Until now, Morocco has had to import all its oil and gas, incurring an annual oil bill of $830 million. But the country recently discovered oil reserves, and it is planning to develop them - an issue that is being dispute with Algeria.
The U.S. company, Skidmore, and its subsidiary, Lone Star Energy, actually made the discovery after being attracted to searching in the area when the Moroccan government reduced its stake in findings from 50% to 25%. The corporations stand to gain further because there is a complete corporate tax exemption on their profits for 10 years from the commencement of the operation.
Other companies looking to benefit from the new reserves are the Canadian Company Cabre, Britain's Lasmo and Enterprise Oil, the U.S.' Conoco, and the Anglo-Royal Dutch Shell, the world's second largest oil company.
We can only hope that the comprehensive environmental strategy established by the Moroccan government, the local U.S. AID and PRIDE in 1994 will not be undermined because of corporate interests.
Meteorite Finding in Oman
The 4.5 billion year-old meteorite that hit the Tagis Lake in northwestern Oman earlier this year, like the one found in Canada, proves to be unlike anything previously examined.
Chemist Michael Lipschultz from Purdue University said it is a cross between two known types of carbonaceous chondrites, which are apparently remnants of the early solar system and contain organic compounds, the building blocks of life and interstellar dust.
Graduate John Friedrich and Michael Lipschultz identified 50 chemical elements in the meteorite.
The brownish-grey stone is the fifteenth to be identified as coming from Mars. Geochemists Lawrence Taylor from the University of Tennessee and Mikhail Nazarov from the Venadsky Institute in Moscow analyzed the stone and found chemical similarities to a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica in 1984.
Oman's diverse geological heritage attracts meteorite hunters
