SOCO - Now's the time to wake up!

The Congo government have just published the independent audit of the award process for Marine XI, as sought by the World Bank :-



In French unfortunately but I've auto-translated a swathe of it. Pages 52 to 69 cover the main interest, i.e. Soco/Energem/AOGC. It appears the reader needs to draw their own conclusions. In summary, my interpretation of the Report is that Energem's legal claims to the Block are groundless and always have been. Further, inference was drawn that they were being tipped off as to Soco's confidential proposals and despite offering a higher sig bonus, Energem's petroleum sharing contract terms were inferior to Soco's and detrimental to Congo's overall interest. Energem also struck out statutory clauses in contravention of Congolese law whereas Soco complied. Interesting to note the Auditor drew attention to Lundin and Vitol making an approach to the government for Marine XI in March 2005, unaware of the private "invitation to tender" process that Soco and Energem had been engaged in for some time. This process was not actually deemed outside the law, rather the law was inadequate. So, on the face of it, Soco appears squeaky clean...not that anybody suggested otherwise.

As to Gokana, he appears to have sold his 90% interest in AOGC (certified by Notary) 3 months after the PSA was signed. He was generally exonerated for his company's involvement with Marine XI prior to that as he'd only become MD of SNPC 9 months earlier and conflict of interest laws in Congo were weak/non-existent and in any case, he ultimately corrected the conflict by purging himself of the interest.

Seems the Auditors involved Global Witness in their investigations. I imagine they won't find anything to grumble about, so that should be the end of the matter, certainly as far as Soco is concerned.