Dear Colleagues,

The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) is pleased to update you on several events, recent publications and projects at the Center. Please check our website for more information about these and other activities.

The New Frontiers of Sovereign Investment
We are pleased to announce the publication of The New Frontiers of Sovereign Investment (Columbia University Press, May 2017), edited by CCSI Fellow Malan Rietveld and CCSI Head of Extractive Industries Perrine Toledano. This edited volume combines the insights and experience of academic economists and practitioners from several sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) to address the range of questions facing both established and newer SWFs: Should SWFs serve both economic development and financial returns—and, if so, how? Will responsible investment enhance long-term returns? How can fiscal rules for SWFs be improved to meet emerging economic challenges?  Featuring contributions from sovereign wealth practitioners from Alberta’s AIMCo, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, as well as analysis by scholars at the forefront of sovereign investment, this volume provides timely and much-needed information on these rapidly evolving institutions.

How Oil and Gas Companies Can Help Meet the Global Goals on Energy and Climate Change
The sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement lay out a global consensus on the need to curb human-induced climate change and to achieve sustainable development. These concepts are linked. The urgency of addressing climate change is critical for global efforts to reduce poverty and advance sustainable development, but also climate-change mitigation must be pursued in a manner consistent with ending poverty, promoting economic development, respecting human rights, and ensuring social inclusion. CCSI and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) published a consultative draft note in January 2017, summarizing the ways in which international oil and gas companies can help expand access to affordable and clean energy and take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. We have now incorporated the excellent feedback received and are pleased to share the revised briefing note. The briefing note outlines steps the oil and gas industry can take to prepare their businesses for the future, to strengthen efficiency and impact of current operations, and to leverage resources for broader partnerships and collaboration. 

Translating Gas and LNG into Money:  An Open Fiscal Model
With the new gas discoveries in East Africa and in the Levantine Basin comes the need for countries involved to better understand the gas value chain and how to structure complex and capital intensive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects for the benefit of the country. Having a fiscal model is key to enable this understanding. Thomas Mitro of the University of Houston and CCSI have built the first open fiscal LNG model that allows users to test different LNG commercial structures, compare domestic gas use options and assess the impact of various fiscal tools along the gas value chain. A manual has been developed to explain key concepts of the LNG value chain and how these can be tested in the model. CCSI released the first version last year. This updated version has several additional features that will allow users to test additional scenarios. Please reach out to nmaenn@law.columbia.edu if you would be interested in attending a webinar that goes through this second version of the model.

From Oil to Refinery: What is a Good Downstream Policy?
There is a growing sense among the ‘emerging’ natural resource-producing countries that the raw materials should be processed domestically rather than being exported in its unprocessed form. Downstream beneficiation is considered an opportunity to develop the domestic economy by adding value, creating jobs, enhancing skills and diversifying the economy. Large incentives are often offered to build ‘first degree’ downstream industries such as steel plants, aluminum smelters or oil refineries. Yet little has been written about the prerequisites for such policies to succeed and the extent to which downstream beneficiation achieves the intended economic and social goals. CCSI intends to fill this gap. CCSI uploaded several iron ore to steel case studies and is now releasing the first case study of the oil to refinery series: Nigeria.

Associated Petroleum Gas Use and Flaring: Case Study: Algeria
Associated Petroleum Gas (APG) is a form of natural gas that is found associated with petroleum fields. APG is often flared or vented for regulatory, economic or technical reasons. The flaring, however, is problematic from health and environmental perspectives. Moreover, flaring and venting APG wastes a valuable non-renewable resource that could be re-injected into the oil field or used for local and regional electricity generation. CCSI then developed A Policy Framework to Approach the Use of Associated Petroleum Gas. This framework aims at providing guidance for regulators, policymakers, and industry leaders seeking to develop practical approaches to unlock the economic value of APG. This framework relies on a series of case studies and the latest published is on Algeria.

ResourceContracts.org Now Has Contracts and Documents From 90 Countries
ResourceContracts.org, the online, searchable and user-friendly database of publicly available oil, gas and mining contracts from around the world that was developed by CCSI, together with the World Bank and Natural Resource Governance Institute, now features contracts and documents from 90 countries; it just retrieved the first disclosed oil contract from Guyana from the public domain. Users can search contracts by country, by natural resource or by type of contract; view summaries of key social, environmental, fiscal, and operational provisions; and download full contracts.

Rethinking Land: ALSF Identifies Innovative Approaches to Land Investment
CCSI’s Head of Land and Agriculture, Kaitlin Cordes, was quoted in an article published by the African Development Bank Group that summarized a round-table discussion organized by the African Legal Support Facility at the African Development Bank’s Annual Meetings. Discussing land investment deals, Cordes noted that, "governments have a strong incentive to get these investment contracts right.”