From: John Cuccia 

On Sun, 13 May 2007 10:23:17 +0100, Adam
<""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near the
bridge"> wrote:

>George Sherwood wrote:
>> Guess we have a better idea how BP won the "Contract of the
Century"
>> here.
>
>Not that far off SOP in the Oil business.

Not far off at all.  During the boom of the 70s, the parties were fueled by cocaine.

>What the seller wants the
>seller gets. Heck you should ask your US oil comps wrt Angola.

And (at least) Equatorial Guinea:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/14/60minutes/main583700.shtml
And how close are the U.S. firms to the president? Well, for starters, oil
company compounds are built on land owned by the president, and leased from
him for a princely sum. And when the president comes to the states, the
companies entertain him lavishly.

As first reported by the Los Angeles Times, American oil companies have
been depositing hundreds of millions of dollars in oil royalties into an
account controlled by President Obiang at a branch of the Riggs Bank in
Washington, D.C.

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