I am very disappointed over the oil deal as it seems the Liberian people have absolutely no rights over there own oil .50 USDmillion may sound alot but I am afraid it is peanut for a nation that so desperately needs reconstruction , roads , school and hospital. . I is only fair to say that the presfesident and her advisor are incapable of securing a profitable deal for our people and therefore I feel very alarmed..more then ever for our nation's as more and more country come to suck us dry and drain our nation for peanuts. It's modern day slavery ..really. The people needs more voice..I person should not be allowed to controll the country faith in this way...its not right ...

How have not stop thinking about this new oil contract that have signed between Liberia and the Us and Canada...The president says she wants what's best for the nation how then can she aggree to a deal like that .80% to the Us company 20% to the Canadian company..How can a leader agress to that .We are left with no shares at all and with no shares we have no say in other words, even an elementarchild knows that...At the end of the day the oil belongs to us ..and therefore we are entitle to a percentage. Question. How long is this deal? Awaits answer..

This agreement is very unbelievable, to say the least. I do not understand how any country will give 100% of its oil revenues away. There is no mention of what these two hugue oil companies will do for our country for getting 100% of the country's oil. Perhahps Liberian leaders need to talk to their neighbour, Nigeria who is a veteran oil producer for some advise.

Nyan

This is a great betrayal of the Liberian people's trust. So our oil is 100% Canadian and American property? What have these companies done for the Liberian people to take legal ownership of our most precious resource? Why? Madam President why?

Ellen is husling serious for grand child cuz she soon be out...that's Y she's hastly signing oil deal!!!

I don't think Ellen's grandchildren who are mostly born outside of the country with western mindset could care less. So we the Liberian people should wake up and demand more for our natural resources. If not, it would be the foreigners who will benefit. Instead of personalizing everything we should begin to probe and engage our lawmakers before these contracts are ratified. We should demand that they only ratify agreements that provide the best options for the local communities. We can chose to be complacent cynics and fail before we even begin or we could be proactive and begin to hold our policy makers to account. With an open press that is providing transparent information daily through both print and internet, who do we blame if we don't take action in the interest of a citizens-driven development. Never again can we say that were no longer informed since the press provides us with detailed accounts of all the good, the bad, and the ugly. Now lets engage and get involved in our own development.

If the Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd (COPL) owns 20%,and Exxon Mobil owns 80%, that is 100% total ownership. That translates for the country having no share whatsoever. I am confused!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Was this mistyped?

The $50m is much needed. Our national budget continues to expand, and a portion of the growth is projected to be funded with debt ($80m in 2013 and increasing each year thereafter).The $50m will help reduce the need for debt, and if God willing we hit oil, the royalties will also reduce the debt need. We all know the problems that large debt burdens have hindered the US and Europe, so these large sums of revenue will allow our nation to grow without a large debt cloud over our heads. And please read the terms of the deal - we get annual payments for education and infrastrucure along with royalty payments should we hit oil. Let us not be ignorant in our comments, especially when the Legislature took the time over the past year to get our input. And let us not forget that the US is our biggest supporter and provides millions annual during our rebuilding period. Do you really want the likes of Exxon and Chevron to walk away from these blocks and we get the corrupt Russians taking over - that's when we will never realize the benefits of our potential oil resources.

The argument that our friend Nation Pride is making in favor of this bogus oil deal resembles the story of Esau who sold his birthright for a bow of soup. Why should our government make a deal that has the potential of keeping our country in deprivation and unimaginable political consequences simply because they are having budget difficulties? What is $50m compared to the huge revenues that these companies stand to reap should they discover huge oil deposits of our shores? These companies are not stupid, they know for sure that they will find good quantities of high quality oil in these blocks. They are going to reap so much and give Liberia so little. Considering the 10% to 15% royalties stipulated in this agreement, Liberia stands to get ten cents for every dollar earned, $10 for every $100 earned, and so forth. Your annual disbursements for education and infrastructure are not stipulated in specific amounts in these agreements; this means that it could be a $100,000 , $150,000, etc. per year, even if these companies are reaping millions or billions per annum - government will have no control over how much these companies give in these regards. So we are selling our resource for "a penny to a dollar". I do not believe that these companies can get such "exploitative deals" anywhere else in the world. We are setting ourselves on a course of poverty and serious political consequences by taking shortcuts that won't work. We are being too eager for quick gains, too hasty for solutions, and it is hard time that we did what is right for our children and children's children. Let posterity look back and say, "Our forefathers did the right things for us". Lets constantly remind ourselves that there are no shortcuts to any place worth getting to.

With all do respect talkerright, how do you propose we access these oil reserves? There are only a handful of drillers who have the capabilities to access this oil, and none of them reside on our continent. Should a country with a $600m national budhget spend billions upon billions to establish a major oil drilling company? Can we afford the couple of hundred thousand dollar a day drill rates? Each well will cost over $20m to drill, so what happens if we drill 5 holes and get no commercial oil (which to date is the case). Can we afford to bankrupt our country? Remember, we are only talking about 1 block here. Multiply this by 25, and you see the potential issues. This is a very favorable deal, and is consistent with/better than how other deals are structured. It is a risk free deal for our country, with significant upside with continuous upfront fees from these blocks along with the royalty payment stream and continued support payments for education and infrastrctue (future deals will likely include this as well, so we will get multiples the numbers we are reaping from this 1 block). So again, with all respect, how do you propose we access this oil in a way that would not bankrupt our country?

As a Liberian trained and American educated Computer and Software Engineer,and after reading about the new oil deal signed Ellen with the two oil companies giving them 100% of Liberia's oil resource, this reminds me of the very deal my by Tubman with Firestone the rape our country and people off and left us with nothing and made his children and grand children rich to decades. My advise to you mr. nation pride is this, there is a saying that "you can follow the buring of hit pepper and drink a drum of water".I don't know what you stand to bedefit from this oil deal, but Liberia will not benefit in the long run.As a technical man who had work for DirecTV, Verizon, Comcast,Charter Gateway computers etc. who know and understand the whiteman's way of doing business,they are whiteman not stupid, before whiteman spends a penny in any invesment, he thoroughly investigate and analyzed the entire invesment and his gain so get this to your brain and stop support a deal that will be detrimental to our dear Liberia and its people because this Firestone version 2.0.

h.dennis84 - Understanding you are computer literate, what training do you have in oil exploration? How do you propose we get the oil out of the ground, and how should we pay for it? Should we do a risk sharing contract? And what happens if we drill a dry hole? Are you going to complain that Liberian funds are going towards wasted exploration? We may have oil, or we may not. So, do recommend we sit on our hands so that nobody benefits, just because you dont want the white man to see any gain at the expense of our own people prospering? Maybe you can use some of your old computer cables and use those to explore at the bottom of the ocean. That way we dont need the likes of Exxon. Maybe then we can save on the billions of $'s of infracture needed to access this potential oil play. Yeah man, that is a great idea. Again, I ask, how do you propose we access the potential oil and what funds will we use to get it?

As a Liberian trained and American educated Computer and Software Engineer,after reading about the new oil deal signed by Ellen with the two oil companies giving them 100% of Liberia's oil resource, this reminds me of the very deal signed by president Tubman with Firestone that raped our country and people off and left us with nothing, but made his children and grand children rich for decades. My advise to you mr. nation pride is this, there is a saying that "you can't follow the buring of hot pepper and drink a drum of water".I don't know and understand what you stand to bedefit from this oil deal, but Liberia will not benefit in the long term.As a technical man who had work for DirecTV, Verizon Communications, Comcast Communications,Charter Communications Gateway computers etc, and who know and understand the whiteman's way of doing business,they are not stupid, before the whiteman spends a penny in any invesment, he thoroughly investigate and analyzed the entire invesment and his gain, so get this to your brain and stop support a deal that will be detrimental to our dear Liberia and its people because this Firestone version 2.0.

As a Liberian trained and American educated Computer and Software Engineer,after reading about the new oil deal signed by Ellen with the two oil companies giving them 100% of Liberia's oil resource, this reminds me of the very deal signed by president Tubman with Firestone that raped our country and people off and left us with nothing, but made his children and grand children rich for decades. My advise to you mr. nation pride is this, there is a saying that "you can't follow the buring of hot pepper and drink a drum of water".I don't know and understand what you stand to bedefit from this oil deal, but Liberia will not benefit in the long term.As a technical man who had work for DirecTV, Verizon Communications, Comcast Communications,Charter Communications Gateway computers etc, and who know and understand the whiteman's way of doing business,they are not stupid, before the whiteman spends a penny in any invesment, he thoroughly investigate and analyzed the entire invesment and his gain, so get this to your brain and stop support a deal that will be detrimental to our dear Liberia and its people because this is Firestone version deal 2.0.

As a Liberian trained and American educated Computer and Software Engineer,after reading about the new oil deal signed by Ellen with the two oil companies giving them 100% of Liberia's oil resource, this reminds me of the very deal signed by president Tubman with Firestone that raped our country and people off and left us with nothing, but made his children and grand children rich for decades. My advise to you mr. nation pride is this, there is a saying that "you can't follow the buring of hot pepper and drink a drum of water".I don't know and understand what you stand to bedefit from this oil deal, but Liberia will not benefit in the long term.As a technical man who had work for DirecTV, Verizon Communications, Comcast Communications,Charter Communications Gateway computers etc, and who know and understand the whiteman's way of doing business,they are not stupid, before the whiteman spends a penny in any invesment, he thoroughly investigate and analyzed the entire invesment and his gain, so get this to your brain and stop support a deal that will be detrimental to our dear Liberia and its people because this is Firestone deal version 2.0.

The civil society including the clergy, the elders, and all well-meaning Liberians should ask the government to make public these oil contracts so that the Liberian people can know exactly what is going on. This is a very serious issue that could rip our country to pieces. These wicked oil deals should not be overlooked.

talkerright - Amen to transparency. I agree with you that NOCAL and the Legislature should make these agreements public knowledge, and that they should be accountable that the money is not missapropriated.

Following up on our national debt concerns, it was announced today our nation has close to $600m in debt. $50m from block 13 would help reduce this amount, and future awards for the remaining blocks could eliminate our debt burden in full. To walk away from this transaction would be foolish, and to not keep our national debt down would be irresponsible. This lump sum amount is unprecedented and the royalty terms are favorable to other market deals, so let us finally use our resources to our benefit rather than our detriment.