Liberia S Natural Resources:Who Is Benefiting?

Liberia’s Natural Resources:Who Is Benefiting? ::Poooooo.LibPu

Dr. Rudolph McClain, NOCAL CEO ? Robert Sirleaf –NOCAL Board Chair , Pres. Sirleaf appoints Israel Akinsanya who is facing 2.5m corrupt charges to oil company (standard Newspaper, May 18, 2012.) Robert Sirleaf makes $30,000 bonus per month as “volunteer “ at NOCAL. See Jerome Verdier’s letter to Liberia.

Our Wealth: Cllr. Negbalee Warner Speaks to Liberians Sunday August 19, 2012 - Time: 4:00-5:30 p.m. OLM office: 78th Ave N, 7001 Brooklyn Park, MN 55443

Despite Our Country’s Wealth, The Poor are Getting Poorer and The Rich are Getting Richer

Poverty: Here is the reality in Liberia

This leaflet is published and distributed by the Liberian Human Rights and Refugee Welfare Organization Based in Minnesota, USA. Kirkpatrick Weah, Executive Director, 763 355 5600 [email protected]. “One day, we shall have the destiny of our country in our hands.” Pres. Sirleaf’s note to a political prison mate, Kirkpatrick Weah, Sept 9, 1985 - Post stockade. Foreigners are getting richer from our natural resources. Is the destiny still not in our hands? KP

 How Many Liberians Were Granted Production sharing Contracts?

 1jjjj

(0 votes)

NOCAL CEO, Dr. Randolph McClain

“The longer we delay in drill for Liberia’s oil the little we will know about its existence, quality, and quantity,” Dr. Randolph McClain president of the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL) has declared. According to the NOCAL’s CEO, drilling for Liberia’s oil is long overdue.

Dr. McClain pointed out that with the ongoing exploration and drilling for oil by Chevron, African Petroleum Corporation Limited (API) and other companies that have signed production sharing contracts (PSCs) with the government of Liberia, the government now has the opportunity to put together necessary policies, ideas and organize training for its citizens in preparation for mining or extraction, which is expected to start within the next seven to ten years.

The NOCAL CEO spoke to a team of Daily Observer staff in an exclusive interview at his NOCAL’s Randall Street Office in Monrovia on Friday, August 10, 2012. He clarified that drilling for oil is different from mining or extracting oil, while maintaining that the awarding of PSCs today is the best interest of the Liberian people.

NOCAL was established by an Act of the Legislature in 2000 for the purpose of holding all of the right, title and interest of the Republic of Liberia in the deposits and reserves of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons within the territorial limits of the Republic of Liberia, whether potential, proven, or actual with the aim of facilitating the development of the oil and gas industry in the country.

According to Section five (5) of the Act, NOCAL has the function to organize, conduct, arrange, and supervise all relevant research and exploration for liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons in Liberia, and to delineate, establish, and issue licenses for particular areas, fields, and blocks.

Dr. McClain told the Observer team that “all that is happening in the oil sector now is some companies are drilling, while two of them are currently negotiating with us for production sharing contracts.”

NOCAL faces gloomy public perception that the company is awarding contracts to foreign companies and taking millions of high currencies from those companies to extract oil from Liberia.

“No, there is no money coming from oil now. What is going on is that companies are spending their money drilling for oil,” he said.

The NOCAL CEO maintained that with the ongoing drilling for oil coupled with the policies and trainings that are being put into place, Liberians stand a better chance to enjoy the benefits that would accrue from mining their oil. “This is why we are holding a nationwide consultation on the Draft Petroleum Policy of Liberia-to get the people to be a part and add their voices,” the NOCAL boss noted.

There were two phases of oil exploration activities that occurred in the offshore sector of Liberia from 1970-1972 during which time four wells were drilled by Union Carbide Petroleum Corporation, Frontier International Petroleum Inc., and Chevron Oil Company Liberia.

The second phase took place from 1983-1989 where three wells were drilled by Amoco Liberia Exploration Company.

According to technical information provided by NOCAL, all wells penetrated a significant thickness of reservoir quality sandstone, ranging in age from late Jurassic to late Cretaceous, and five of the wells found ‘oil prone’ and ‘mixed oil and gas prone’ source bed with organic carbon exceeding 2%.

The exploration continued from 2000 to 2010 where a US-based company, TGS Nopec Geophysical Company, conducted 24,773 kilometers of 2D Seismic Data; 24, 408 kilometers of 2D Gravity and Magnetic Data and 18,345 square kilometers of 3D Seismic Data.

The TGS survey established the presence of what NOCAL called essential petroleum factors; multiple mature oil prone source beds throughout most of the study area.

COUNTRY RESOURCES MINING SECTOR Preliminary survey of Liberia by the Holland Syndicate from 1935 to 1937 led to the official discovery of gold, diamond and iron ore in some areas of the country even though the existence of gold and iron ore was know long ago by the natives who mined and used these metals for trading. By 1943 there was a boom in the gold mining industry which exported the highest of 30,800 troy ozs of gold in that same year with production still in the hands of Africans. It was not until the early 1950s that diamond digging started along the Lofa River near to Wuesua, which also led to a rush in other parts of the country. In 1951, the first iron ore company, "Liberia Mining Company", started production following earlier negotiations between the United States and Liberian Government. From this time the mineral industry started substantial contributions to the Liberian economy. Subsequent reconnaissance geological and geophysical mapping coupled with limited geochemical surveys of Liberia, by the government, international institutions and private geologists, have revealed a greater mineral wealth of iron ore, diamond, gold, barite, kysnite, phosphate, clays, heavy mineral beach sands, bauxite and manganese. During the reconnaissance survey it was also recognized that over 90 percent of Liberia is underlain by Precambrian metamorphic and igneous basement rocks that are conformably overlain and infolded into, by metavolcano-sedimentary formations and of quarzites, banded iron formations, amphibolites and ultramafics which form prominent narrow ridges throughout the country. Phanerozoic coastal sediments and a swarm of Jurassic dykes and sills constitute the rest. Prolonged tropical weathering has resulted in lateritic ironstones capping the hill tops and unconsolidated Tertiary to recent sediments (alluvium) filling the river valleys. The geologic setting seems favorable for the formation of the following geology types of deposits: (A) Precambrian chemical sedimentary, banded iron and manganese formations, also submarine exhalative processes bordering with the continental nucleus e.g. iron, manganese, phosphate. (B)Archeane grindstone and metasedimentary belts with granite associations, e. g. gold and sulfide deposits. (C) Residual concentration, e. g. bauxite (D) Mechanical concentration of steam and beaches placers, e.g. diamonds, gold, heavy mineral brach sand etc. (E) Magnetic concentration, e. g. Diamond pipes and dykes; (F)Hidrothermal processes e.g. gold, barite. Present mineral production in Liberia involves iron ore, diamond and gold mining which together contribute more than 65 percent of the value of the total export earnings of the country. Mining, therefore, dominates the monetary sector of the economy and represents the most important economic activity. The overal contribution of the mining sector to Gross Domestic Product at constant factor cost showed an average of 30 percent in 1980 and 1981, after averaging 25 percent per year from 1977 to 1979. The mining industry also provides a means of livelihood to a large number of workers and their dependants. Total number of workers in mining and quarrying stand at 20,000 in 1981 which represents about 3 percent of the working population. Mining operations have also led to the provision of infrastructural facilities such as hospitals, schools, electricity, water supply etc. in those areas where the mines located (mining communities). The availability of the structures, which under normal circumstances those areas would not have benefited from has therefore enhanced productive capacity of those areas. The sector has also been a source of revenue payments such as royalty, profit sharing, export duties, income tax, exploration licenses, minings licenses, brokers and dealers licenses to the goverment. Iron ore mining has constituted the most important activity since 1965 and is now carried out by three companies (LAMCI, BMC and NIOC) since the closure of LMC in 1977; the companies altogether produce over 20 million long tons of crude ore per year, which makes Liberia the leading exporting country of iron ore in Africa, and ranks seventh in the worth. Production, however, might fall this year due to the world wide problems facing the iron ore industry. Other mining activities, mainly for placer gold and diamonds, are done on a small scale by hand-methods with the exception of one mechanized gold mine once operated near Zwedru (BITC) in Grand Gedeh County; the production of gold and diamonds can only be measured in terms of export volume. The production of gold increased by 121 percent from 7,243 ozs in 1980 to 15,991 ozs in 1981. Diamonds production also showed an increase of 5.2 percent, but suffered a sharp fall in value by 30 percent caused by a 50 percent drop and low demand on world market. Despite such previous and present mining activities, vast mineral wealth still remains untapped in the country. Iron ore reserves of both proven and problem nature total over 4 billion long tons of crude ore. Several areas of alluvial gold and diamonds, with possible lode occurances, have been outline and modest exploration has been in progress to evaluate some of these resources which, from all indications, are large. Apart from her minerable reserves of iron ore, diamonds and gold, Liberia also has important potential of reserves of barite, kyanite, phosphate, heavy mineral beach sands, bauxite, manganese, tim, chromiun and base-metals, sulfides. The rest of the text describing the mineral resources of Liberia has been prepared to include the historical background and the production of the principal mineral deposits of the country. Exploration activities of the Geologic Survey and the private organizations have shown that all of the known economic gold deposits occur as alluvial deposits, along valley bottoms and in stream. The deposits are widely distributed over a total area of 10,000 square miles throughout the country, but are much more concentrated in Eastern and Western Liberia. GOLD The distribution pattern of the gold in the buried/active stream sediments shows some relationship with the north-east-trending, Precambrian schists/greenstone belts with and the underlying basement complex of Liberia and “Eburnean Ages”, and it is belived that these deposits are derived from the prolonged weathering from Pleistocene to recent times of small lenticular quartz veins (lode deposit) associated with these archeane rocks. The placer gold occurs in a mixed alluvion of sand, gravel and boulders lying on the gneissic precambrian basement to varying depths down to 20 feet as in the Yambasey River Valley. In general, the occurrence of good values upstream with poor values further downstream suggests that the placers are local and of limited extent with only thin development of gravels and predominantly fine grined gold. There were about 116 mining properties and prospects, the majority of which were operated by African miners and abandoned in 1950s. Last year there were about 66 mining claims and 84 prospectors with prospecting licenses throughout the country, including Bentley International Trading Company which is a mechanized gold mine located near Zwedru. Gold was found in lode deposits in the Tawalate District, at Wueju, east of Gondoja, near Zwedru and at Gbarmu, which occur as quartz veins. Most of these veins are narrow and very reach such as in the Zwedru area, which was only about 3 feet thick and assayed about 892 gm/tonne Au. Reserves and Potential It seems probable that many more placer deposits will be found in many part as the Tiehnpo and Kpo Range gold belts and Zoi area which can be worked profitably whithadeguate pumps and a simple other mechanical equipment. There is ample evidence that Liberia has sufficient gold ore; roughly estimated to be greater than 1 million troy ozs.; planned exploration is used to test the many areas delineated, including the old prospects. At the present time, practically 90% of the world’s gold mines are situated in areas of Precambrian rocks (shield areas) such as those of Liberia which are relatively favourable for the development of gold mines and for the persistence of the gold in depth. The recovery of certain associated minerals, occurring whith the gold, contain metals of strategic importance, will no do doubt increase the economic value of some of the law-grade placer deposits. DIAMONDS Though diamonds were discovered in the 1930’s in western Liberia by the Holland Syndacate, it was not until the early 1950’s that diamond digging started in Liberia. Digging started along the Lofa River near Wuesua and gradually spread downstream and to adjoining tributaries. The Kakata area was also mined in the early 1950’ and from by the late 1950’ digging had started at Gbapa and Bahn where there was a considerable rush. Minning by thousands of diggers extended in early 1960’s to the Kumgbor areas. During the early 1960’s attempts were made to form companies to mine the river beds and adjoining tareas by mechanized means. The Liberian Swiss Mining Company (LISWIMCO) and Globex Minerals, Inc. were actived in this venture. The most serious large scale exploration was, however, carried out by the Diamond Mining Corporation, Liberia (DCML) from 1962-66. DCLM was responsible for locating a number of Kimberlite dykes in western Liberia which are uneconomic in diamond content. In 1972 the U.N. Mineral Survey Team discovered a small kimberlite pipe whith no diamonds in it. More recently there are about 947 local alluvial diamond mining claims whith over 1000 registered prospectors. The biggest diamond boom was records in 1959 with exports of 1,113,500 carats of both boart (industrial) and gemcuttablequalities.Thereafter, the diamond industry slowly declined to the present export levels of over 300,000 carats. Reserves and Potential To conclude this section, it must be pointed out that although available records show that over 13 million carats of diamonds have already been produced and exported from Liberia, field investigations indicate that Liberia still has modest reserves of diamonds (over 10 million carats) to last beyond the year 2000. It is likely from the widespead occurrence of kimberlite indicator minerals in western Liberia, that the alluvial diamonds are derived from as yet undiscovered kimberlite pipes. Suchs pipes have been found in adjoining Sierra Leone and are now being mined. Further exploration work in Liberia, especially in the Kumgbor areas, to try to discover new and diamondiferous Kimberlite dykes swarms and pipes, is obviously warranted. A road network will be needed to open up the Gola Forest Reserve for such investigations. KIMBERLITE About 13 kimberlite dykes generally trending N30 E were located by DCML in western Liberia from 1962 -'66. Some of the dykes are diamandiferous but not in economic quantities, while others perhaps have not been well sampled. On account of the abundance of large crystals of picro-ilmenite, the Kumgbor area holds the best potential for the occurrence of diamondiferous kimberlite pipes. The Mano-Godua pipe was located by a U.N. mineral survey through a magnetometer survey and drilling in an area of known diamond diggings.

Photo: BijaGutoff/Mercy Corps

In line with the government’s priorities for In This Issue

Foreigners Own All Liberian Oil Wells

The Liberia’s Oil Company People Will Speak To Us InMinnesota: Saturday August 18, 2012.

Venue: Brooklyn Park Community Center 5600 85th Avenue North, MN 55443 Time: 5:30 p.m. Free Dinner will be served

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’sSon is The Chair of The Oil Companies’ Board.

-One Nigerian man bought one well for $40 million. He sold it to another company for $250 million dollars. All the money gone to Nigeria. Come and ask your questions.

The same thing with the Iron Ore Companies.Liberians are not enjoying our natural resources

------USA office: 2830 Northway Drive Ste 304, Brooklyn Center, MN 55430 Contact: Kirkpatrick Weah