RE: RE: More on Sardine Hill.CEO,
I do not know the day to day transactions of the Guyana government. and I would much prefer to read about the President farting, than read about this deal. Yes the local news papers are tabloids and the sales of those papers largely depends upon a sensational headline. The point is, people read these papers.
A real concern is any sort of transaction where a President uses his executive powers to give a person who works in the office of the president and a former(?) commissioner of mines a prospecting licence that was revoked for non-compliance to the terms of the prospecting licence should raise a few eyebrows.
As the project advances, there is an increased probability that someone will be a legal challenge the executive order on procedural grounds. Further, when it comes to election time a politician will do whatever he need to do to be re-elected. This is reality. If the deal becomes truly unpopular, the opposition will use it as an example of what is wrong with the current government. If the current government sees this as a problem, they themselves may revoke the prospecting permit finding some other deficiency in an effort to remove the political liability.
The only way a deal like this can survive is if the company makes the project look like a good deal for the country and the success can be attributed, in part, to those in power, at the same time keeping the money flowing to those who put the deal together.
This is a little different than the president's fart making the headlines.