Evidence Revealed That Corrupt Politicians Are Stealing Lebanon's Petroleum
The Lebanese petroleum expert Nicolas Sarkis recently uploaded a video on his Youtube channel exposing the outrageous corruption nested in the petroleum domain in Lebanon. He says that he had never seen, in any other country in his 40 or so years of work in petroleum, the amount of corruption that he saw first-hand in Lebanon.
Sarkis has worked as a petroleum consultant in numerous Arab and non-Arab petroleum-producing countries around the world during his decades-long career. Now, in light of the uprising in Lebanon and the serious focus on exposing and fighting corruption in the country, he has important insight to share with the public.
Here is what every Lebanese citizen should know about what goes on behind the scenes of Lebanon's petroleum plans, as explained by Mr. Sarkis:
Via Wikidata
The Lebanese Petroleum Administration
To understand what goes on behind the scenes, you must first understand the forefront of the scene itself. The Lebanese Petroleum Administration is responsible for everything petroleum in Lebanon.
It was established on the 4th of December 2012 and is an independent public institution mandated to manage the upstream offshore petroleum sector in Lebanon.
Operating under the tutelage of the Minister of Energy and Water, the principal objective of the LPA is to contribute to creating the greatest possible value for the economy and the society out of the petroleum sector while protecting the environment.
Via LPA
It actively undertakes planning, regulatory, and supervisory roles across the petroleum industry, and plays critical roles during the initial licensing phase, as well as the many phases that follow.
Recently, caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri extended the terms of reference of the LPA, which had expired last year. This, as implied by Mr. Sarkis, is not a good thing, and it threatens the offshore natural resources of Lebanon.
@saadhariri embedded via
Public opinion doesn't know much about the process of petroleum-production. Those who do, work in Arab countries and countries that do produce the resource. Many of those experts could have been easily used by the Lebanese government to work on extracting petroleum for Lebanon, instead of importing it as it has always done.
According to the petroleum expert, the majority of the current six members of the LPA have nothing to do with petroleum; they have no experience in the field and are not eligible to work in the administration or the domain of offshore resources as a whole.
Via New Lebanon
Like all public jobs in Lebanon, these six experts were chosen based on sects and religious denominations. The minister of power at the time of their employment handpicked the employees.
The LPA's dangerous plan
The vast majority of petroleum-producing, as well as non-producing, countries have national companies dedicated to petroleum exploration, except for Lebanon, and a very select few others in the world.
Lebanon's 2010 offshore petroleum resources law states that national petroleum companies should be created to help the state reach the supposed goal of becoming the main player in the processes leading to the production of its petroleum.
This goal is realized with the assistance of an international agreement called the Production Sharing Agreement.
@norwelledge embedded via
The agreement states that any country that hasn't discovered its petroleum resources, or has discovered them but hasn't initiated the production process due to insufficient capital and/or a lack in the required expertise and tools, can accept to have foreign companies involved in the search and evaluation processes.
If none is found, the country is not required to pay the companies. If petroleum is found, on the other hand, the country and the foreign company become partners in the process of extraction and production, with the government owning a share of at least 40%.