individuals. They're not owned by the state. don't have a state-run wool company and the money is actually going into the hands of people as opposed to into the state coffers to be stolen by whoever which is the which is the nigeria model Do people worry about Ghana becoming like Nigeria? Not really, because the people of Ghana can see good things coming for them personally in the future. It's human nature to want opportunity. It's pure and simple what it's all about. By the time you are through with your assignment, you will find what the NIDA data is like. It's not an easy place to survive in. And not an easy place to develop. Faced with the kind of challenges that we have, we need some kind of resource, some kind of access to work to develop our environment. And I believe it's for that reason that God placed oil here. We think that the best way forward is for all stakeholders in the oil industry. to do the best they can to provide jobs. That's what our youth need. They've got to be busy. And should the government be doing more too? Of course. Of course it's our business, it's our duty to do more for our people. What about corruption? Do you believe that corruption is a problem? Of course corruption is a problem everywhere. I don't think that corruption is limited to our environment alone. me The system is not an example of good citizenship. Why do you want to be a good citizen? Why would you not resort to violence? And as far as I'm concerned, the real militants in the Niger Delta are the politicians, they are the governors in the Niger Delta. They are the senators in the Niger Delta. They are the politicians. And as long as people continue to get money for the evil that they perpetrate in society, so it shall continue to be. So how do you fight corruption? We believe strongly that there is a right way of doing business and there's a wrong way of doing business. For all those who want to come through the back door, they should better get prepared. We are going to hunt them. We're going to chase them. We're going to drive them out of business. That's a promise. This is democracy. The best we can do is to persuade people and to operate under the rule of law. Well, thank you so much for your time. Armed groups are sabotaging oil exports in one of the world's great oil producing regions. People have been cheated by the greedy central government and this is why tensions are so high. I am a man of faith. But we are not going to let them take our land. We are You like the idea of being on TV, huh? I too much like it. Because you become very popular, maybe you are walking on the street, going around, Oh! You saw that? That was the guy I saw on television! Ah! The guy! Oh, it's that guy, it's that guy! Oh, that was the guy I was talking about. I didn't use all, talking about a lot of this on the television. Oh, that guy is great. He's nice. So I love it. Tell me about, are you married, Emmy, or not? I have a girlfriend. And she have a kid for me. And how often do you get to see him? Most of the time I go for my time off. I always be with him. All the things I do, I take him along. Or I take him around everywhere. Because I want him to be part of me. I show most love in him. My dream and my focus. I want my child to become the president of the country. And I can do better. That is why we are in this struggle. Very, very important in life, whatever thing you are doing, you have to have focus. You have to have that fixed dream of what you are going to be. What we are passing through now, I don't want our child. We want to leave a legacy. You hear this term, big man. What makes somebody a big man in Nigeria? Wow, that is a big question. What makes somebody a big man in Nigeria? If you have the money. If you have the money but you lag away, or lag away, you are a big man in Nigeria. Nigeria has bad leaders. You see our Delta State government, they said that they invest 60 billion. If you invest 60 billion, I think you are going to get a lot of development. But look at where people are living. Oil is a means of getting big money, really. But the big money comes to the federal government. Even one millionth of it is not plowed back to the territory from where this big money is being made. Our people have seen that what comes out of our land is making some other people to be known as big men, big people and the rest of it. It seems to me that many people in Nigeria want to be a big man. What do you think? Like you are too. You would want to become big too, isn't it? So Nigerians are not accepted. Everybody wants to become big, and that's the prayer of everybody. I would want to become big. My song would want to become big. You too would want to become big, isn't it? It is an instinct in every human being to be well-to-do. I'm going to tell him. I love you, More bad news for the world's oil markets. The section of an oil pipeline belonging to Chevron Oil Company has been blown up in the western Niger Delta, shutting down even more Nigerian oil production. This attack highlights the vulnerability of the oil infrastructure. structure here, so more jitters for the world's oil markets. DAVID BATES, The United Nations Secretary of State for Energy and the Environment, Half of Nigeria's oil is offline right now, so over a million barrels a day of light, sweet crude oil that we really can't replace. So that's a very big factor, one of the bigger factors in the market right now. MALCOLM BRABANT, The militants in the Delta have proven all of Nigeria's oil facilities are within their reach. This week, President Kufor's government called to the first oil and gas conference. A key question will be how to divide future income between foreign companies and the Ghanaian government. Ghana might draw heavily from the experience of Norway, one of the major oil producers in the world. What is exactly the resource curse? Number one problem with raw material is that it tends to establish an enormous cash machine for politicians like myself. Which we can use for whatever reason. whatever need a politician may have. Problem with that is that attempt to make the politicians lazy in the sense that they don't have to invest in education and all the other aspects of development, and they don't need to make a proper tax system. Simply, they can replace this oil cash machine for normal hard work and development. That is the number one danger with the resource curse. Our philosophy in Norway is that the oil revenue belongs to the people of Norway, not to anyone else. And I would suggest that the oil revenue of Ghana belongs, pure and simple, to the people of Ghana, no one else. What we have felt back home served us best was to invite international capital in. But we want to tax them as much as possible. They should have conditions so that they stay on, but not one pence more than that. Mr. Blanco, sir. It's a good idea to do this. And everybody seems to be very committed to it, which is really... The only part I didn't like was the guy from Norway talking about taxing the oil companies to the end. I don't like that part. Oh, it will happen. We will do it. Yeah, for the guys that come later. Yeah, the later guys. The next discovery, the next block. No, existing agreements are agreements. There you go. That's what we wanted to hear. They're not going to be affected by this, are they? I know, I know. I was teasing you, but I thought that was a bit... Cosmos strategy was to be more frontier oriented, where there were not yet known hydrocarbons, and where the relationships with the government, the economic split with the government, would leave more available to those doing the early drilling. And that was the Cosmos strategy and part of the attraction here. So clearly higher risk. risk, but also a much higher reward. It was a good contract for us at the time because there was no oil in the country. It's supply and demand. It's pure supply and demand. How can you attract capital to come into your country? if you don't really have a really attractive exploration block to offer. You have to reduce your contract down where it looks like a good deal, where the risk-reward is proper, because we took huge risk to come into a country that had no oil. We've exploited gold for hundreds of years, and yet there's nothing to show for it. The problem has to do with how foreign companies come into our country and exploit our resources. We're only getting about 5% of the value, the total value of exports of gold. And if that is repeated... pitted in the oil industry, then God save us. We will have the resources, but we will not become the beneficiaries of these resources. I think it's important to point out that this system does not need to happen here. this idea that the oil resources can ensure that all our people can get access to education, that all our people can get access to health care, that there will be nutritious food for everybody and potable water for everybody. We ought to take account of the fact that the resource is buried in our soil and so ought to be exploited for the benefit of all of our people. As far as I'm concerned, this is a period for change. It's delicious. Ghana's voters are to choose a new president as current president John Kufor prepares to step down after eight years in power. The incumbent president John Kufor is not running. How close is this contest? It is a statistical dead heat. This country has a lot of resources, but the NPD domain has not used those resources for the people of this country. We will use the resources so that you'll be able to do whatever you want. And indeed, you can live in reasonable comfort. We just wanted to ask you about the oil money. Have you seen the contract between the husbands and the government? We haven't. I haven't. Do you know what's in it? I don't know what's in it, but whatever it is, we will take a look at it when we come into government. You see, what happens normally is that it's not everything that you see on paper that is there. We want to call for all the details and look at it very carefully. But we shall be guided by only what is in the best interest of our dear nation. If you felt it was in the best interest of your nation, would you be willing to change the contract? Why There's no doubt about it. I have to act in the interest of the country. And I'm not going to say that because the government has committed us in the wrong way, I'm going to follow suit. Whatever I do, I'm not going to be vindictive. I'm not going to be partial. I'm only going to follow my conscience and what is in the best interest of our dear nation. Opposition leaders declared the winner of Ghana's presidential election. Yep, John Atta Mills, who was the opposition party, ended up beating Akufo-Otto in the election. I imagine that a change in government is... is sort of a nerve-wracking time. You know what you had, and you learned how to deal with it, but you don't know the new guys. So there's a big unknown, there's a question in there. There is, there is, certainly in a lot of places. I think Ghana, in my mind, anyway it's mitigated to some extent because new guys old guys whatever they all believe in the rule of law and they're all well-educated good people that will do the right thing for their country and that's we're doing the right thing for their country and so i don't if we were some scallywags perhaps you would worry about where you know who these new guys are and all of that but we've we're we're pretty we're pretty straight straight ahead kind of people and i think they know that and so i don't it shouldn't make any difference I'm Bill Hayes. I'm the general counsel for Cosmos Energy. Is this a normal level of activity for an oil company of this size? It's a completely abnormal level of activity for a company Cosmos size, yeah. Yeah, this is a very small company to have probably one of the largest finds in Africa in, I don't know, a generation. And so there's, yeah, we're all kind of busy at the wheel here working hard because there's just, it's pretty astonishing. What do you see as the biggest challenges in front of you right now? Oh gosh, well getting the POD approved is a huge challenge. Tell me what a POD is. Oh, it's plan of development. The problem we face right now is that we're in this sort of interim period where we've got this plan of development that's not quite agreed by the government, so it's half-baked, which gives them the opportunity to make some changes if they so choose to. Now we've got a pretty firm position, this is what we agree on. with the last government, so we would hope you gentlemen would entertain the same thing for the new government. The principal challenge for the company is through to first oil. Once cash flow starts to come in from oil production, then we'll be in a very strong position to fund exploration, appraisal and development, in fact, from that cash flow. You seem to be under a lot of stress. The stress is really just from the workload. There's just a lot going on. We are at the end of the day a small company in a very large project. A very complex project that has got many moving parts. So what do you do to deal with the pressure? We work longer hours and longer days and seven days a week and oftentimes put our family second and our marriages at risk for the cause. What do you want to see happen to Cosmo? What are your hopes? My hopes? My hopes that Cosmos will be a successful investment for all those that have invested in it and taken the risk. The important thing is we do the right thing for the shareholders and maximising their returns. If I'm to be left with anything, it's an enhanced reputation and a better track record than I had before we started Cosmos. Reputation's everything. If you can get any insight from him on what the process is after we put the POD in this week, is it going to be taken off to the office of the president or has somebody got authority to sign it? I mean, it's just questions that have been asked by our board and I don't have any answers. I was getting huge pressure from the board. I remember saying, no POD, no company, because we're doing all of these things in order to provide the capital. And so you've got to get this POD approved or this company's going to go down the tubes. Jeffrey's all freaked out. Look at all the problems we've got in Ghana right now. Oh, man, oh, my. I don't know. Warburg Pincus and Blackstone had invested $825 million, which is an awful lot of money. We wanted the team at Cosmos to make this thing work. I wonder if I call the minister back. I've called him twice, never got him. But if I call him back tomorrow and say, look... We're prepared. I would like to get us all some attention about the signing of the VOD, your gas development plan. I'd like to have a big formal signing ceremony Thursday of next week. That's maybe what's going to take to get it done. Maybe. Just have a carrot out there and say, because this could just get lost out in politician land for a while. A corral for how many could go anywhere. I can show you a few things that I have on my table from Cosmos. You will need to take care of these legal matters to make sure that you're not hurting anybody. And again, also, we ask the people that Ghana is also not losing out. It is a new Ghana, committed to ensure that our people benefit. The market fell as if down a well today. The down traders are standing there watching in amazement and I don't blame them. We haven't seen anything like this probably since the Great Depression, I think it's fair to say. The opening bell is going to ring and to be honest with you, we wish... When you look at stocks, that just tells one part of the story. We also saw oil fall dramatically today, down $10.50 per barrel, because Wall Street is very fearful that it's going to lead to a slowdown in the United States and a slowdown all over the world. If we're taking a look at the oil stocks, we've seen a continuous decline. Last week, the oil and gas five index was down 10.3%. We'll keep you posted. Bosling. Nigeria faces a dire economic situation in its recent history with oil... prices very sharply declining. The government is going broke, but the key question is how will all of this impact on the common man? That's what we'll talk about later on the show. Oil, commodities, stocks, bringing you the news that affects your wallet. Before the advent of oil, There was some kind of civility among Nigerian population. The rapacity we have now started because there is a big gap between those who have access to resources and those who don't have. People revert to all sorts of unconventional and savage ways to benefit from the oil. For example, there were a lot of networks of pipelines crisscrossing the whole of this river line environment. What happened is that a whole lot of these pipelines were removed by all sorts of people, selling them to local consumers. Selling the pipelines? Yeah, selling the pipeline to local consumers. People take for themselves. Hey Patrick, what is that they are doing? Those are jerry cans of condensate fuels. This is gotten with the connivance of workers in the oil company. It has become a major source of income for a lot of young people. But if there were more kind of jobs, I don't think people would get involved. Because this is highly inflammable. There have been cases where people got burnt and died in the process. Everybody is striving to be a big man or a big woman. I mean, there is this savage struggle for wealth, and that is why we are seeing this booming condensing market. The stock market took another beating today. The Dow Industrials lost about 440 points. Add that to yesterday's similar loss and you get the Dow's worst two-day performance since 1987. The big private equity company Blackstone lost more than half a billion. dollars last quarter so the bad news just doesn't stop. Oil is off two dollars and thirty three cents now. It's quite frightening when you're dependent on a commodity that's gone from a hundred and forty dollars to thirty something dollars. In a nanosecond, we're thinking about what's the company worth to see who might in fact be interested in perhaps buying the asset. We have a data room in place where we've got all of the geologic records to show the world what we've discovered. Exxon Mobil's in the data room today. And at some point in time, we're going to be receiving bids here. Let's talk a little bit about why you're selling right now. Is it Blackstone and Warburg Pincus who take that choice? Well, yes, and ultimately it will be, yes, because it's their money. Private equity guys need to get the kind of returns that their investors expect from them. But when's the inflection point where you can get paid enough for the potential upside, but you don't give it away? Well, I would think you might be a little sad to see... Jubilee Go I'm surprised to hear you sound so calm about the whole thing you know it Again, you have to be pragmatic about where things are, and there's so much capital that's needed, and this is not exactly a capital-rich environment right now. We also heard that ExxonMobil asked about conflicts from Ghanaian Council. It was called Bill Hayes to find out whether there's conflicts here or there or what. And trying to find out a firm that they could use, a Ghanaian firm that they could use. So that's obviously positive. GMPC would really love an Exxon Mobil. Yeah. Interesting. They just take the pot to another level. Right. I'm almost tempted. to just go to the next site. Okay, come on, guys. Why don't you go and preempt? Yeah. Do you want to know a number? We can whisper in your ear and tell you what it would take, and they could go to the safe and pull it out and pay you as you left. You want that in hundreds or 20s? Anyway. Hmm, okay. How much money will you make if you sell this? What's your belief prospect of what you think it's worth? We think our Ghanaian assets were somewhere between $4 and $5 billion to Cosmos. It's a big boy deal. I mean, it's worth a lot of money. You probably just ought to mount a camera here full time. It's going to be nuts. We were trying to sell the company, but we were going about our business as if we were not going to sell. So by this time, Cosmos, little Cosmos, is in the process of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to put together this project and we were all on a real tight timeline to get to First Oil by the end of 2010. Here was Cosmos Energy with a large interest in this wonderful asset. And we were challenged financially because of the financial crisis. When one is in a distressed situation financially, the vultures come circling, and that came in the form of, you know, in many forms. All of a sudden, I get a very legal letter from Anadarko saying that they have grave concerns about Foreign Corrupt Practice Act violations by Cosmos Energy. wanted to conduct a complete and thorough investigation. FCPA stands for Foreign Corrupt Practice Act. And what is the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act? It basically says that if you're a U.S. company, you can't bribe an official of a foreign country. You can go to jail. There's all kinds of bad fines, and it's bad. So, I mean, it's a very stiff, stringent law. Hi George, I just got your email. This is not just a investigation of yourselves, it's also an investigation of Cosmos, the way I read it. Yeah? I mean, was the EEO group set up by Cosmos to act as an intermediary in its negotiations with the Ministry of Energy? Yes. Right. So just me or you, yeah, it also inspired Cosmos too. Right. We got our license because of Georgia WUSU and the EO Group. Supposedly, the payments that we made to EO Group as a success fee, supposedly that was passed on to Kufor or others. Now we were great friends. and the new government did not like Kufor. They were blood enemies. They said that we'd done something really bad and dirty with regard to the Kufor administration and that we were participants in some sort of a bribery or whatever in order to get this license. Well, the only thing that led them to do that is that the block had become very valuable. It's worth billions of dollars now. ...conducting investigations. Under what circumstances were those contracts negotiated and signed? Was everything done not only in accordance with the letter of the law, but with the spirit of the law? of the Ghanaian people. I asked Dada Mills during the election, would you be willing to change the terms of the original contract with Cosmos? And he said, absolutely. What do you think of that statement? Well, I think that it's an accurate statement. why we are actually pursuing this investigation. It's in pursuance of transparency. We must think of the nation. This is the thing that in Africa we find very difficult to do as a people. You know, we put our own interests first. Do you know when this is going to be resolved? In the very near future. We're getting a lot of questions about this FCPA stuff now. So we just need to, again, box that up. The way I told him we should spin it is not. The partnership decided to go and do some full and complete due diligence before. before spending $3 billion. We did our own. We've got this great file. I mean, it's succinct and it says it all. We need to get something in the data room which just addresses... It's just a placeholder for illegal due diligence because there's just nothing there right now. And people are asking the question. Well, it's a legitimate, obvious question that at this juncture you need to know the answer to that. We were under huge pressure, and we kept saying, there's nothing to this. I mean, but the fact that we got sort of indignant that they're questioning our integrity, they said, oh, red flag. They wanted to interview me and Brian and all. all of senior management, you wanted to send in a SWAT team of lawyers to come interview us. Finally, our board of directors said, and this was when all of the... The financial crisis was melting down. We've got to sell, we've got to sell, we've got to sell. And they're thinking, the board of directors says, we can't have any kind of smell of any FCPA because we're going to sell this company. We can't have that. And so they said, do whatever they want. It was very stressful because FCPA being tossed around can reduce market value. And the goal of the venture capitalist is to maximize profit. But can you get the cash? Or will the... there'll be so many other people and entities involved that you can't earn a profit. Cosmos is getting considerable support from the most influential media in the United States of America. I read the article in the Wall Street Journal. clearly showed that they don't understand what is happening in Ghana. Over the last hundred years or two, oil has perished disaster for many African communities. There have been issues about greedy corporations spending dollars on corrupt politicians in order to maximize their profits. I think it goes way beyond arrogance, you know. It seems to me that they want actually to control the destiny of the country. Everybody is likely to be suspicious and to raise important questions. The problem is, when you are here, you are scared of a lot of investors. It's getting into Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the whole world is watching. And now the oil industry knows, they are going to say, I am a club. They all know. each other. Oh, I tell you, here, to the state is raising concern. The allegation is that EO used its influence on the then-president John Kufo government to ensure the companies got favourable deals. But Cosmos denies... Oh, yeah. I'm safe. The Attorney General of the country told them I was being investigated for fraud and money laundering. And based on that conversation, Cosmos fired me. In the acquisition of this block, we went through the front door, not the back door. I did not do anything wrong. I know what I've done. Do you think that this investigation is related to the fact that they believe Cosmos got such a sweet deal? It is not a sweet deal. It is just commercial. Okay? You come in today, you buy something for a penny. Go back and come back tomorrow, and if 20 people want to buy the same thing, you may pay a dollar for it. It's just a matter of economics. We came in at a time when nobody wanted to come together. I bet you won't be talking to me if the world was dry. We are only talking because it was successful. You always want to benefit yourself and your family and the country. You always want to bring something home, and that's what I've done. I brought something home. It hurts. It hurts like crazy. I brought my family here. My wife cries every night. You know, the tragedy of this whole thing is under the Kufu administration, we had very good relationships with them because we worked very hard at it. We spent lots of time in country. Well, some people might hear what you're saying right now is kind of ironic given where your relationship has gone. Where it's gone with who? With the government. Yeah, I agree. Well, and there's a reason for that. What's the reason for that? I was removed. Our board of directors came and said, we decided to make a change. And we want to make a change because we've lost confidence in you. I said, what have I done? We just lost confidence in you. You can't get along with... You know, you've got this FCPA problem. You can't get along with the government. You yelled at the minister, and, you know, and we can't get a POD sign. You know, all of these things, we've lost confidence in you. We're going to make a change. I said, well, who are you going to hire? He said, we're going to elevate Brian. I said, this makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense. You're just going to shunt me aside and bring somebody else. Number one, it's going to make you look terribly weak with the government of Ghana that all of a sudden you're backing down in front of. of their demands or whatever, and number two, you're conceding. We've got an FCPA investigation going on, and you're going to sit me down in the midst of that, and that's going to be a surprise. sort of admission of guilt of sorts. I say it's just silly. Jim was there for quite a long time, and I think that it's a very stressful position. And as you know, the Cosmos history over the seven years or whatever has not always been smooth sailing. The role of the board is to ensure that the business is well managed, that the right disciplines are in place, that the right people are in place, that there is succession planning for management, for example. so that those people who put money at risk have a chance to actually get a return, a tangible return in terms of cash. It's about protecting their personal reputations because they live in a world where people chew on each other's legs all the time, and they have to protect themselves because if they ever, ever miss a step, if they ever are perceived to be wrong, then they're forever lost. in their quest of what they're doing because they don't have many opportunities to make mistakes in their work. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of It's a fire that was born on the pipeline. They already extinguished two. This one is making up three. This other one here is four. And there's also one before the first bridge coming in. I am very happy to be here. I have been working for a long time. I don't know what to do. After 10 to 14 days, I was able to go to the hospital. I was able to go to the hospital and I am a woman, but I am not a I am very happy to be here. I am very happy to be able to speak to you. I am very happy to be able to speak to you today. I am very happy to be able to speak to you today. Here in the Niger Delta, you will see individuals that have been friends for years, but immediately oil is discovered. Immediately oil is found in a particular place. The conflict begins because it's about who gets what. You know, and it doesn't end there. Those who found themselves, the power holders, seized the resources and turned them into their private estates. So the problem comes from the top down. Let me tell you, people talk about oil bunkering. Vunklein oil is using illegal means to open up pipelines. And what we extract from the pipelines, the money we make from that does not go into the national treasury. It goes into... We are not allowed to talk to the people. We are the only ones who know what is happening and what we are seeing at times with our eyes. The people are talking in Abuja that bunkering is an evil. They are the people who are doing what is really called bunkering. For major bunkering oil is tapped into a batch. A batch moves it into a waiting oil tanker. And each process brings in a lot of money. Bunkling is a huge, huge business that is so expensive to run. The big fish in the oil bunkling are not the militants. Most of them are highly placed in government. They are so rich with money that they can pay off any police commissioner, pay us, pay off any... senior police official and go ahead and do what they want to do. Where the militants play a role? Some of these things... happened around the creeks where they operate. So you have people setting up camps wherever they suspect oil bunkering is happening. Your camp brings you value. They cannot pass through without paying something. Those big fish who benefit ultimately from oil bunk want devastation, the impoverishment, so that they can do their business without any molestation. Because in the midst of chaos, why would anybody want to worry about what is happening at the creek, you know, where somebody is taking oil? People are thinking of how to survive. You do not have a government that looks after those things for you. So everybody is unto himself. There will always be a scramble for oil until it's replaced by something else. People suddenly see an opportunity for wealth. And without a certain discipline, without a certain vision, without a certain solidarity, you could end up like rats trying to climb out of a cage. So it's a question of who you think you're owner. And I'm saying, and that's been a huge part of the problem in Nigeria, that very few Nigerians see Nigerians as their own. I'm an Igbo, I'm a Yoruba, I'm this and that. We are accountable to 25 million people for how this resource is managed. So everybody needs to worry about corruption, and we must have a long-term national strategic vision. Oil revenues will start around the fourth quarter of this year. We are laying the foundation for a prosperous industrial nation. The previous government was nice to Cosmos. We've moved into a new phase and they want to sell. They cannot expect us to keep the same rules because now we are moving to the production stage. Certain things will have to change. We said that look, if you want to exit, we want to have control. So we said we will buy the asset. GMPC on behalf of the government will buy the asset. The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation is ready to buy the shares. of course was an agent the Jubilee field under the current agreement the revenue that would accrue to the nation from the oil field comprises 10% for GNPC 5% royalties and 35% tax which some experts say is a sell-off GMP C's plan to acquire Cosmos stick is therefore one of the methods being used to scale up the revenue that will come to the nation The agreement that was entered into with Cosmos perhaps had terms that no other agreement that has been signed recently had. And, you know, there may have been reasons for that, but... What GMPC I think has tried to do therefore is also to see how through negotiating to take the increased stake, the benefits of that agreement can accrue more to the national oil company. this may be our last chance we got gold the companies pay very little we have cocoon the prices are not set by us it's set somewhere in chicago but this one can i should not feel this time the days of ignorance are gone The biggest egregious mistake was to shut down the auction and to not take bids from other companies. I begged them. I said, ask for forgiveness after it's done. Get the bids in hand. And I said, then you'll have the, you'll have. have the high ground at that point in time, you can deal with these people. I said, please, you've got to take the bids. That's also the height of the whole FCPA thing that was really swirling around at that point in time. So Jeffrey's on his heels because of FCPA. You could come to the conclusion that FCPA being tossed around was a tactic to try and reduce market value, to get Cosmos to sell at a discount price with the potential for the... the Ghanaians, or GNPC specifically, to then resell that interest at a markup, take a spread. The whole thing was they wanted to drive the price down and then turn around and sell it. You know, buy it for $3 billion and sell it for $4.5 billion and keep a third of the asset for themselves. And I'm scot-free. I mean, they're as crooked as they can be. Okay, Chris. We're gonna be paying out on the pipe. Go about 5%. We have defined the exit route. Cost more sales to GMPC. GMPC would be... decide who then enters. Well, this provides GMTC with an opportunity to make a potential profit. What is wrong with we as a country, even if we're going to benefit from it? If, and I'm going to use the word if, if I sit in here, dietly or indietly, tries to, I try to benefit from this deal, it is a no-no to this government. We will never do anything that will not go totally to the benefit of the people. We as individuals... We are not Beijing. It is the people of Ghana. OK. Because of the size, the prize that we'd unlocked, everybody was looking for an opportunity. But Cosmos was seeded on $300 million of other people's money. Nobody invests in that business, given that it's high risk and high cost, if, in the event of success, the returns aren't high. If we had to sell the asset to GMBC, we don't think we would have got the full value that we created. So we came up with another plan. At what point was the decision made to negotiate with ExxonMobil privately, sort of behind the back of the government? I went to Brian. I said, Exxon has got the balls to do this. And, you know, just go tell them that they've got a free shot here. Brian did that. We're not children. We all schooled in the U.S. You've taught me enough to know it is not fair to throw off a country. But my sister, let me make a point here. Before any entity in your company enters the country, it is the minister's consent, the minister's approval, that allows you to enter. Even though I have brought Cosmos to the country, they just kicked me out. To me, at that time, what I told them later on was the luck. I felt, excuse me, excuse my French, but that's how I felt, that the nigger has been thrown under the bus. That's how I felt. Brian vehemently didn't like my characterization of how I was discharged, but hey, I'm sorry, that's how I felt. Now after the fact, they found out I didn't do what they said I did. How do you put the genie back in the bottle? Good afternoon. Good afternoon. It's almost a year ago that I left this place. I want to set the record straight, make you know what happened. Because you were all here, and I don't want you to have little bits and pieces of it. I want you to have the whole story, so that in future, that's for posterity's sake, when somebody asks you, you can say, yes, I was there. I listened to the man, and this is what he said. Two days ago, I received a letter from the United States Justice Department. And this is the report. On behalf of your clients, we do not intend to take any enforcement action and have closed our inquiry into... To this matter, despite all the backbiting, this is what the United States government has said. And I felt it is important that I share the letter with you. The government of Ghana came in here, ran through the office. Run through everything. My reputation is shut forever. Brian, Muslim man, they are here because of what we have. I was born here. So my interest is right here. So for your own people to put you through this, just because you helped to find this asset for your country is pathetic. So what is the next step to this? Well, I don't know. A new Guns for Cash program aims to end the militancy in Nigeria and to bring more oil back into production. The Nigerian government will offer $400 a month, job training and an unconditional pardon to every militant who lays down his arms. Zedli Adadot, Mladadeta, Zetas Tete, Mordogli Agnaya. See, see, see. Cannibal, cannibal, can you call the police? Now we are laying out our arms. The federal government got an agency to the militants. If the federal government really want peace, let us do to the unpromised to develop the United States. They are all right for you. Don't worry, don't worry. They are all right for you. They are all right for you. I'm going to pay everybody and make everybody go. You know what I'm saying? If you don't hear me, I'm going to tell everybody what I'm going to do. Respect is not your friend. You know what I'm saying? Today is where you go, so you're not going to come. You're going to come and make them smoke ice. You're going to say, you don't like me, I'm going for my don. You say, respect, it's my Lord. You're going to say, hey, send us a woman, we're not going to have a woman. Hey, my name is Motele Mboa. I'm here to tell everybody to fuck off. I swear to God, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. Everybody go to your working place. Fuck off. So how do you see your future? I don't know. The federal government have already parted ways. So we can have a protest in a lesson. We can come into the political aspect. be the governor of the other state they will not be against me that say this guy is a militant so he's a killer so then they cannot become a cannot become a governor do you think the amnesty will work we don't trust it because anybody can come on today do whatever what come from his mind and get away because why we have no law for example the governor of today everything in the state is my care money is my care So it is the way I like to make use of my money, that's the way I'll make use of my money. And nobody can kick against me. This week we go up big estate, share the money of everybody's money, the whole state's money. That's the Nigeria that we have today. Tell me what ultimately happened to the ExxonMobil deal? Well, ExxonMobil pulled out of the deal and That is understandable. There was so much heat around the deal. And it's obvious that no multinational corporation can function in a country where there's so much hostility and so on. So Exxon obviously pulled out and Cosmos decided to stay in Ghana. And we understand that negotiations have begun again between the government of Ghana and Cosmos. Cosmos is seeking to raise some resources on the stock exchange but there have been issues about the violation of law so that's what the negotiations are about. We're available the rest of the day. What happens can be for you and the guys. Actually, I'll be glad if we can shoot it, kill it today. But if you're leaving in the morning, I'm leaving in the evening, so we really have to. That's why I want it. That's it. It should be pretty quick, Bill. What's that? It should be pretty quick. They're going to have to look at it and make sure and initial it. It should be. Hello? Yeah, we just need to get all this sorted out. We're waiting on the Ministry. If they don't deliver it today, who says when they're gonna deliver it? Yeah, that was great. Why is getting this agreement so important? We need a massive amount of cash to fund the project. That's the problem. And it's gonna allow Cosmos to go forward in terms of raising money and then allow us to have a more cooperative... mutually beneficial relationship with the government as we used to two years ago. So it's pretty important. Why is the sudden change apart from the government here? I think they realize that the status quo of being in conflict just was not... doing anybody any good for one of the leading investors in the country to be treated this way was not helpful for the government of Ghana. There was rumblings about this is having a negative effect on foreign direct investment, and so can we please resolve the Cosmos matter? Because it wasn't really getting very good press. Okay. So you guys can't go home until it's assigned? Probably can't go home until it's assigned. Right. 3.30. This is the first draft of the speech I'm giving at the first oil celebration. The road has been demanding of personal resilience, and I'm proud to be a part of this journey. Right. And EO is proud. We need to take the opportunity to repair the image of EO. A picture has been painted that says EO didn't do any job. This is the opportunity. Let the world know that it took you to bring cosmos. Yeah, I gave this to them on a silver platter. Yes, today is the day people must know. You can wait. To deliver the speech. Are you okay? Yeah, I hope so. We are happy, but not so much excited because gold was mined in Ghana. We couldn't make any good, good, good use of it. So why are we jubilating about oil? There are different models to it. I mean, obviously, if they follow the Norwegian... model where a certain proportion of the revenue from oil is allocated to providing social facilities and of course you're going to see a major impact. If we allow the politicians alone to take control of it and then siphon it, definitely conflict will come. It all depends on the administration. They should use it wisely so that in future, our children here to come will know that, yes, our leaders did a good job for this nation. After a long wait, the day has come. We must ensure that the oil is a blessing and not a curse. Over the last few months we've worked to reset the relationship with Cosmos and I think we've achieved that now. It's in the best interests of everybody. The oil business is a team game. So moving forward, what are your goals? We will make sure that as a team, as a family, we work together to develop something that can change the destiny of this country. Our goals are to maximize the value of the assets that we create. The way we do that is explore as much as we can, find as many oil fields as we possibly can, and then bring those oil fields to development quickly. We're not going to rush and let people just within three years take their money and go. We will absolutely maximize whatever God has given us. So if it takes 10 years to optimally enhance the resources, we will do that. When you have a company such as ours that's taken risk, people need to applaud and reward the risk with the proper returns. But are emerging countries going to run the capital off? Are they going to kill the golden goose one more time because they get greedy? So do you think it's just human nature to fight like this? Over who's going to get what when a valuable resource is found? Well, there are two levels to it. At an international level, you've got a room full of hungry people, you throw in a loaf of bread. Everybody's trying to find a way to get to it. Sudden wealth is what drives industry just because everybody wants a piece of it. So it's not the case that the automatic response is for people to sit down and say, OK, how do we divide up the loaf most effectively? But I don't think divisive self-interest is an intrinsic human quality, no, I don't think so. At a domestic level, it's a question of how you structure society. You need to have a sense that there's a bigger identity. What unites us has to be bigger than what divides us. We have made the first major oil discovery in the country and I think we deserve a lot of credit for that. I persevered and came in and stood firm because I believe that Ghana has oil. I'm glad that finally we have been able to produce oil for the country. God bless you, Ghana. Thank you very much, Mr. Godewoso, for the doctor. Sorry, EO Group. The opening is the most watched financial event anywhere and we tell you about a hundred million people will see this. Wow. Don't miss the button. He's pressing it. It's amazing visibility so we're delighted to have you here. Yeah, nice. Ready to head up? Let's go. Let's do it. Everybody come in a little box. It's kind of sucks. This is how the system works. And if you succeed, then you actually can demonstrate that you've created something. You may have been there at the birth of a new enterprise, and even when the firm no longer has an investment in that enterprise, the enterprise may still exist. And you always have the satisfaction of being a godfather to that success. I mean, godfather in a positive sense, less than the Don Corleone sense. And that's self-serving as well, because if you generate a good reputation, then it will lead to a better deal flow and the most money coming. So reputation is everything. I appreciate that, guys. Thank you. So what time is our next interview? Right here. When one stands up there, oh, you just see the cameras pointing at you. But what hits you is the realization of what you've achieved. We actually achieved what we set out to do. We were able to realize the full value of the assets that we'd created. Yeah, long term, absolutely. We are bullish on oil prices. For me, the new challenge in Cosmos is taking it to the next level. There's a lot of oil still to be found in West Africa. Why Africa? Well, let's ask the CEO. He's standing right here, Brian Maxted. Do you negotiate with the countries themselves to get the rights to do the exploration? We do. We try and get there first. We try and go to those places that are overlocked or misunderstood or not just simply won't pass by the supermajors. Oh

I think that's an interesting thing. This one piece will make 52 layers. Watch on mobile devices or the big screen.

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Where are we right now? Where are we standing? This place is called Ulebri Well 1. They found traces of oil here in 1956. I am from Ulebri community. That is where I come from, my ancient home, my home. I've heard stories many times that when oil is found in a place, everyone starts thinking about what it can get for himself.

Yes, for example, our closest neighbor, the Nembe people. Oil has caused a lot of problems. Excuse me. Don't go green. I'm dragging a point.

You people enter this camp, leave this place. Enter this camp, leave this place. Enter this camp, leave this place. Nothing will be done yet.

Enter this camp, leave this place. Enter this camp, leave this place. Stock indexes all hit multi-year highs yesterday, but it was the Dow that generated the headlines. The market has been on something of a tear.

Oil prices started edging towards a record last week. The price of oil hit another high overnight, $92 per barrel. We've never been where we are today.

This is Cutter 4. Do you read me? We read you Cutter 4. I should be touching down in just a few minutes. The price of crude oil climbed $10 a barrel in the last month, $20 a barrel higher than a year ago.

Some analysts say it's supply concerns. We've had reports in the past few days of pipelines being blown up in the Niger Delta. Investors are looking for a place to make money, and the thing that seems to be going up is the price of crude oil.

Risk is an important piece of this. Just the notion of Cosmos looking for oil in a country that had never had it before was extremely risky. There was a high probability that you would invest some amount of money and you'd get nothing back. But if they were successful at achieving what their goal was, that the prize would be very, very large.

and hence the reason to do it. In the plan, we got first oil in second half of 2010. It takes a couple of years to design the plan, build the equipment, install it. We're looking at an $11 billion development on a billion barrels, net to us $2.2 billion net to the company.

This is a substantial oil project. It's important we generate enough reward to justify our risk. But when there's a lot of money at stake, then people's focus gets more intense, and more people from the outside and on the periphery will look to get a piece of it.

There's hundreds of examples of that around the world outside of the oil business. I don't think that's endemic to the oil business. But in the oil business, it is quite large.

In our discussion today, we're talking hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. That doesn't happen very often. So you just got back the news we recovered oil out of our sample too.

Yes. Good oil. It is about 54 liters.

About what? About 54, yeah, 54 liters. Okay.

Previously it was 15 and you found... I'm going to eat more. Yeah. It's good. It's all good.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Cosmos was an idea that Jim Musselman had back in 2002. Jim came to visit me. He was just thinking about starting his new business at the time.

Jim is bigger than life, first of all, physically quite large, as you know, and I don't mean that in a negative sense. He's just a tall guy, and he's very charismatic. And Jim has this unique entrepreneurial aspect to him. He's a great optimist, and he has a lot of self-confidence. And that's what came through.

Can you see a little of these umbrellas? I need one of those. You think I could buy one of those umbrellas?

Do you think it would be alright if I carried one of those over you? Yeah. The work you are coming to do in Ghana merits respect.

All of us give you that full recognition. Well, you're very kind. We take the responsibility very seriously because we know how important it is for the country and we intend to do a really good job. So you're going to be proud of us, I promise. We're going to be proud of you.

Okay, let's not make the king wait. Jim has always been my senior partner, and I looked up to him. He's always there to support me, and I'm there to support him. And this is an old drill bit from a well that we drilled in Egypt many, many years ago. And I just kept it as a memento of those days and as an inspiration for...

The dreams that we have to work in Africa and to find more oil. The king is very well respected in the country. Yes.

He tells us all our senses to stand and stand. The king needs to know who we are. Exactly.

Your Majesty, my name is Jim Musselman. I'm president of Cosmos Energy. We hope that we can serve you well and we hope we lead to a lot of prosperity for this country as we go forward with our oil and gas investment in this country.

So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity. It's a wonderful place here, so thank you so much. Thank you.

We like to make the name of the company and welcome you to the company. Yeah, the name of the company is Cosmos Energy. We're based in Dallas, Texas. TMPC is a very good company that runs your energy business and together we're going to do our best to make Ghana much more profitable in the future. Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay. Alright, see you. Thank you. Thank you.

George, and away we go. That was spectacular. How often do you get to see something like that?

That was wonderful. We came to Ghana because of George Owusu. We got our contract for the block from him.

I went to one shop after the other, all the major companies, and nobody, some of them have not even heard of Ghana. I mentioned Ghana, they said, Ganda? Somebody mentioned, there's some guys in Dallas.

They were walking around with lots of money. His name was Muslim Man. So one night, I called for the outreach assistant, and I said, OK, give me all the Muslim men you have in Dallas.

OK, so John Muslim Man, Peter Muslim Man, Joseph Muslim Man. It was a cold call. Until finally, about 10.15, to be exact, I got hold of Mr James Muslim Man.

So I found Cosmos, and they came in. When I came here, I was the only employee. I was a partner and employee.

I didn't have an office. My office was my car. And there's a place called Busy Internet here in town.

If I want to send information out... I went there, plugged my computer in. That's how we exchanged information between Dallas and here.

I did that for two years. This place is gorgeous. This is one of the best places I've ever been. So we just moved here about a year ago, after the discovery. Discovering oil health.

Exactly. See, we are moving on up, you know? Like the Jeffersons.

Mr. President, before you leave office, would you want to do some sort of a press conference? It's very important. Okay.

Especially if we would capture the flaring or gushing or whatever. so that Ghana would see. Yes.

We're testing the well to see what the reservoir is going to deliver. Unfortunately, we're having to burn the oil. We don't have any way to collect it right now.

So you mean you pump up how many? barrels. We open the wellbore to the atmosphere and the oil flows out of the formation at around 4,000 barrels a day right now. We're doing it in the name of science. That's about $2 million.

Don't do the risk with that. It'll hurt your heart if you think about it. He's a banker by profession.

I understand. Mr. President, this is a marvelous reservoir, world class. We've got a tiger by the tail, but that's a high class problem. have to learn to deal with it.

There must be a magician to be holding a tiger by the tail. Yes, sir. I've got the CEO on board.

Five passengers total. We should be on the rig in about five minutes. No problem.

We're coming in from the southeast winds behind us, clear of the flare. You heard about our welds flowing back nicely? Yes.

That's exciting. Very exciting. This field is going to be worth a lot, a lot of money once we're all set in time. The price of oil went up $15 between Tuesday and tonight. The flowing well economy.

A flowing oil. A flowing oil. For the first time in the history of the country. Exactly.

A flowing oil. See? It's my favorite place in the world, right here. Isn't it pretty?

The light is just spectacular. I don't know. I was always comfortable starting companies where it's just been me and a secretary to help me out.

I guess I've always been somewhat of a gambler and so the gambling nature of it sort of appealed to me. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, move, move. This is my grandfather and grandmother's headstones, and this is my mother and father. What did your dad do? He was a rancher.

Everybody here ranched. Are you the first oil guy in your family? Uh-huh. What did your dad think about you?

I think he was proud of me, I guess. I don't know. I mean, we do, people, we're not great communicators out here, you know.

You don't tell one another how one feels too much, and so, you know, I don't really know, but I think he was proud. These people worked hard. You're working to make this a better place and make sure that it gets passed on to your children.

I want to give to my children more than I received. That's important to me, to add to it. The American model for people making money off of a single oil well is so different from the rest of the world.

Oh yeah, because the minerals in the state of Texas, for instance, are owned by individuals. They're not owned by the state. don't have a state-run wool company and the money is actually going into the hands of people as opposed to into the state coffers to be stolen by whoever which is the which is the nigeria model Do people worry about Ghana becoming like Nigeria? Not really, because the people of Ghana can see good things coming for them personally in the future. It's human nature to want opportunity.

It's pure and simple what it's all about. By the time you are through with your assignment, you will find what the NIDA data is like. It's not an easy place to survive in.

And not an easy place to develop. Faced with the kind of challenges that we have, we need some kind of resource, some kind of access to work to develop our environment. And I believe it's for that reason that God placed oil here.

We think that the best way forward is for all stakeholders in the oil industry. to do the best they can to provide jobs. That's what our youth need.

They've got to be busy. And should the government be doing more too? Of course. Of course it's our business, it's our duty to do more for our people.

What about corruption? Do you believe that corruption is a problem? Of course corruption is a problem everywhere.

I don't think that corruption is limited to our environment alone. me The system is not an example of good citizenship. Why do you want to be a good citizen?

Why would you not resort to violence? And as far as I'm concerned, the real militants in the Niger Delta are the politicians, they are the governors in the Niger Delta. They are the senators in the Niger Delta. They are the politicians. And as long as people continue to get money for the evil that they perpetrate in society, so it shall continue to be.

So how do you fight corruption? We believe strongly that there is a right way of doing business and there's a wrong way of doing business. For all those who want to come through the back door, they should better get prepared. We are going to hunt them. We're going to chase them.

We're going to drive them out of business. That's a promise. This is democracy. The best we can do is to persuade people and to operate under the rule of law. Well, thank you so much for your time.

Armed groups are sabotaging oil exports in one of the world's great oil producing regions. People have been cheated by the greedy central government and this is why tensions are so high. I am a man of faith.

But we are not going to let them take our land. We are You like the idea of being on TV, huh? I too much like it. Because you become very popular, maybe you are walking on the street, going around, Oh!

You saw that? That was the guy I saw on television! Ah! The guy! Oh, it's that guy, it's that guy!

Oh, that was the guy I was talking about. I didn't use all, talking about a lot of this on the television. Oh, that guy is great. He's nice. So I love it.

Tell me about, are you married, Emmy, or not? I have a girlfriend. And she have a kid for me. And how often do you get to see him? Most of the time I go for my time off.

I always be with him. All the things I do, I take him along. Or I take him around everywhere. Because I want him to be part of me. I show most love in him.

My dream and my focus. I want my child to become the president of the country. And I can do better. That is why we are in this struggle. Very, very important in life, whatever thing you are doing, you have to have focus.

You have to have that fixed dream of what you are going to be. What we are passing through now, I don't want our child. We want to leave a legacy.

You hear this term, big man. What makes somebody a big man in Nigeria? Wow, that is a big question.

What makes somebody a big man in Nigeria? If you have the money. If you have the money but you lag away, or lag away, you are a big man in Nigeria.

Nigeria has bad leaders. You see our Delta State government, they said that they invest 60 billion. If you invest 60 billion, I think you are going to get a lot of development.

But look at where people are living. Oil is a means of getting big money, really. But the big money comes to the federal government. Even one millionth of it is not plowed back to the territory from where this big money is being made. Our people have seen that what comes out of our land is making some other people to be known as big men, big people and the rest of it.

It seems to me that many people in Nigeria want to be a big man. What do you think? Like you are too. You would want to become big too, isn't it?

So Nigerians are not accepted. Everybody wants to become big, and that's the prayer of everybody. I would want to become big.

My song would want to become big. You too would want to become big, isn't it? It is an instinct in every human being to be well-to-do.

I'm going to tell him. I love you, More bad news for the world's oil markets. The section of an oil pipeline belonging to Chevron Oil Company has been blown up in the western Niger Delta, shutting down even more Nigerian oil production.

This attack highlights the vulnerability of the oil infrastructure. structure here, so more jitters for the world's oil markets. DAVID BATES, The United Nations Secretary of State for Energy and the Environment, Half of Nigeria's oil is offline right now, so over a million barrels a day of light, sweet crude oil that we really can't replace.

So that's a very big factor, one of the bigger factors in the market right now. MALCOLM BRABANT, The militants in the Delta have proven all of Nigeria's oil facilities are within their reach. This week, President Kufor's government called to the first oil and gas conference.

A key question will be how to divide future income between foreign companies and the Ghanaian government. Ghana might draw heavily from the experience of Norway, one of the major oil producers in the world. What is exactly the resource curse?

Number one problem with raw material is that it tends to establish an enormous cash machine for politicians like myself. Which we can use for whatever reason. whatever need a politician may have. Problem with that is that attempt to make the politicians lazy in the sense that they don't have to invest in education and all the other aspects of development, and they don't need to make a proper tax system.

Simply, they can replace this oil cash machine for normal hard work and development. That is the number one danger with the resource curse. Our philosophy in Norway is that the oil revenue belongs to the people of Norway, not to anyone else.

And I would suggest that the oil revenue of Ghana belongs, pure and simple, to the people of Ghana, no one else. What we have felt back home served us best was to invite international capital in. But we want to tax them as much as possible. They should have conditions so that they stay on, but not one pence more than that. Mr. Blanco, sir.

It's a good idea to do this. And everybody seems to be very committed to it, which is really... The only part I didn't like was the guy from Norway talking about taxing the oil companies to the end. I don't like that part.

Oh, it will happen. We will do it. Yeah, for the guys that come later. Yeah, the later guys. The next discovery, the next block.

No, existing agreements are agreements. There you go. That's what we wanted to hear.

They're not going to be affected by this, are they? I know, I know. I was teasing you, but I thought that was a bit... Cosmos strategy was to be more frontier oriented, where there were not yet known hydrocarbons, and where the relationships with the government, the economic split with the government, would leave more available to those doing the early drilling.

And that was the Cosmos strategy and part of the attraction here. So clearly higher risk. risk, but also a much higher reward.

It was a good contract for us at the time because there was no oil in the country. It's supply and demand. It's pure supply and demand. How can you attract capital to come into your country? if you don't really have a really attractive exploration block to offer.

You have to reduce your contract down where it looks like a good deal, where the risk-reward is proper, because we took huge risk to come into a country that had no oil. We've exploited gold for hundreds of years, and yet there's nothing to show for it. The problem has to do with how foreign companies come into our country and exploit our resources.

We're only getting about 5% of the value, the total value of exports of gold. And if that is repeated... pitted in the oil industry, then God save us. We will have the resources, but we will not become the beneficiaries of these resources. I think it's important to point out that this system does not need to happen here.

this idea that the oil resources can ensure that all our people can get access to education, that all our people can get access to health care, that there will be nutritious food for everybody and potable water for everybody. We ought to take account of the fact that the resource is buried in our soil and so ought to be exploited for the benefit of all of our people. As far as I'm concerned, this is a period for change. It's delicious.

Ghana's voters are to choose a new president as current president John Kufor prepares to step down after eight years in power. The incumbent president John Kufor is not running. How close is this contest? It is a statistical dead heat.

This country has a lot of resources, but the NPD domain has not used those resources for the people of this country. We will use the resources so that you'll be able to do whatever you want. And indeed, you can live in reasonable comfort. We just wanted to ask you about the oil money.

Have you seen the contract between the husbands and the government? We haven't. I haven't.

Do you know what's in it? I don't know what's in it, but whatever it is, we will take a look at it when we come into government. You see, what happens normally is that it's not everything that you see on paper that is there.

We want to call for all the details and look at it very carefully. But we shall be guided by only what is in the best interest of our dear nation. If you felt it was in the best interest of your nation, would you be willing to change the contract? Why There's no doubt about it. I have to act in the interest of the country.

And I'm not going to say that because the government has committed us in the wrong way, I'm going to follow suit. Whatever I do, I'm not going to be vindictive. I'm not going to be partial. I'm only going to follow my conscience and what is in the best interest of our dear nation. Opposition leaders declared the winner of Ghana's presidential election.

Yep, John Atta Mills, who was the opposition party, ended up beating Akufo-Otto in the election. I imagine that a change in government is... is sort of a nerve-wracking time. You know what you had, and you learned how to deal with it, but you don't know the new guys. So there's a big unknown, there's a question in there.

There is, there is, certainly in a lot of places. I think Ghana, in my mind, anyway it's mitigated to some extent because new guys old guys whatever they all believe in the rule of law and they're all well-educated good people that will do the right thing for their country and that's we're doing the right thing for their country and so i don't if we were some scallywags perhaps you would worry about where you know who these new guys are and all of that but we've we're we're pretty we're pretty straight straight ahead kind of people and i think they know that and so i don't it shouldn't make any difference I'm Bill Hayes. I'm the general counsel for Cosmos Energy.

Is this a normal level of activity for an oil company of this size? It's a completely abnormal level of activity for a company Cosmos size, yeah. Yeah, this is a very small company to have probably one of the largest finds in Africa in, I don't know, a generation. And so there's, yeah, we're all kind of busy at the wheel here working hard because there's just, it's pretty astonishing.

What do you see as the biggest challenges in front of you right now? Oh gosh, well getting the POD approved is a huge challenge. Tell me what a POD is. Oh, it's plan of development. The problem we face right now is that we're in this sort of interim period where we've got this plan of development that's not quite agreed by the government, so it's half-baked, which gives them the opportunity to make some changes if they so choose to.

Now we've got a pretty firm position, this is what we agree on. with the last government, so we would hope you gentlemen would entertain the same thing for the new government. The principal challenge for the company is through to first oil.

Once cash flow starts to come in from oil production, then we'll be in a very strong position to fund exploration, appraisal and development, in fact, from that cash flow. You seem to be under a lot of stress. The stress is really just from the workload. There's just a lot going on.

We are at the end of the day a small company in a very large project. A very complex project that has got many moving parts. So what do you do to deal with the pressure? We work longer hours and longer days and seven days a week and oftentimes put our family second and our marriages at risk for the cause. What do you want to see happen to Cosmo?

What are your hopes? My hopes? My hopes that Cosmos will be a successful investment for all those that have invested in it and taken the risk.

The important thing is we do the right thing for the shareholders and maximising their returns. If I'm to be left with anything, it's an enhanced reputation and a better track record than I had before we started Cosmos. Reputation's everything. If you can get any insight from him on what the process is after we put the POD in this week, is it going to be taken off to the office of the president or has somebody got authority to sign it? I mean, it's just questions that have been asked by our board and I don't have any answers.

I was getting huge pressure from the board. I remember saying, no POD, no company, because we're doing all of these things in order to provide the capital. And so you've got to get this POD approved or this company's going to go down the tubes.

Jeffrey's all freaked out. Look at all the problems we've got in Ghana right now. Oh, man, oh, my. I don't know. Warburg Pincus and Blackstone had invested $825 million, which is an awful lot of money.

We wanted the team at Cosmos to make this thing work. I wonder if I call the minister back. I've called him twice, never got him. But if I call him back tomorrow and say, look...

We're prepared. I would like to get us all some attention about the signing of the VOD, your gas development plan. I'd like to have a big formal signing ceremony Thursday of next week.

That's maybe what's going to take to get it done. Maybe. Just have a carrot out there and say, because this could just get lost out in politician land for a while.

A corral for how many could go anywhere. I can show you a few things that I have on my table from Cosmos. You will need to take care of these legal matters to make sure that you're not hurting anybody.

And again, also, we ask the people that Ghana is also not losing out. It is a new Ghana, committed to ensure that our people benefit. The market fell as if down a well today.

The down traders are standing there watching in amazement and I don't blame them. We haven't seen anything like this probably since the Great Depression, I think it's fair to say. The opening bell is going to ring and to be honest with you, we wish...

When you look at stocks, that just tells one part of the story. We also saw oil fall dramatically today, down $10.50 per barrel, because Wall Street is very fearful that it's going to lead to a slowdown in the United States and a slowdown all over the world. If we're taking a look at the oil stocks, we've seen a continuous decline. Last week, the oil and gas five index was down 10.3%.

We'll keep you posted. Bosling. Nigeria faces a dire economic situation in its recent history with oil... prices very sharply declining.

The government is going broke, but the key question is how will all of this impact on the common man? That's what we'll talk about later on the show. Oil, commodities, stocks, bringing you the news that affects your wallet.

Before the advent of oil, There was some kind of civility among Nigerian population. The rapacity we have now started because there is a big gap between those who have access to resources and those who don't have. People revert to all sorts of unconventional and savage ways to benefit from the oil.

For example, there were a lot of networks of pipelines crisscrossing the whole of this river line environment. What happened is that a whole lot of these pipelines were removed by all sorts of people, selling them to local consumers. Selling the pipelines?

Yeah, selling the pipeline to local consumers. People take for themselves. Hey Patrick, what is that they are doing?

Those are jerry cans of condensate fuels. This is gotten with the connivance of workers in the oil company. It has become a major source of income for a lot of young people. But if there were more kind of jobs, I don't think people would get involved.

Because this is highly inflammable. There have been cases where people got burnt and died in the process. Everybody is striving to be a big man or a big woman. I mean, there is this savage struggle for wealth, and that is why we are seeing this booming condensing market.

The stock market took another beating today. The Dow Industrials lost about 440 points. Add that to yesterday's similar loss and you get the Dow's worst two-day performance since 1987. The big private equity company Blackstone lost more than half a billion. dollars last quarter so the bad news just doesn't stop.

Oil is off two dollars and thirty three cents now. It's quite frightening when you're dependent on a commodity that's gone from a hundred and forty dollars to thirty something dollars. In a nanosecond, we're thinking about what's the company worth to see who might in fact be interested in perhaps buying the asset. We have a data room in place where we've got all of the geologic records to show the world what we've discovered. Exxon Mobil's in the data room today.

And at some point in time, we're going to be receiving bids here. Let's talk a little bit about why you're selling right now. Is it Blackstone and Warburg Pincus who take that choice?

Well, yes, and ultimately it will be, yes, because it's their money. Private equity guys need to get the kind of returns that their investors expect from them. But when's the inflection point where you can get paid enough for the potential upside, but you don't give it away?

Well, I would think you might be a little sad to see... Jubilee Go I'm surprised to hear you sound so calm about the whole thing you know it Again, you have to be pragmatic about where things are, and there's so much capital that's needed, and this is not exactly a capital-rich environment right now. We also heard that ExxonMobil asked about conflicts from Ghanaian Council.

It was called Bill Hayes to find out whether there's conflicts here or there or what. And trying to find out a firm that they could use, a Ghanaian firm that they could use. So that's obviously positive. GMPC would really love an Exxon Mobil.

Yeah. Interesting. They just take the pot to another level.

Right. I'm almost tempted. to just go to the next site. Okay, come on, guys. Why don't you go and preempt?

Yeah. Do you want to know a number? We can whisper in your ear and tell you what it would take, and they could go to the safe and pull it out and pay you as you left.

You want that in hundreds or 20s? Anyway. Hmm, okay.

How much money will you make if you sell this? What's your belief prospect of what you think it's worth? We think our Ghanaian assets were somewhere between $4 and $5 billion to Cosmos. It's a big boy deal.

I mean, it's worth a lot of money. You probably just ought to mount a camera here full time. It's going to be nuts. We were trying to sell the company, but we were going about our business as if we were not going to sell.

So by this time, Cosmos, little Cosmos, is in the process of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to put together this project and we were all on a real tight timeline to get to First Oil by the end of 2010. Here was Cosmos Energy with a large interest in this wonderful asset. And we were challenged financially because of the financial crisis. When one is in a distressed situation financially, the vultures come circling, and that came in the form of, you know, in many forms.

All of a sudden, I get a very legal letter from Anadarko saying that they have grave concerns about Foreign Corrupt Practice Act violations by Cosmos Energy. wanted to conduct a complete and thorough investigation. FCPA stands for Foreign Corrupt Practice Act.

And what is the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act? It basically says that if you're a U.S. company, you can't bribe an official of a foreign country. You can go to jail. There's all kinds of bad fines, and it's bad.

So, I mean, it's a very stiff, stringent law. Hi George, I just got your email. This is not just a investigation of yourselves, it's also an investigation of Cosmos, the way I read it. Yeah?

I mean, was the EEO group set up by Cosmos to act as an intermediary in its negotiations with the Ministry of Energy? Yes. Right. So just me or you, yeah, it also inspired Cosmos too. Right.

We got our license because of Georgia WUSU and the EO Group. Supposedly, the payments that we made to EO Group as a success fee, supposedly that was passed on to Kufor or others. Now we were great friends. and the new government did not like Kufor.

They were blood enemies. They said that we'd done something really bad and dirty with regard to the Kufor administration and that we were participants in some sort of a bribery or whatever in order to get this license. Well, the only thing that led them to do that is that the block had become very valuable. It's worth billions of dollars now. ...conducting investigations.

Under what circumstances were those contracts negotiated and signed? Was everything done not only in accordance with the letter of the law, but with the spirit of the law? of the Ghanaian people.

I asked Dada Mills during the election, would you be willing to change the terms of the original contract with Cosmos? And he said, absolutely. What do you think of that statement? Well, I think that it's an accurate statement. why we are actually pursuing this investigation.

It's in pursuance of transparency. We must think of the nation. This is the thing that in Africa we find very difficult to do as a people.

You know, we put our own interests first. Do you know when this is going to be resolved? In the very near future. We're getting a lot of questions about this FCPA stuff now. So we just need to, again, box that up.

The way I told him we should spin it is not. The partnership decided to go and do some full and complete due diligence before. before spending $3 billion.

We did our own. We've got this great file. I mean, it's succinct and it says it all.

We need to get something in the data room which just addresses... It's just a placeholder for illegal due diligence because there's just nothing there right now. And people are asking the question.

Well, it's a legitimate, obvious question that at this juncture you need to know the answer to that. We were under huge pressure, and we kept saying, there's nothing to this. I mean, but the fact that we got sort of indignant that they're questioning our integrity, they said, oh, red flag. They wanted to interview me and Brian and all. all of senior management, you wanted to send in a SWAT team of lawyers to come interview us.

Finally, our board of directors said, and this was when all of the... The financial crisis was melting down. We've got to sell, we've got to sell, we've got to sell.

And they're thinking, the board of directors says, we can't have any kind of smell of any FCPA because we're going to sell this company. We can't have that. And so they said, do whatever they want. It was very stressful because FCPA being tossed around can reduce market value. And the goal of the venture capitalist is to maximize profit.

But can you get the cash? Or will the... there'll be so many other people and entities involved that you can't earn a profit.

Cosmos is getting considerable support from the most influential media in the United States of America. I read the article in the Wall Street Journal. clearly showed that they don't understand what is happening in Ghana. Over the last hundred years or two, oil has perished disaster for many African communities.

There have been issues about greedy corporations spending dollars on corrupt politicians in order to maximize their profits. I think it goes way beyond arrogance, you know. It seems to me that they want actually to control the destiny of the country. Everybody is likely to be suspicious and to raise important questions.

The problem is, when you are here, you are scared of a lot of investors. It's getting into Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the whole world is watching. And now the oil industry knows, they are going to say, I am a club. They all know. each other.

Oh, I tell you, here, to the state is raising concern. The allegation is that EO used its influence on the then-president John Kufo government to ensure the companies got favourable deals. But Cosmos denies...

Oh, yeah. I'm safe. The Attorney General of the country told them I was being investigated for fraud and money laundering. And based on that conversation, Cosmos fired me. In the acquisition of this block, we went through the front door, not the back door.

I did not do anything wrong. I know what I've done. Do you think that this investigation is related to the fact that they believe Cosmos got such a sweet deal?

It is not a sweet deal. It is just commercial. Okay? You come in today, you buy something for a penny. Go back and come back tomorrow, and if 20 people want to buy the same thing, you may pay a dollar for it.

It's just a matter of economics. We came in at a time when nobody wanted to come together. I bet you won't be talking to me if the world was dry.

We are only talking because it was successful. You always want to benefit yourself and your family and the country. You always want to bring something home, and that's what I've done. I brought something home. It hurts.

It hurts like crazy. I brought my family here. My wife cries every night.

You know, the tragedy of this whole thing is under the Kufu administration, we had very good relationships with them because we worked very hard at it. We spent lots of time in country. Well, some people might hear what you're saying right now is kind of ironic given where your relationship has gone.

Where it's gone with who? With the government. Yeah, I agree. Well, and there's a reason for that. What's the reason for that?

I was removed. Our board of directors came and said, we decided to make a change. And we want to make a change because we've lost confidence in you.

I said, what have I done? We just lost confidence in you. You can't get along with...

You know, you've got this FCPA problem. You can't get along with the government. You yelled at the minister, and, you know, and we can't get a POD sign. You know, all of these things, we've lost confidence in you. We're going to make a change.

I said, well, who are you going to hire? He said, we're going to elevate Brian. I said, this makes no sense.

It makes absolutely no sense. You're just going to shunt me aside and bring somebody else. Number one, it's going to make you look terribly weak with the government of Ghana that all of a sudden you're backing down in front of. of their demands or whatever, and number two, you're conceding. We've got an FCPA investigation going on, and you're going to sit me down in the midst of that, and that's going to be a surprise.

sort of admission of guilt of sorts. I say it's just silly. Jim was there for quite a long time, and I think that it's a very stressful position.

And as you know, the Cosmos history over the seven years or whatever has not always been smooth sailing. The role of the board is to ensure that the business is well managed, that the right disciplines are in place, that the right people are in place, that there is succession planning for management, for example. so that those people who put money at risk have a chance to actually get a return, a tangible return in terms of cash.

It's about protecting their personal reputations because they live in a world where people chew on each other's legs all the time, and they have to protect themselves because if they ever, ever miss a step, if they ever are perceived to be wrong, then they're forever lost. in their quest of what they're doing because they don't have many opportunities to make mistakes in their work. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of It's a fire that was born on the pipeline.

They already extinguished two. This one is making up three. This other one here is four.

And there's also one before the first bridge coming in. I am very happy to be here. I have been working for a long time.

I don't know what to do. After 10 to 14 days, I was able to go to the hospital. I was able to go to the hospital and I am a woman, but I am not a I am very happy to be here.

I am very happy to be able to speak to you. I am very happy to be able to speak to you today. I am very happy to be able to speak to you today. Here in the Niger Delta, you will see individuals that have been friends for years, but immediately oil is discovered. Immediately oil is found in a particular place.

The conflict begins because it's about who gets what. You know, and it doesn't end there. Those who found themselves, the power holders, seized the resources and turned them into their private estates.

So the problem comes from the top down. Let me tell you, people talk about oil bunkering. Vunklein oil is using illegal means to open up pipelines. And what we extract from the pipelines, the money we make from that does not go into the national treasury. It goes into...

We are not allowed to talk to the people. We are the only ones who know what is happening and what we are seeing at times with our eyes. The people are talking in Abuja that bunkering is an evil. They are the people who are doing what is really called bunkering.

For major bunkering oil is tapped into a batch. A batch moves it into a waiting oil tanker. And each process brings in a lot of money. Bunkling is a huge, huge business that is so expensive to run. The big fish in the oil bunkling are not the militants.

Most of them are highly placed in government. They are so rich with money that they can pay off any police commissioner, pay us, pay off any... senior police official and go ahead and do what they want to do.

Where the militants play a role? Some of these things... happened around the creeks where they operate.

So you have people setting up camps wherever they suspect oil bunkering is happening. Your camp brings you value. They cannot pass through without paying something. Those big fish who benefit ultimately from oil bunk want devastation, the impoverishment, so that they can do their business without any molestation. Because in the midst of chaos, why would anybody want to worry about what is happening at the creek, you know, where somebody is taking oil?

People are thinking of how to survive. You do not have a government that looks after those things for you. So everybody is unto himself. There will always be a scramble for oil until it's replaced by something else. People suddenly see an opportunity for wealth.

And without a certain discipline, without a certain vision, without a certain solidarity, you could end up like rats trying to climb out of a cage. So it's a question of who you think you're owner. And I'm saying, and that's been a huge part of the problem in Nigeria, that very few Nigerians see Nigerians as their own. I'm an Igbo, I'm a Yoruba, I'm this and that.

We are accountable to 25 million people for how this resource is managed. So everybody needs to worry about corruption, and we must have a long-term national strategic vision. Oil revenues will start around the fourth quarter of this year.

We are laying the foundation for a prosperous industrial nation. The previous government was nice to Cosmos. We've moved into a new phase and they want to sell. They cannot expect us to keep the same rules because now we are moving to the production stage.

Certain things will have to change. We said that look, if you want to exit, we want to have control. So we said we will buy the asset. GMPC on behalf of the government will buy the asset. The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation is ready to buy the shares.

of course was an agent the Jubilee field under the current agreement the revenue that would accrue to the nation from the oil field comprises 10% for GNPC 5% royalties and 35% tax which some experts say is a sell-off GMP C's plan to acquire Cosmos stick is therefore one of the methods being used to scale up the revenue that will come to the nation The agreement that was entered into with Cosmos perhaps had terms that no other agreement that has been signed recently had. And, you know, there may have been reasons for that, but... What GMPC I think has tried to do therefore is also to see how through negotiating to take the increased stake, the benefits of that agreement can accrue more to the national oil company. this may be our last chance we got gold the companies pay very little we have cocoon the prices are not set by us it's set somewhere in chicago but this one can i should not feel this time the days of ignorance are gone The biggest egregious mistake was to shut down the auction and to not take bids from other companies.

I begged them. I said, ask for forgiveness after it's done. Get the bids in hand.

And I said, then you'll have the, you'll have. have the high ground at that point in time, you can deal with these people. I said, please, you've got to take the bids.

That's also the height of the whole FCPA thing that was really swirling around at that point in time. So Jeffrey's on his heels because of FCPA. You could come to the conclusion that FCPA being tossed around was a tactic to try and reduce market value, to get Cosmos to sell at a discount price with the potential for the... the Ghanaians, or GNPC specifically, to then resell that interest at a markup, take a spread.

The whole thing was they wanted to drive the price down and then turn around and sell it. You know, buy it for $3 billion and sell it for $4.5 billion and keep a third of the asset for themselves. And I'm scot-free.

I mean, they're as crooked as they can be. Okay, Chris. We're gonna be paying out on the pipe.

Go about 5%. We have defined the exit route. Cost more sales to GMPC.

GMPC would be... decide who then enters. Well, this provides GMTC with an opportunity to make a potential profit.

What is wrong with we as a country, even if we're going to benefit from it? If, and I'm going to use the word if, if I sit in here, dietly or indietly, tries to, I try to benefit from this deal, it is a no-no to this government. We will never do anything that will not go totally to the benefit of the people. We as individuals...

We are not Beijing. It is the people of Ghana. OK.

Because of the size, the prize that we'd unlocked, everybody was looking for an opportunity. But Cosmos was seeded on $300 million of other people's money. Nobody invests in that business, given that it's high risk and high cost, if, in the event of success, the returns aren't high.

If we had to sell the asset to GMBC, we don't think we would have got the full value that we created. So we came up with another plan. At what point was the decision made to negotiate with ExxonMobil privately, sort of behind the back of the government? I went to Brian.

I said, Exxon has got the balls to do this. And, you know, just go tell them that they've got a free shot here. Brian did that.

We're not children. We all schooled in the U.S. You've taught me enough to know it is not fair to throw off a country. But my sister, let me make a point here.

Before any entity in your company enters the country, it is the minister's consent, the minister's approval, that allows you to enter. Even though I have brought Cosmos to the country, they just kicked me out. To me, at that time, what I told them later on was the luck. I felt, excuse me, excuse my French, but that's how I felt, that the nigger has been thrown under the bus. That's how I felt.

Brian vehemently didn't like my characterization of how I was discharged, but hey, I'm sorry, that's how I felt. Now after the fact, they found out I didn't do what they said I did. How do you put the genie back in the bottle?

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. It's almost a year ago that I left this place.

I want to set the record straight, make you know what happened. Because you were all here, and I don't want you to have little bits and pieces of it. I want you to have the whole story, so that in future, that's for posterity's sake, when somebody asks you, you can say, yes, I was there.

I listened to the man, and this is what he said. Two days ago, I received a letter from the United States Justice Department. And this is the report. On behalf of your clients, we do not intend to take any enforcement action and have closed our inquiry into... To this matter, despite all the backbiting, this is what the United States government has said.

And I felt it is important that I share the letter with you. The government of Ghana came in here, ran through the office. Run through everything.

My reputation is shut forever. Brian, Muslim man, they are here because of what we have. I was born here.

So my interest is right here. So for your own people to put you through this, just because you helped to find this asset for your country is pathetic. So what is the next step to this? Well, I don't know. A new Guns for Cash program aims to end the militancy in Nigeria and to bring more oil back into production.

The Nigerian government will offer $400 a month, job training and an unconditional pardon to every militant who lays down his arms. Zedli Adadot, Mladadeta, Zetas Tete, Mordogli Agnaya. See, see, see.

Cannibal, cannibal, can you call the police? Now we are laying out our arms. The federal government got an agency to the militants.

If the federal government really want peace, let us do to the unpromised to develop the United States. They are all right for you. Don't worry, don't worry. They are all right for you. They are all right for you.

I'm going to pay everybody and make everybody go. You know what I'm saying? If you don't hear me, I'm going to tell everybody what I'm going to do.

Respect is not your friend. You know what I'm saying? Today is where you go, so you're not going to come. You're going to come and make them smoke ice.

You're going to say, you don't like me, I'm going for my don. You say, respect, it's my Lord. You're going to say, hey, send us a woman, we're not going to have a woman. Hey, my name is Motele Mboa.

I'm here to tell everybody to fuck off. I swear to God, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you.

I'm going to kill you. Everybody go to your working place. Fuck off.

So how do you see your future? I don't know. The federal government have already parted ways. So we can have a protest in a lesson.

We can come into the political aspect. be the governor of the other state they will not be against me that say this guy is a militant so he's a killer so then they cannot become a cannot become a governor do you think the amnesty will work we don't trust it because anybody can come on today do whatever what come from his mind and get away because why we have no law for example the governor of today everything in the state is my care money is my care So it is the way I like to make use of my money, that's the way I'll make use of my money. And nobody can kick against me.

This week we go up big estate, share the money of everybody's money, the whole state's money. That's the Nigeria that we have today. Tell me what ultimately happened to the ExxonMobil deal? Well, ExxonMobil pulled out of the deal and That is understandable. There was so much heat around the deal.

And it's obvious that no multinational corporation can function in a country where there's so much hostility and so on. So Exxon obviously pulled out and Cosmos decided to stay in Ghana. And we understand that negotiations have begun again between the government of Ghana and Cosmos. Cosmos is seeking to raise some resources on the stock exchange but there have been issues about the violation of law so that's what the negotiations are about.

We're available the rest of the day. What happens can be for you and the guys. Actually, I'll be glad if we can shoot it, kill it today. But if you're leaving in the morning, I'm leaving in the evening, so we really have to.

That's why I want it. That's it. It should be pretty quick, Bill. What's that? It should be pretty quick.

They're going to have to look at it and make sure and initial it. It should be. Hello? Yeah, we just need to get all this sorted out. We're waiting on the Ministry.

If they don't deliver it today, who says when they're gonna deliver it? Yeah, that was great. Why is getting this agreement so important?

We need a massive amount of cash to fund the project. That's the problem. And it's gonna allow Cosmos to go forward in terms of raising money and then allow us to have a more cooperative... mutually beneficial relationship with the government as we used to two years ago.

So it's pretty important. Why is the sudden change apart from the government here? I think they realize that the status quo of being in conflict just was not... doing anybody any good for one of the leading investors in the country to be treated this way was not helpful for the government of Ghana. There was rumblings about this is having a negative effect on foreign direct investment, and so can we please resolve the Cosmos matter?

Because it wasn't really getting very good press. Okay. So you guys can't go home until it's assigned?

Probably can't go home until it's assigned. Right. 3.30. This is the first draft of the speech I'm giving at the first oil celebration. The road has been demanding of personal resilience, and I'm proud to be a part of this journey.

Right. And EO is proud. We need to take the opportunity to repair the image of EO. A picture has been painted that says EO didn't do any job.

This is the opportunity. Let the world know that it took you to bring cosmos. Yeah, I gave this to them on a silver platter.

Yes, today is the day people must know. You can wait. To deliver the speech. Are you okay?

Yeah, I hope so. We are happy, but not so much excited because gold was mined in Ghana. We couldn't make any good, good, good use of it. So why are we jubilating about oil? There are different models to it.

I mean, obviously, if they follow the Norwegian... model where a certain proportion of the revenue from oil is allocated to providing social facilities and of course you're going to see a major impact. If we allow the politicians alone to take control of it and then siphon it, definitely conflict will come.

It all depends on the administration. They should use it wisely so that in future, our children here to come will know that, yes, our leaders did a good job for this nation. After a long wait, the day has come. We must ensure that the oil is a blessing and not a curse. Over the last few months we've worked to reset the relationship with Cosmos and I think we've achieved that now.

It's in the best interests of everybody. The oil business is a team game. So moving forward, what are your goals? We will make sure that as a team, as a family, we work together to develop something that can change the destiny of this country. Our goals are to maximize the value of the assets that we create.

The way we do that is explore as much as we can, find as many oil fields as we possibly can, and then bring those oil fields to development quickly. We're not going to rush and let people just within three years take their money and go. We will absolutely maximize whatever God has given us. So if it takes 10 years to optimally enhance the resources, we will do that.

When you have a company such as ours that's taken risk, people need to applaud and reward the risk with the proper returns. But are emerging countries going to run the capital off? Are they going to kill the golden goose one more time because they get greedy? So do you think it's just human nature to fight like this? Over who's going to get what when a valuable resource is found?

Well, there are two levels to it. At an international level, you've got a room full of hungry people, you throw in a loaf of bread. Everybody's trying to find a way to get to it.

Sudden wealth is what drives industry just because everybody wants a piece of it. So it's not the case that the automatic response is for people to sit down and say, OK, how do we divide up the loaf most effectively? But I don't think divisive self-interest is an intrinsic human quality, no, I don't think so. At a domestic level, it's a question of how you structure society. You need to have a sense that there's a bigger identity.

What unites us has to be bigger than what divides us. We have made the first major oil discovery in the country and I think we deserve a lot of credit for that. I persevered and came in and stood firm because I believe that Ghana has oil.

I'm glad that finally we have been able to produce oil for the country. God bless you, Ghana. Thank you very much, Mr. Godewoso, for the doctor. Sorry, EO Group. The opening is the most watched financial event anywhere and we tell you about a hundred million people will see this.

Wow. Don't miss the button. He's pressing it.

It's amazing visibility so we're delighted to have you here. Yeah, nice. Ready to head up?

Let's go. Let's do it. Everybody come in a little box. It's kind of sucks.

This is how the system works. And if you succeed, then you actually can demonstrate that you've created something. You may have been there at the birth of a new enterprise, and even when the firm no longer has an investment in that enterprise, the enterprise may still exist. And you always have the satisfaction of being a godfather to that success.

I mean, godfather in a positive sense, less than the Don Corleone sense. And that's self-serving as well, because if you generate a good reputation, then it will lead to a better deal flow and the most money coming. So reputation is everything. I appreciate that, guys.

Thank you. So what time is our next interview? Right here. When one stands up there, oh, you just see the cameras pointing at you. But what hits you is the realization of what you've achieved.

We actually achieved what we set out to do. We were able to realize the full value of the assets that we'd created. Yeah, long term, absolutely.

We are bullish on oil prices. For me, the new challenge in Cosmos is taking it to the next level. There's a lot of oil still to be found in West Africa. Why Africa?

Well, let's ask the CEO. He's standing right here, Brian Maxted. Do you negotiate with the countries themselves to get the rights to do the exploration?

We do. We try and get there first. We try and go to those places that are overlocked or misunderstood or not just simply won't pass by the supermajors. Oh

Transcript for:Insights on Oil Discovery and Development

Transcript for:
Insights on Oil Discovery and Development