Oil find in Uganda

Western oil company Tullow strikes black gold in Uganda, and it looks like the government managed to strike a pretty good deal:

Reports of a deal between Tullow Oil and the Ugandan government suggest that for every ten barrels found by Tullow, the government gets eight. This would represent a huge windfall for the landlocked East African country, where annual gross domestic product is estimated at $14.53 billion.

If a suitable pipeline to the coast in Kenya or Tanzania can be built, the nation could could become a significant oil exporter.

Hopefully this turns out well, but there is reason to be cautious.

Resource ripples from Iran

I was worried that the amount of space on this blog dedicated to Iran was beyond its original intended scope, but never fear, resource implications are seldom far away... might Uganda's recent energy deal with Iran be put in jeopardy?

I think world crude markets have noticed too but I try not to pay too much attention to their day-to-day fluctuations.

P.S. For anyone interested in a serious exploration of the resource curse, I highly recommend "Escaping the Resource Curse" - Stiglitz and Sachs edit a collection of strong essays on a variety of relevant topics from a variety of perspectives (academia, business, law, government, etc.).