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Jamaica's oil prospects look good - Wright
published: Sunday | July 6, 2008 Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Reporter 
IN ANOTHER three weeks, Jamaica's prospects for reducing its heavy dependence on imported oil will be known, as geologists complete their studies of offshore explorations. Dr Raymond Wright, consultant and special projects manager at the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), estimates that Jamaica may be sitting on as much as 2.5 to three trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This amount of gas could supply the country for hundreds of years. "That's quite a bit of gas," Wright tells The Sunday Gleaner. "That's what we are hoping for and let us hope that hope is not audacious," he adds. The exploratory team made its assumption by judging the size of reservoir rocks out at sea that hold oil or gas. This was done by conducting seismic tests using geo-physical technology anchored by a ship down to the sea floor. The equipment maps the sea's strata from below. "Oil is usually found in dome-like structures and you can see these structures and know whether you should drill on them, but you don't actually know if there is any oil inside them," says Wright. The PCJ is awaiting the findings of a study that will tell it just how much gas or oil is likely to be offshore in the blocks being currently explored. If an economic quantum of natural gas is found, pipelines to bring it ashore could be in place by the earliest 2012. "It's part of the long-term future and one has to manage those expectations," says Wright. Natural gas is a more efficient form of energy than coal and it produces less toxic greenhouse gases. It is also cheaper. "That's why Trinidad enjoys a particular circumstance. Whereas we are paying US 27 cents per kilowatt hour, Trinidadians are paying four cents, and that is why industry has moved from Jamaica to Trinidad," Wright comments. However, these possible sources of energy have not yet been included in Jamaica's energy matrix because the discovery is yet to be made. real situation "It might be putting a dream into a real situation. So, you wait until you wake up with the facts," says a cautious Wright. "But what we have to do, importantly, is to begin to plan." This is to ensure that the economy benefits from optimal management of the resources. A total of 20 offshore blocks are currently being explored for oil and gas by three non-Jamaican companies on behalf of the Government. Two new blocks have been identified to the northeast and southeast of Morant Point, respectively, for exploration. Jamaica has a production-sharing arrangement with all three companies. The contractors put up funds for the exploration and if oil or gas is found, it splits it with Jamaica and recovers the cost for exploration. The profit is then split at a percentage ratio of 70:30 in favour of the contractor. However, in addition to its 30 per cent share, Government would also receive 12.5 per cent royalty, which narrows the ratio to about 58:42. One of the companies, Finder Exploration from Australia, is expected to start drilling a well by the fourth quarter of 2009.
Tags: Oil Natural Gas Crude Jamaica Eastern Coast Drilling Oilwells Domes
Written by Wendy Tanaka, Forbes.com. Yahoo! expects its advertising pact with Google to generate $250 to $450 million in operating cash flow in the first year of the deal, according to a letter from Chairman Roy Bostock and Chief Executive Jerry Yang sent to shareholders Tuesday. In the letter, Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) also confirmed Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) offer of $1 billion for its search business, which the portal turned it down in favor of a deal with Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ). Here are excerpts of the letter. Dear Fellow Stockholders: We are writing to update you on the latest developments here at Yahoo!, including our recently announced commercial agreement with Google and the outcome of our discussions with Microsoft regarding a potential transaction. On June 12, we announced a non-exclusive agreement with Google that we expect will generate approximately $250 to $450 million in incremental operating cash flow for Yahoo! in the first 12 months following implementation. This cash flow will enhance our profitability, as well as help support achievement of our key strategic objectives. Combined with continuing advances in our own search capability, the agreement is an important step in our efforts to capitalize on the high-growth online advertising opportunities where we are best positioned to compete successfully and create more value. Let us explain why we find this new agreement so exciting. The Yahoo!-Google Agreement Is Financially Attractive and Strikes the Right Strategic Balance. Under the agreement with Google, Yahoo! will continue to provide algorithmic and sponsored search results, but now will also have the ability to run sponsored search ads supplied by Google alongside Yahoo!'s search results. Advertisers will pay Google directly for each click on Google paid search results appearing on Yahoo!. Google will then pay us a fee (in industry jargon, traffic acquisition cost) based on revenue realized from click-throughs on ads supplied to Yahoo! by Google. This carefully structured agreement strikes the right strategic balance, enhancing our financial results while advancing our strategic objectives of being the "starting point" for the most users on the Internet and offering such compelling value that advertisers will see us as the "must-buy" in online advertising. One of our key strategies for achieving these objectives is to capitalize on the increasing convergence of search and display advertising, where we are especially well-positioned to compete and succeed. We have already accelerated our efforts to strengthen our presence in display through a variety of initiatives and acquisitions in recent months. Our new commercial agreement with Google enhances our ability to pursue this strategy. Another key strategy is to open our platform to other developers to optimize monetization for our advertisers and publishers and provide the best experience for our users. We see this agreement as a natural extension of the efforts we have already made toward an open marketplace. The Google agreement is non-exclusive and provides strategic and operational flexibility for Yahoo!. It allows Yahoo! to use Google's services in those areas where Google monetizes our inventory more effectively but also permits us to continue to use our own search technology in areas where we believe we are most competitive. The net result is that the agreement helps us accelerate one of our strategic aims--closing the monetization gap. At the same time, it allows Yahoo! to continue to compete aggressively in search and display advertising. Importantly, the agreement does not prevent Yahoo! from pursuing other alternatives that could increase stockholder value. Because the agreement can be terminated by either party upon a change in control, it would not preclude a transaction with Microsoft or any other potential acquirer in the future. The Yahoo!-Google Agreement Does More for Stockholder Value than Microsoft's Search-Only Hybrid Proposal. We also want to update you on the conclusion to our discussions with Microsoft regarding a potential transaction. As we explained in our last letter, our board and management held numerous meetings and conversations with Microsoft about its proposal to acquire Yahoo!, both before and after Microsoft withdrew that proposal on May 3. On June 8, our chairman, Roy Bostock, other independent board members and members of Yahoo!'s management team again met in person with Microsoft representatives. At that meeting, Microsoft stated unequivocally that it has no interest in acquiring all of Yahoo!, even at the price range Microsoft had previously suggested. Microsoft did propose an alternative transaction. Rather than acquire our whole company as it had been proposing for months, Microsoft now proposed to acquire only our search business for $1 billion and a share of future search advertising revenue. This proposal also included an $8 billion investment in Yahoo! but required Yahoo! to commit to a 10-year exclusive arrangement that would have made us dependent on Microsoft for all of our search business. It would also have given Microsoft veto rights on certain future Yahoo! actions, including a sale of Yahoo!. Our board of directors and management made a great effort--and conducted in-depth negotiations--to elicit a feasible proposal from Microsoft that made strategic and financial sense for Yahoo!, but without success. While Microsoft's search-only hybrid proposal may have been helpful to Microsoft, our board and management concluded it would have had a significant adverse impact on Yahoo! strategically, leaving the company without the operational control of search assets and technology we view as critical to our objective of becoming a leader in the converging search and display advertising business. The board and its advisers also carefully studied the financial impact of Microsoft's proposal and concluded that it would have provided no meaningful improvement to our operating cash flow. In short, this proposal would have generated substantially less value for Yahoo! stockholders than Microsoft [had] suggested. Based on all the key factors--strengthening our competitiveness, protecting our strategic position, generating attractive financial returns--the Google agreement is far better than Microsoft's search-only hybrid proposal. That's why we moved forward with it.
Forbes.com
Tags: Google Yahoo Agreement Geal Merger Search Strategic Microsoft No De
Written by Rick Reilly, ESPN!
LIFE OF REILLYWeighed down by too much cash? Don't worry, I'm here to help.  David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images
By Rick ReillyCongrats, newly minted NBA rookie! Now you've been drafted. Next comes the delicious multimillion-dollar contract. And that's when you must do what most NBA players do: start going through cash like Jack Black through the Keebler factory. Filing for bankruptcy is a long-standing tradition for NBA players, 60% of whom, according to the Toronto Star, are broke five years after they retire. The other 40% deliver the Toronto Star. It's not just NBA players who have the fiscal sense of the Taco Bell Chihuahua. All kinds of athletes wind up with nothing but lint in their pockets. And if everyone from Johnny Unitas to Sheryl Swoopes to Lawrence Taylor can do it, so can you! With my How to Go Bankrupt* DVD series, it's a layup to go belly-up! Ten essentials, just to get you started: - Screw up, deny it, then fight by using every lawyer and dime you have. Roger Clemens just sold his Bentley, reportedly to pay legal bills. Marion Jones lawyered herself broke before she finally copped and went to prison. Paging Mr. Bonds, Mr. Barry Bonds.
- Buy a house the size of Delaware. Evander Holyfield was in danger of losing his 54,000-square-foot pad outside Atlanta, and it's a shame. He had almost visited all 109 rooms!
FROM $300M UP TO $27M DOWN? EASY.
- Buy many, many cars. Baseball slugger Jack Clark had 18 cars and owed money on 17 when he went broke. And don't get just boring Porsches and Mercedes. Go for Maybachs. They sell for as much as $375,000—even though they look like Chrysler 300s—and nobody will ever know how to pronounce them, much less fix them.
- Buy a jet. They burn money like the Pentagon. Do you realize it costs $50,000 just to fix the windshield on one? Scottie Pippen borrowed $4.375 million to buy some wings and spent God knows how much more for insurance, pilots and fuel. Finally, his wallet cried uncle. The courts say he still owes $5 million, including interest. See you in coach, Scottie! (For that matter, why not a yacht? Latrell Sprewell kept his 70-foot Italian-made yacht tied up in storage until the bank repossessed it, in August 2007. He probably sat at home and cried about that—until the bank foreclosed on his house, this past May.)
- Spend stupid money on other really stupid stuff. In going from $300 million up to $27 million down, Mike Tyson once spent $9,180 in two months to care for his white tiger. That's why Iron Mike's picture is on our logo!
- Hire an agent who sniffs a lot and/or is constantly checking the scores on his BlackBerry. Those are the kinds of guys who will suck up your dough like a street-sweeper. Ex-Knick Mark Jackson once had a business manager he thought he could trust. Turned out the guy was forging Jackson's signature on checks—an estimated $2.6 million worth—to feed a gambling jones. "And it wasn't like I was a rookie—I was a veteran," Jackson says. The only reason he says he's getting some money back is because he didn't …
- Sign over power of attorney. What's it mean? Who cares? Just sign! The guy you're signing it over to knows. And while you play Xbox, he'll be buying large portions of Switzerland for himself. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar let an agent named Tom Collins have power of attorney once, and it cost Kareem $9 million before he figured it out.
- Spend like the checks will never stop. Also known as the Darren McCarty method. Despite earning $2.1 million a year, Red Wing McCarty, who started a rock band called Grinder, went splat by investing in everything but fur socks ($490,000 in unlikely-to-be-repaid loans) and gambling large ($185,000 in casino markers). In other words, a Tuesday for John Daly.
- Just ball. Don't write your own checks. Don't drive your own car. Don't raise your own kids. Just be a tall slab of skilled meat for others to feast on. Not to worry. It'll be over before you know it.
- Most of all, set up a huge support system around you. It'll be years before you'll realize they call it a support system because you're the only one supporting it. They're all on full-ride scholarships at the University of You. "Guys go broke because they surround themselves with people who help them go broke," says ex-NBA center Danny Schayes, who now runs No Limits Investing in Phoenix. "I know all-time NBA, top-50 guys who sold their trophies to recover."
See, kid? You can be a top-50 guy! So order my How to Go Bankrupt series now, and get this empty refrigerator box to sleep in, absolutely free!
*(Only $1,449 plus shipping, handling, service fee, dealer prep and undercoating. Per month.)
Love the column, hate the column, got a better idea? Go here.
Want more Life of Reilly? Then check out the archive.
Tags: Rick Reilly Millionairs Get Rich Quick Loose Fancy Cars Big House
This story is written
By Antony Bruno, Reuters.com
DENVER (Billboard) - Much like the Dvorak keyboard, new digital music formats pose a challenge even as they offer solutions.
The Dvorak is an alternative to the standard QWERTY keyboard that rearranges the keys so that typing on it is much quicker and more efficient. Yet few outside of hardcore computer programmers use it because replacing the existing QWERTY standard would be too costly and difficult. For much the same reasons, alternative digital music formats face an uphill battle replacing the tried-and-true MP3.
The Motion Pictures Experts Group, otherwise known as MPEG, will meet this month in Germany to consider making a new digital audio format called MT9 an international standard.
Developed by the South Korean company Audizen, the MT9 format -- commercially known as Music 2.0 -- splits an audio file into six channels, such as vocals, guitar, bass and so on. Users playing the track can then raise or lower the volume on the different channels like a producer on a mixing board, to the point of isolating a single item.
According to the Korea Times, its inventors say the new format will replace MP3 as the standard for all digital music. But certain music industry realities stand in the way of their goal.
From a technical perspective, replacing MP3 with a new digital music standard would be rather easy. Digital retailers in a matter of months could refresh their entire database with music containing the new format -- just as Napster and Wal-Mart quickly switched from digital rights management to non-DRM formats.
But to do so, these retailers would need their label partners to provide them with music encoded in the new format, meaning that all the major labels and the host of independents would need to one day agree to start using a new technology to sell their music.
Then they would need audio manufacturers -- in particular, Apple -- to start making products that support the format and its capabilities. The average life span of today's MP3 player is about eight to 12 months, so it would take time to re-seed the market with new devices. Continued...
Click the link below for the remaining story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1541640620080616?feedType=RSS&feedName= technologyNews
Tags: MT9 Music Formats Will Replace Mp3 Music Format Mpeg
The Reason Why Housing Prices Are Decreasing
The reason why the housing industry is having problems is very simple! Many people tend to think that it is only because of the subprime mortgage lending method that caused the real estate market to crumble. However, that is not the only reason. As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for this reason, the subprime mortgage lending method would still have been in full effect. One of the major reason why the Real Estate Market is in shambles is because of the vast economic improvements in both China and India. China has more people than any other country in the world and India is not too far behind. Not too long ago, the main means of transportation for normal working citizens in China was the bicycle. However, as a result of its rapid economic improvement, many people of those same people who used to ride their bicycles to work now drives their cars to work. China's many drivers are now using a lot more gasoline for their cars! This increase in gasoline usage, increases the demand for gasoline. When there is an increase in demand for an item, that item increases in price. In global terms, the world has now increased its demand for gasoline as a result of China's usage, thus increasing the prices at the pump. Now we will relate this increase at the pump to the mortgage crisis. With the increase in gasoline prices at the pump, it is costing home owners more money to heat their homes, which is cutting into the monthly mortgage payment. If an home owner has to pay $2000, to heat the home as opposed to $700, then it is going to be a little more difficult to pay the mortgage. This make sense, right? India, on the other hand, has steadily increased its economic strength by providing cheaper labor to American and European companies. Many times a person may think he or she is talking to a credit card bill collector when in fact, that person is talking to someone in India. Many web programmers are working out of India. A person who requests to have a website built doesn't always know or realize that the programmer is from India. It is much cheaper to outsource a web project to an Indian programmer. Therefore, the subprime mortgage method of lending isn't the only thing that is causing the Real Estate crisis. We can see here that the economic improvement of China and India is causing the Real Estate Crisis in the US, (Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News).
Tags: Subprime Mortgage Loans Lending Housing Crisis China Economy India Asia
According to Franklin Paul, (Reuters), the video game “Grand Theft Auto 4” surpassed any Hollywood blockbuster movie in sales for its first week with over $500 million. The very successful game is everything parents don’t want their kids to be exposed to—drinking and driving, violence, and hidden sex scenes. Pirates of the Caribbean was Hollywood’s largest blockbuster movie pulling in a sum of $406 million, which still doesn’t come close to monies earned by “The Grand Theft Auto 4” video game series in its first week. This is to show that interactivity is everything in entertainment. Once there is a platform for interactivity, there is a platform for making big money! The social networking websites like Facebook.com, Myspace.com, Hi5.com, and Friendster.com are no different when it comes to providing a platform for interactive entertainment albeit, social entertainment. Now we can see why these types of websites are so successful.
Tags: Grand Theft Auto Sales Surpassed Hollywood Movies Games Virtual Videogames
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