Reserves
Leaders in the corporate energy sector argue that there is an abundance of oil reserves.
The way in which energy resources are managed will determine the future of the world, and it is difficult to be optimistic
will be able to do this depends a lot on the manner in which both the economic sectors and the governance sectors evolve.
It must be expected that everything to do with the oil and gas sector is going to be “hard ball” and the industry is going to work very hard to ensure that it maintains its interests.
Within Haiti different communities are going to have an interest not only in the outcome of international agreements regarding oil and gas, but also what sort of arrangements are made internally so that oil and gas benefits are fairly allocated to different groups.
From an international perspective, the energy arena is not getting easier, but a lot more difficult. The oil and gas industry is not just big “western” companies, but also companies from Russia and China. In addition, companies from other countries like Venezuela, Mexico and India are going to change the energy sector landscape even more. Whether this will make the sector more beneficial to people at the “bottom of the pyramid” is not at all clear ... but there are interesting possibilities.
There is an opportunity for wealthy oil and gas enterprises to embrace the moral high ground and start doing a lot more for communities in places where they operate. Though politics is often controlled by the gun, people power can have an enormous impact. Guns did not get the British out of India, but people power with Mohatma Ghandi in the vanguard. Martin Luther King did not catalyze progress in racial relation with the gun, but by mobilizing people peacefully.
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