Member Info for Madpunter

Posted by Chris572 on the 27th December :-

Had to go sleuthing to get this bb on track again and found this
It’s dated today and a pretty big Georgian article about FRR . Posted 10 hours ago

https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://batumelebi.netgazeti.ge/news/246134/&xid=17259,15700021,15700186,15700191,15700256,15700259,15700262,15700265,15700271,15700283&usg=ALkJrhjZXktVTBOvkCz3dyWlpI91oMYEEQ

Posted by Ivyspivey on the 27th December :-

Thanks Chris.The more detailhttps://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=2&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://batumelebi.netgazeti.ge/news/246134/&xid=17259&usg=ALkJrhiMrvdKFADIMho6-FcZUd7Xy5EaQw#

Not sure Also click in more details here for more info on 50/50 Frontera West Georgia Ltd which is split between FRR and GOGC.Seems to say GOGC we’re not consulted .Think whole article is cobbled together bits of info to be anti FRR but foodies seem reference to some current stuff in arbitration.in December

Posted by bugsy-b on the 26th December :-

Local production is 17.866 million cubic metres for the year... https://matsne.gov.ge/ka/document/view/4745806?publication=0

And the Georgians are buying Russian gas again next year.. 170 million cubic metres from Russia ..

https://tass.com/economy/1104079

Posted by Phil_2018 on the 26th December :-

So the company of the employees (so a subcontract company) and hence the employees hadn't been paid for 3 months in 2018 & 8 months in 2019. Sounds to me that FRR decided to play it ruthless when they came to rescheduling of payment terms with YA back in 2018, that they wouldn't risk not being not in a position to make final payment to YA in the summer of 2019. So they stiffed the Subcontract company and hence it's employees rather than have any risk of forfeiting block 12 to YA. So as I thought a few weeks ago it looks like I was right to summise that YA became their priority to pay off and the rest could be sorted out later.

It's not how I would go about treating people and I'm guessing Zaza etc felt it what was had to be done to win the game however how poorly it was to those who were the ones contributing to the company continuing.

It also sounds like this article is supporting what came up on here recently that FRR has gone in with the GG and set up a joint company, 50/50 as part of the arbitration deal perhaps.

I'm guessing that either FRR will hope the resolution of the arbitration will sort out the matter for them soon or they can get in another subcontract company even if they have to pay upfront to carry on the work. Either way it sounds like FRR has been hard pressed if thousands of tons of oil have been rolling out but they still had to stiff the employees.

Frontera Resources Oil and Gas Company was founded in 1996 in the United States. Its goal is to extract gas and oil in Eastern Europe.

Activities in Georgia started in 1997. The company conducts exploration and exploration activities on the 12th License Block in Eastern Georgia.

Frontera Resources was founded by Frontera Resources LLC on August 7, 1997 in Georgia. This is the company that operates in Dedoplistskaro.

50% of the company is owned by Frontera Resources, registered in the US and the other half by Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation.

Since 1997, Frontera Resources has repeatedly announced that it has found a large supply of gas in Georgia. For example, on October 8, 2015, the company reported that it had discovered 3.8 trillion cubic meters of gas in Kakheti. In February 2016, the statement by Frontera Resource was criticized by Georgian Energy Minister Kakhi Kaladze.

The state of Georgia, in particular the Oil and Gas Corporation and the Oil and Gas Agency, is suing the company in the Hague Arbitration Court. Frontera, in its lawsuit, alleges that it has suffered damages by the corporation and the agency for violating the terms of the agreement and is seeking $ 3.5 billion in compensation.

84 employees of Kakheti Oil Company are demanding 11 months' pay. They said the company was fired after refusing to continue working without pay. They expect help from the state.

The state, and in particular the Oil and Gas Corporation, owns a 50% stake in the company, Frontera [Frontera Western Georgia Ltd], but says it cannot interfere in its operations nor can it eliminate potential violations.


In parallel, Frontera and the State Hague Arbitration Court are in dispute. In this situation, what can be the solution for the workers?

what is happening?
One of the employees, 58-year-old Shota Moseshvili, tells Netgazeti that his employees have not been paid by their employer for 11 months; In particular, they are entitled to 3 months of 2018 and 8 months of 2019. According to Shota Moseshvili, the employees had salaries of about $ 250.

“All this time, until we got paid, we stopped working in the factory several times, but they were giving us all the conditions to pay. They were asking us to make sense, promising that the investor would come in at 70 million; They said, well, everything is going to be okay and that's why we got it ... After all, we came to the conclusion that we had to stop. Because the company was delivering oil and we were not paid, ”he says.


Moseshvili said that 84 people are from Dedoplistskaro, some directly from the city and some from the villages.

According to his story, after they were fired, the company's director, Zaza Mamulaishvili, fired: “If you did not go to work, the company suffered damage and we were fired on the basis of some article of the Labor Code ... We didn't get it. "

“If you have an 11 month paycheck, if you haven't been paid for 11 months, how long will you work? Did you go hungry? There are a thousand hardships, bank debt is a separate problem, here is the New Year. ”

Shota Moseshvili says the working conditions are bad and not so good: “We have been working in terrible conditions for years. In summer it is unbearable heat, in winter - cold weather. Dogs, wolves and whatnot, they are full of snakes. They have not been given any special clothes for 7 years. Nutrition is also abnormal. To tell you what the situation is, you will say how you work here… ”


The fired workers held a rally in front of Dedoplistskaro City Hall on December 25 demanding the state's help. Representatives of the state from the State Oil and Gas Corporation, their MP in the parliament, Irakli Shiolashvili and independent MP Beka Natsvlishvili attended the rally.

Shota Moseshvili told Netgazeti: “We can extract large quantities of oil in one month. Just to help the state pay our salaries, even step by step, can we? In the future we would extract this oil and sell it to the state ”…

What does the Oil and Gas Corporation say?
Netgazeti has contacted the Oil and Gas Corporation, which owns a 50% stake in Frontera. They were told that they did indeed have a 50% stake in the company, however,

Posted by Oopsi on the 26th December :-

New article - interesting
Looks like a New article appeared directly talking about frontera, the ongoing worker dispute and talk of a £70 m investment. not sure how much is lost is translation. I can’t post a translation but if anyone can, that would be https://netgazeti.ge/news/417177/

The following two posts were posted by zeps on the 26th December :-

Posted by bugsy-b on the 25th December :-

Georgia power plants
"Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation completed construction of Gardabani TPP 2
December 24, 2019"

"Gardabani thermal power plant-2 is already delivering electricity to Georgia's unified power system in trial run and complex testing.The new combined-cycle power plant will consume nearly twice as much gas and be more economical than the old natural gas power plants in Georgia"...
https://www.gogc.ge/ka/article/saqartvelos-navtobisa-da-gazis-korporaciam-gardabnis-tbosadguri-2-is-mshenebloba-daasrula/462..

And yet another gas powered plant being proposed...

". The Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) invites proposals to select contractor for
provision of consultancy services for the preparation of the Feasibility Study for fourth
Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCGT) Project with approximate capacity of 250 (225-
275)MW in the Gardabani area. December 24, 2019

"2. PROJECT RATIONALE
The Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) has been ordered by the Government
of Georgia (GoG) to initiate the process for the Preparation of the Feasibility Study for 4th
Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCGT) Project with approximate capacity of 250(225-275)
MW in the Gardabani (See Attachment 1 ) area.
Prior to contract signature, exact location of plant could be defined. GOGC is
responsible for providing the final location within the are shown on Attachment 1.
The need of the project is due to the increase of the power demand in Georgia and the
success of the Gardabani I and Gardabani II procurement.
Prior that, GOGC has started implementation process for construction of third
Combined Cycle Power Plant (272 MW). .. The Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) will be the counterpart to the Gas
Supply Agreement, while the Georgian Gas Transportation Company (GGTC) will be the
counterpart for Gas Pipeline tie in and integration into the Georgian Gas Network...
They're gonna need some hellish volumes of gas out there...

https://www.gogc.ge/uploads/tinymce/documents/RFP%20Documentation.pdf

Gardabani power stataion, 1,2,3,&4, Just down the road from us....

https://www.gogc.ge/uploads/tinymce/documents/Attachement%201.pdf

Part 2
But I do share your view that a deal[s] has already been struck but to move forward, they need a long PSA to fully realize Block12’s massive resource. Could be Europe’s onshore ‘game changer’.

On Hope-Texas hearing, again you could be right that they may want to privately present a proposal to the Judge revealing that either a farmout or financing has been concluded and therefore are seeking more time to pay Hope. But the acrimony between the two camps is very high. On Hope side, they have attempted to cheat him out of this CLN coupon, his collateral and the PSA. On FRR side, they will argue that he had alteria motives, he was obstructive in raising new debt, colluded with YA and interfered with the NOMAD. They can also rightly say that the guy acquired highly discounted debt for only US4.5M and is being immoral to shareholders and other creditors.

My own view is that they have some dirt on him which they are going to divulge finally. That might force him to the negotiating table. Only issue with my argument is why haven’t they tried to use this info against him sooner?

Anyway, January is going to be eventful in more than one ways, so not long to wait for the next installment.

Posted by Symore_Bottoms on ii on the 25th December :-

Always great to hear your thoughts ToT - wishing you & your family (and of course all Fronterians) a very merry xmas and a happy new year.

Also thank you for sharing that snippet on US-Georgia financial aid [its a positive sign albeit a relatively small sum but the gesture is of greater importance than amount].

More importantly, one of the corner-stones of the US 2020-Defence budget which the US Congress approved on 11th December includes significant cooperation with Georgia.

Agenda.ge 1

US Congress approves defense bill including collaboration with Georgia
The US Congress has approved its defense spending bill for 2020 to the amount of $738 billion, which includes significant cooperation with Georgia.

The political/co-operation environment between Georgia+EU+NATO+US is getting better and better making it easier/safer for the Super Majors to invest in Georgia. We saw last year Exxon, Schulumberber, Repsol and the Chinese take up interest there but there has been little ‘operational’ news from them lot this year. Perhaps the geology remains a challenge [or politics or the bureaucracy?]. But having Baker Hughes’ on-site with their cutting edge technology will [or has] cracked the deeper Eldari formations and the oil is flowing freely. Of course, what we don’t know is how much oil the three wells drilled from Jan-July 2018 are producing collectively. But according to Zaza in the recent Ukraine-article, he did say that FRR recorded a net profit of around US$1.2M for FYE2018 from producing 500,000 barrels.

So, dividing 500,000 barrels by 365-days = 1,369bpd.

We are now closing 2019 and if we use a daily oil production of say 1,300bpd x 365-days x US$60 [average oil price for 2019], revenues could be around US$28.5M. Plus there is a chance that daily oil production could have risen to around 1,500 bpd, giving FYE2019 revenues of around US$33M. Against this somewhat optimistic view, 2019 was also a tumultuous year on many fronts: transfer/farmout of the PSA agreement [did it happen or it didn’t happen?], employees not getting paid, rising legal bills and to cap it all, the arbitration battle. Did all of these factors hinder operations and therefore oil production? Probably. Or is the field being operated by certain vendors [like BH?] as there was substantial amounts owed to creditors [over US$20M in the FYE2018 accounts]?

Posted by Ivyspivey on the 25th December :-

Tot on ii
I think one way or another things are quietely heading towards a conclusion in the early part of next year SB, and Uncle Sam has just shown some more largesse to Georgia to help keep them sweet and away from the influence of Putin:https://agenda.ge/en/news/2019/3523 5.

The outcome of the arbitration is clearly criticial to getting a deal done on Block XII but there is plenty of scope for a sensible outcome there which benefits both parties in one way or another imo, and then there’s the behind closed doors hearing in the US courts. To my mind that is the opportunity for FRR to convince the court that a deal is ready to be concluded which will enable OMF to be paid off without the necessity of the Directors surrendering their shares to Stephen Hope. Everything leading up to that could just be part of delaying tactics to buy time to secure the desired outcomes imo, with the timing of the arbitration hearing being the critical factor.

Like Devex I had mentally written off my investment here, but I now think there’s a realistic prospect that with Hope agreeing to the behind closed doors session inthe US court, something ppsitive is about to emerge. Here’s wishing everyone who celebrates Christmas a happy few days with their families, and a healthy and prosperous new year to all.

Tot

Posted by keysersozr on the 24th December :-

For info Tatishvili presentation Oct 2018
https://www.iene.eu/en/congress/11/3rd-se-europe-hydrocarbons-upstream?p=66

Royal Olympic Hotel, Athens, October 30-31, 2 Royal Olympic Hotel, Athens, October 30-31, 2018

The arbitration request had already been made in the summer of 2018. So interesting that Tatishvili still mentions Frontera Eastern Georgia on his slde, not hiding this fact.

14:00-16:00 - Session II: The Black Sea- Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia and Turkey

Click on Georgia Tatishivili and should open up PDF

FRR showing as producing block and also mentions tax benefits one of the slides.

Tatishvili has been a critic of FRR, interesting to find out whether he stands by his statement

"Protects the legitimate interests of entities participating in oil and gas

operations"

Posted by theprodigy on the 24th December :-

The bear continues to be
a nuisance on the periphery
http://georgiatoday.ge/news/18802/The-Washington-Times-Weighs-on-Geographical-and-Political-Significance-of-Georgia

China
an interesting read
http://georgiatoday.ge/news/18786/Securing-the-Belt-%26-Road-Initiative%3A-China%E2%80%99s-Approach-to-Georgia

Posted by Dulwichman on the 23rd December :-

Thanks Ivy
Well My own area of interest largely on the geo-polit side of things. which is not of direct interest other than we have clearly played some part in our lobbing of Uncle Sam, however it really is of great importance to the super majors. It seems that with this latest announcement that Georgia itself has made its decision that it wants to face west and more importantly the West has acceptee that Georgia is is firm in its position. This will give confidence to the Super majors as to if they want to invest in not only the counties infra structure but in its assets as well ( On paper they could make money out of either or both) Key to this is not only their expertise in the oil and gas as a commodity etc but perhaps more importantly their capability in the area of project management ( many other large corporates could lean from them) Let us not forget that the infra structure is a major part of the whole project to allow it to come to fruition.

This latest announcement between Uncle Sam and the Georgian government suggest very strongly to me that whoever does it - the gas certainly and the oil maybe will be coming out of the ground into the Commercial market place. All that is left is will it be us who gains from it? If those super sleuths have got it right along with the correct interpretation turns out to be the legal outcome ( Thanks Ivy) then it really does look as though this CAN come good to all our benefit ( well leaving the shorters out I suppose )

A very merry Christmas to you all I all be on the egg nogg for a while but will look in

A very special thanks to all those who have gone the extra mile to both dig the information out and for being bold but careful in its interpretation. Many of us owe you our sanity.

Have a good one.

Posted by Oopsi on the 23rd December

Another dot - i like the end bit about internal meetings

Bob Dudley, BP group chief executive, and Bernard Looney, who will succeed him in the role early next year, are paying a working visit to Azerbaijan. Mr Dudley and Mr Looney arrived in Baku yesterday on the visit.

Bernard Looney, currently chief executive, Upstream, will succeed Dudley as BP’s group chief executive and join the BP Board on February 2020. After a 40-year career with BP including over nine years as group chief executive, Bob Dudley will step down as group chief executive and from the BP Board on 4 February 2020 and then retire on 31 March 2020.

As part of the visit programme Mr Looney was introduced to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan HE Ilham Aliyev. During that meeting Mr Dudley briefed President Aliyev on the current status and plans for BP-operated projects in this region. Mr Dudley also covered BP’s continued delivery as the operator of Azerbaijan’s major oil and gas production, transportation and exploration projects, and reiterated BP’s long-term commitment to enhancing and expanding its cooperation with Azerbaijan and the Caspian region.

The visit programme also includes a number of internal meetings with BP Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey regional leadership and staff.

https://www.bp.com/en_az/azerbaijan/home/news/press-releases/bp-s-current-and-incoming-chief-executives-visit-azerbaijan.html

Posted by Ivyspivey on the 23rd December :-

...and Iron Silk Road;

Stressed the importance of establishing Turkish-Georgian-Azerbaijani committee on multi-modal transport cooperation;

Posted by Ivyspivey on the 23rd December :-

....promotion of cooperation by implementing the joint projects

Expressed readiness to strengthen cooperation in the energy field and decided to encourage holding trilateral meetings of the ministers responsible for the energy sector;

Highlighted the importance of strengthening cooperation on the mutual experience sharing and the development of joint projects in the field of the electricity among relevant corporations of the three countries and emphasized importance of creation of trilateral electric-power market with the aim to improve cooperation in electricity sector;

Underlined the strategic partnership in the field of energy and reaffirmed their full support for TANAP, other important components of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), as well as for energy projects aimed at increasing volumes of natural gas transported from the Caspian region to Europe, while highlighting the role of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey in assuring successful completion and functioning of those projects. In this regard, welcomed the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) Inauguration Ceremony for European Connection held in Ipsala, Edirne on November 30, 2019;

Stressed the significant steps taken to strengthen the transit potential of the three countries situated on key international transit corridors, including the Trans Caspian East-West Middle Corridor, railway-based multimodal transportation corridor passing through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, as well as the efforts to integrate into the international transit system. Pointed out the importance of further enhancement of cooperation for implementation of new projects for development of hard and soft infrastructure, particularly digitalization of transport corridors to increase the transit potential;

Highlighting the key role of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) Railway and Marmaray project as a part of Iron Silk Road in facilitating competitive transportation between Asia and Europe In this regard, underlined the urgency to accelerate full completion of the BTK project for comprehensive operationalization, as well as to increase the volume of cargo and to start passengers transportation and to finalize the works for increasing the line capacity and eliminating the infrastructural and facility shortages in order to strengthen BTK Railway and Iron Silk Road;9361

Posted by Ivyspivey on the 23rd December :-

23No:410/19, Eighth Trilateral Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Republic of Turkey
TBILISI STATEMENT

Eighth Trilateral Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Republic of Turkey

Tbilisi, 23 December 2019

At the invitation of H.E. David Zalkaliani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia and with participation of H.E. Elmar M?mm?dyarov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan and H.E. Mevlüt Çavusoglu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, the Eighth Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the three countries was held in Tbilisi, Georgia, on December 23, 2019.

The Ministers,

Emphasized their commitment to the Trabzon Declaration, the Batumi Joint Communiqué, the Ganja, Kars, Tbilisi, Baku and Istanbul Statements adopted in the previous Trilateral Meetings of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, as an important platform for both political dialogue and implementation of specific trilateral projects;

Expressed their satisfaction with the growing bilateral and trilateral cooperation among their countries and reaffirmed their strong commitment for further enhancing their collaboration based on the strategic partnership, good neighborliness, mutual respect and trust;

Reconfirmed the mutual respect and strong support for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of internationally recognized borders of the three states;

In this regard, underscored that the existing conflicts in the region undermine peace, security, stability and economic development, thus status quo is neither sustainable nor acceptable, and require peaceful settlement without delay;

Reiterated the utmost importance of the lasting peaceful settlement of the conflict in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia and the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the basis of universally recognized principles and norms of international law, particularly, sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of states, as well as in accordance with relevant resolutions and decisions of the UN, the OSCE and the CoE; underscored the necessity of safe and dignified return of the refugees and internally displaced persons to their places of origin;

Reaffirmed the importance of trilateral cooperation in the defense sphere, emphasized by the MOU on Defense Cooperation of 2018 and underlined the necessity of further cooperation in defense industry, trilateral trainings, exercises and high level meetings. Therein, welcomed the Trilateral Meeting of Ministers of Defense in Gabala, on June 12, 2019;

Agreed to further strengthen economic-trade cooperation, to use the existing potential for promotion of investments and trade, as well as to support promotion of co

Posted by sonnyclimes on the 23rd December :-

Georgia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan Sign Agreement
The Foreign Ministers of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey have made collective statements at the Ceremonial Palace of Georgia earlier today.

Prior to the pronouncements, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey authorized a joint proclamation of the eighth trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers in Tbilisi.

As Georgian FM Zalkaliani said, the sides assessed the progress in trilateral cooperation and discussed contemporary regional and global developments.

During the gathering, special notice was waged towards the discussion on cooperative transport-energy projects.

Views were exchanged on the significance of the realization of the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP) project, as well as, the role of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey in the transportation of the energy resources.

The sides expressed gratitude about the prosperous projects of Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE).

Foreign ministers also conversed on the importance of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline which connects Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan to Europe through the South Caucasus Pipeline, TANAP and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline.

“Glad to host my friend and colleague Mevlut Cavusoglu in Tbilisi for trilateral meeting of [our nations]! Good discussion on how to strengthen strategic partnership, enhance political and economic cooperation between two countries.” David Zalkaliani wrote on Twitter.

By B.Alexishvili

23 December 2019 17:08

Posted by Arsenal221 on the 23rd December :-

SB ii link mentioned
https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/world/russia-gas-export-pipeline-in-jeopardy-as-trump-signs-sanctions-bill-1576925827

Posted by sonnyclimes on the 23rd December :-

Trump Signs Defense Budget for 2020, includes Georgia
The US President Donald Trump signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act which states that the defense budget for the year 2020 will be $38 billion.

The document mentions Georgia as being a "valuable friend to the US" which has shown its commitment to the improvement of US-Georgia relations especially with its participation in NATO-led peacekeeping missions.

“Russia's violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine and its ongoing destabilizing and aggressive behavior, have undermined peace, security and stability in Europe and beyond", states the Bill.

Similarly, the US Congress restates US support to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.

The Bill also underlines that Georgia and Ukraine are "allies and partners" of the US and NATO in Eastern Europe.

Creator of the bill Senator James Inhofe, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a statement saying the bill will "build a stronger, safer America and keep us ahead of our strategic competitors: China and Russia".

“President Trump has been a tireless champion of our Armed Forces, and I thank him for his leadership and for signing this important legislation quickly", he stated.

By B.Alexishvili

23 December 2019 13:05

Posted by Davethebrave54 on the 21st December :-

LTH re-evaluation time for me and maybe a few others after one year delisted. Keeping the faith is hopefully going to be rewarded. I am reminding myself of the reasons why I invested in the first place and why I remain optimistic. As a geologist, the main reason is my confidence with what is in the ground. Several oil wells in the highly prospective Georgian Kura basin that yielded unwanted gas to the unsophisticated soviets of the previous century were re-entered by Frontera operators with encouraging results. The previously unwanted gas is now at a premium and fracking yields oil for FRR that the Ruskies previously did not have the technology to exploit. Our limited success revealed enough potential to attract super majors, and in this dog eat dog world, a scramble to reap the benefits ensued. Legal challenges, dirty dealings, doubts over how to leave debt behind. All this frustrating activity continues to highlight that what we are sitting on is a veritable mud volcano. Underneath mud volcanoes, large gas and oil plays are common, from BP’s huge discovery under the Caspian across Azerbaijan into our block 12 of southeastern Georgia. Hold fast and look to Christmas future, Christmas carol fans. Reasons to be cheerful, for this geologist, anyway.