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Posted by keysersoze on the 31st May :-

Sep 2019 article on Dolphin
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UKR / RUS

Frontera co-owner Zaza Mamulashvili: we understand why the Ukrainian government has been critical of us

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2019, 08:10 - DMITRY RYASNOY

Zaza Mamulashvili, a graduate of Tbilisi State Medical University, told the EP about his path to American business, the Georgian prosecutor's
office's investigation into his company's management, lawsuits with the EBRD and a possible renaissance of hydrocarbon production in Ukraine.

Translated from the Spanish frontera, it means "border", but the owners of the American company of the same name - Georgian Zaza Mamulashvili and Greek Dino Nikandros - do not seem to have it. This is directly evidenced by the portfolio of assets of Frontera Resources, scattered around the world, but more - the company's image.

This structure has long been a partner of international government agreements, and its owners - the experience of participating in the most influential forums on the planet such as the Atlantic Council (Atlantic Council), where speakers are often US presidents.

It would seem that in this scenario, Frontera Resourses' interest in developing one of Ukraine's most promising oil and gas fields, the Black Sea Dolphin Square, is a great success for the country. Optimism is besieged only by statistics.

For 25 years of work in the international arena, Frontera has not been able to rise from the bottom of the niche of participants in venture risk projects. As a result, the annual production of hydrocarbons by this company does not exceed 100 thousand tons, and financial results balance between losses and symbolic profit.

In general, what is the investment climate in the country, such are the investors. However, Frontera Resources insists that the company is already able to raise tens of millions of dollars in the development of "Dolphin".

Apparently, the desire to emphasize the financial viability of the American company was the main motivation of Zaza Mamulashvili in his decision to meet with EP. During the conversation, he did not miss the opportunity to express support for Frontera by international financial institutions.
However, the secret of the company's longevity may be different: according to EP sources, the origins of its creation are retired American politicians led by Deputy Chief of the US Treasury Department under Bill Clinton Bill White.

Democrat White has no place in the administration of Republican Donald Trump, but his position is still strong in the center of the United States oil and gas industry, where Frontera is headquartered in Texas.

Posted by Looed on the 31st May :-

Dr Zaza, Bill Clinton, Bolivia, and some money laundering.
Can anyone recall this article from 10th Sept'19 - its not in the archive. It contains an extensive interview with Zaza. The article is titled "Co-owner of Frontera Zaza Mamulashvili: we understand why the Ukrainian government was critical of us". It is out of date now but its unlike any interview I have read by Zaza. He talks about his background in medicine, how FRR came about and the political heavy hitters involved, about deals that almost happened in Colombia and Bolivia, his involvement in another company that had allegations of money laundering (not by Zaza), and lots about Ukraine and Dolphin Shelf

And then there is this about operations and delisting / relisting -

"When we became a public company, Morgan Stanley brought us to the London Stock Exchange. This was then considered a very successful IPO. In addition to Morgan Stanley, we work with other banks, for example, with JP Morgan, Evercore, Jefferies.
- That is, these financial institutions are ready to give you money?
- Yes.
- Why did Frontera leave the London Stock Exchange in 2018?
“For one reason.” We were underestimated on the stock exchange, so we decided to leave. When the market evaluates us accordingly, then we will return if we want. If not, we will continue to work as a private company.
- Is it true that Frontera annually holds exchange agreements, that is, attracts external money on an annual basis?
- No, this does not depend on the calendar year, but on the availability of the project.
- They say that Frontera lives from project to project: it signs agreements with governments, its shares fly up, it attracts money, but in the end the project does not implement, and then the cycle repeats.
- Let those who talk about this call at least one example when we signed an agreement and our shares went up. This has never happened before."

And

"The amount of gas produced over the period of the existence of Frontera blocked at least half of the amount of money invested by it, that is, at least $ 700 million?
- More than 700. Azerbaijan and Bolivia were profitable projects. In Georgia, we are still in the red: we invested about $ 500 million, and we extracted $ 100-120 million. However, what we found there will cover the investment by orders of magnitude.
- What are the financial results of Frontera for 2018?
- Somewhere 1.2 million dollars in profit."

I think we have seen some bits of these quotes before but no the rest?

Have we seen this interview before? Its pages and pages long so didn't want to post if its already been shared.

Posted by ZiggyZag on the 30th May :-

hi Looed , why do you think a joint statement ( assuming thats what you mean )is no longer required?

Posted by Looed on the 30th May :-

Hi Ziggy - I posted a bit on it yesterday. I am going to adopt this maybe simplistic view with the caveat that there is still much to be figured out. I am basing this on my interpretation of the most recent statements by GOGC and Zaza.

Pt.1

I am going to go point by point to see if it flows in a plausible way

1- The termination of the PSA is complete. Zaza says the land was returned 3-4 week ago, and that roughly lines up with the date the termination was issued. In fact FRR returned the land almost as soon as the Termination was issued. The return of the disputed land was I presume already agreed by Arbitration - hence both sides being "happy" with the outcome which they have both stated. I am going to assume all the noise about "They can't terminate the agreement" was because the Award sits above the PSA so in essence, there is no PSA to terminate. The issuance of the termination might indicate that FRR where dragging their feet and this was a push - FRR do seem to have returned the land ASAP rather than wait to 27 July.

2 I said this yesterday and I today I still see it in the same way. The most important part of the GOGC statement was the final part -

"From the beginning of the proceeding, GOGC committed to honor and respect any award rendered by the Arbitral Tribunal, and to refrain from unilaterally exercising rights under the PSC pending the final arbitration award. Moreover, the original PSC had a 10-year exploration period that was extended twice to a total of 20 years, which expired in November 2017, thus triggering FRGC’s obligations to relinquish the exploration territories located outside the existing Exploitation/Development Area. The allegations as if SAOG and GOGC were eager to take control of these exploration territories are thus nonsensical."

My - hopeful - read of that is that the developed areas had never been part of the land under Arbitration. They stay with FRR.

3 We did have statements from GOGC stating the PSA had been terminated in relation to the whole contract area. Thats not mentioned in the most recent release. Its a big leap of faith but I think it means the 1% is still in play, not just because its not mentioned, but because the PSA is no longer fit for purpose and no longer reflects the reality on the ground (I wish I had more to back this up)

4 So why all the noise? Both sides have to accept the Award, FRR keep the land they want, there are some financial penalties to be settled presumably to a timetable set out in the Award. This is where my thinking gets a little shaky.

Posted by DomFok on the 29th May :-

“The act of sanctions is the result of Ivanishvili's interference in the economy - Sergi Kapanadze”

https://mtavari.tv/news/5994-sanktsiebis-akti-ivanishvilis-mkhridan

This is a direct result of Bidzina Ivanishvili's interference in the economy and the work of investors, - said Sergi Kapanadze, a member of European Georgia. Congressman Fletcher's support for a package of sanctions against Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian government.

The fact that the number of congressmen is increasing, who are worried that businesses in Georgia are being harassed, that there is no free court in Georgia, that foreign investors are being treated badly in Georgia, is very bad for the country. It is clear that this is a direct result of Ivanishvili's catastrophic economic policy, - said Sergi Kapanadze.
The United National Movement believes that Ivanishvili should decide what he prefers to give up peacefully if he receives sanctions from the United States.

Now Ivanishvili has a very clear choice - either to finish as other oligarchs do, be it in Moldova or Ukraine, or to make a peaceful handover of power in the elections. These two choices are up to Ivanishvili, and if he chooses the path of sanctions, he will still have to hand over power at a higher price, personally for him, - said Tina Bokuchava.
The ruling team does not take this issue seriously.

There is a bipartisan attitude towards the front in the Georgian political spectrum, Roman Gotsiridze agrees with the opinion that the front is a fraudulent organization, which aims to extort money from the government, - said Irakli Kobakhidze.
We would like to remind you that the package of sanctions against Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian government has the bipartisan support of the US Congress.

After the Republicans, Democrat Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat from Texas, joined the bill. Fletcher is the tenth congressman to join the Initiative for Georgia's Fair Sanctions Act in 2019, an initiative developed by McVeigh Malin.

The bill envisages the imposition of financial and travel sanctions against the oligarch Ivanishvili and his team, representatives of the Georgian Dream.

Posted by Looed on the 28th May :-

RE: 28th May article
A few more articles around but they are just repeating the GOGC line, none so far have the FRR viewpoint. One lists the GOGC line and lists things like "Georgia 7th Best for doing business". Ease of opening a business has no relevance to this situation.

There are additional comments in the Zaza interview that support what StarRage suggests regarding SH. Early in the interview he states "...was such a great success not only for the company, but also for the country, we thought our partner in Georgia was more positive....and we talked about it all on the London Stock Exchange" Combined with the later comments from Zaza that StarRage refers to he does seem to be saying he was extremely selective with the information he decided to share with shareholders.

The date the land was handed back aligns with the date the GOGC issued the termination letter. According to GOGC the land needed to be "as new" but if the land was undeveloped maybe there hasn't been much restorative work to do.

There are usually some subtle differences between the English and Georgian versions of GOGC statements. It could be on purpose and could equally be down to translation issues (hopefully the more likely reason). The english version gave us pause as it seemed to indicate the termination had been halted, or at least it wasn't specifically referenced - "Arbitral Tribunal ruled that FRGC committed material breach of the PSC, which is a ground for terminating the contract." The Georgian version reads in a different way - "In particular, the Arbitration Court found that the Frontera had substantially violated the contract (PTG), which in turn was the basis for terminating the contract." I have run this through a few translation sites can others try to see if you get a different result that aligns with the english version - this is the specific part which I hope can be copied

??????, ??????????? ??????????? ????????, ??? ????????? ????????? ???????? ????????? (????), ???, ????? ?????, ?????????? ????????? ??????????. ???????????????? ???????????, “????????” ??????????, ??????????? ??????????? ??? ??????? ????????? ????????? ?????????? ??????????? ??????????? ????? ?? ??????????, ??????????? ???????? ???????????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ??????, ????? 6 ??????? ??? ??????? ????????.

If the interpretation of the Georgian version is correct and the termination is still proceeding, why if the land has been returned? The termination is for the remaining 1%?

The "99%" is mentioned again at the end of the GOGC statement. In fact, - and I hope I am reading it in the right way - I take the last sentence to be the most important part of the whole statement - "The allegations as if SAOG and GOGC were eager to take control of these exploration territories are thus nonsensical."

Posted by keysersoze on the 28th May :-

What the state arbitration ruled was that we should pay the "Oil and Gas Corporation" about $ 200,000 in advance, which we have been doing for 23 years, and we do not care now that we pay them in advance, and secondly, the areas where oil and gas exploration and We do not carry out extraction work, return it to us for what we have already done, about 3-4 weeks ago.

In all of this, 42 million GEL has been paid to lawyers and experts, and the whole world has come to the conclusion that such an aggressive attitude can be towards investors. ”

On April 29, the State Oil and Gas Agency and the Georgian Oil and Gas Agency

Sits Corporation" issued a statement terminating the contract with "Frontera" and sending a message to this company. The head of "Frontera" states that the company continues to work. As for the prospect:

Neither the decision of the arbitration nor the agreement of the" Oil and Gas Agency "has any right to terminate the agreement. We certainly continue to work. It is incomprehensible to us - if they are going to expropriate us and force us to stop investing in them, I will not be able to tell Maga today. It would be very foolish behavior. It will greatly damage the image of the country. I hope they don’t do that. However, they have neither the legal nor the contractual right to terminate the contract unilaterally. ”

Why didn't Frontera address the court itself when it first encountered difficulties with the state-owned company? Zaza Mamulaishvili's answer:
Because it is very important for a businessman to have a good image of the country, the company, the shareholders, the funds to be interested in working and investing in that country. If the country has a bad image abroad, the shareholders
will no longer be interested in coming to Georgia. So we were very careful about that. "
As for Frontera's response to the claim of large sums of money from the state:

"We voluntarily withdrew the $ 3.5 billion lawsuit a year ago and then tried to reach an agreement with them. Now the company is not asking for any money. "

What could be the reason for the complications described by the guest of "Morning Talks"? Who might be interested in this?

What should be the reason, if not the desire, that American companies were not here at all?" We have no information about the interest of a particular company / s, but we do not rule out that Rosneft, Gazprom or China's CNP, or SOCAR, would be happy to start doing so after the half-billion-dollar investment we have made. Without showing development. "

Posted by keysersoze on the 28th May :-

It was then that the most important complications began, that after this successful test, when we decided to connect one of these gas fields to the main pipeline, the state did not give us permission to build the pipeline, even though it was legally and by contract. After long communication, we were not allowed to speak until the members of Congress intervened and communicated with the state, the ministry, and the prime minister. Only then will we be allowed to build the pipeline. That was in 2014. Before that, we had been trying to reach an agreement for a year.

In 2014, as it turned out, we built a 16-kilometer gas pipeline. After that, we were no longer allowed to carry our own gas in the gas pipeline we had built. We were not given this license until we were contacted by Washington until members of Congress addressed the Prime Minister. It was a long, bureaucratic, completely unjustified refusal. Whatever the technical or commercial reasoning, the answer was simply "no" and we could not miss this "no" until communication from Washington with the Prime Minister of Georgia took place, and only then did it start from scratch.

Finally, for the first time in the history of Georgia, many customers across the country were provided with natural gas extracted in Georgia through the distribution network. This has reaffirmed that Georgia has great potential for natural gas extraction, distribution and use. "

Statements made by both the Georgian State Corporation and Frontera about the decision of the Stockholm Arbitration Court last month, in which both sides expressed satisfaction with the arbitral award. Zaza Mamulaishvili states in the "Morning Talks" that no one has won in such a dispute and explains the result of the arbitration as follows:

The statement of the Oil and Gas Corporation was irresponsible for them to win the dispute. Unfortunately, we all lost: the Oil and Gas Corporation lost, the government lost, the company lost, and Georgia lost.
This is because there is no profit in such a dispute. Georgia has appeared completely differently around the world as a country that aggressively treats the 23-year-old largest American investor in the country, and by the way, we are not the only ones to this day. So there is no winning side here. All were affected. We all lost.

As for the content, the government demanded that we violate the conditions and we should be fined more than 320 million GEL. This was unfounded and of course the arbitral tribunal did not grant this request. The authorities also demanded that this agreement be revoked for us, which was also denied by the arbitral tribunal.

Posted by keysersoze on the 28th May :-

Therefore, we thought that it would not be appropriate to be overly informed about our activities, as our partner, the State Oil and Gas Corporation, could have covered our success more widely over the years. We thought that would be the case because the true partnership was just that.
For example, in 2004 we were the first company in the history of Georgia to capitalize on the stock market with one of the projects in Georgia, we did the listing for the first time and it was about $ 100 million back then. This amount was entirely spent on the Georgian investment project. With this, the international stock market of the world capital got acquainted with Georgia.
Then with this money we were very successful in drilling, seismic, research and very large inventories of oil and natural gas.
It was such a great success not only for the company, but also for the country, we thought our partner in Georgia was more positive.
We could do that too, and we talked about it all on the London Stock Exchange. As it turned out, it was not enough for the Georgian society to be better informed. "

Cooperation between Frontera and the Georgian government began with an agreement signed 23 years ago:
In 1997, we signed an agreement with the state to take the entire investment risk on ourselves to do the work, find and then extract oil and gas from these fields. The state has no capital investment obligation and most of the oil extracted, at half
More completely free of charge belongs to the state of Georgia. If all this fails, the whole risk of investing is ours.
Fortunately, our relationship developed very successfully. As a result of the $ 560 million investment, we have discovered 350 billion cubic meters of gas - this is in southeastern Georgia,
mainly in the Kakheti region, as well as one and a half billion barrels of oil, which has been confirmed not only by our staff and scientists. Most of these stocks belong to the state. Less than half of the extracted oil and gas is the share of Frontera.
Through this, the company must reimburse the invested investment and then see the profit.
The state has been profiting since the first day that Frontera started its work. We do $ 30-40 million a year.
Since 2013, our problems have reached completely new heights, it has become very difficult to actually work with the Oil and Gas Corporation, the Ministries of Economy and Energy. The work and investment environment in which we found ourselves was deteriorating every day and every year. ”
Asked by RFE / RL what the essence of the deteriorating relationship between Frontera and the state corporation was, Zaza Mamulaishvili said:

The main reason for this complication was that we were able to drill very successfully and then test the gas wells. As soon as we informed the Oil and Gas Corporation, the Ministry of Energy, we expected them to be happy, but this did not happen.

Posted by keysersoze on the 28th May :-

28th May Article
Unfortunately, we all lost: the Oil and Gas Corporation lost, the government lost, the company lost and Georgia lost."

ay 28, 2020

Nino Gelashvili

Zaza Mamulaishvili, co-founder and head of Frontera Rissors Corporation

Frontera is one of several companies sent by American politicians to Georgia or the United States in recent years, along with several other American companies, as an example of business harassment in Georgia. The same was true of the letter of May 15, 2020, whose authors, senators: Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and Congressmen: Jodi
Arrington and Marquine Malin, address US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Finance Minister Stephen Mnuchin. In particular, in the letter you will read:

Over the past year, foreign direct investment in Georgia has fallen by almost 50% as taxes and bureaucratic barriers for Western businesses have increased.

These problems of good governance directly undermine the ability of American companies to work and strengthen our relationship with Georgia. They have invested more than $ 500 million in oil and gas exploration. Recently, Frontera has become a target of restrictive regulations and bans, and now the Georgian government is in danger of expropriation. In 2019, another American company, Conti Group, was expelled from the Anaklia Port Construction Consortium, which suspended the project.

The authors of the letter ask for information on how much it is:

The current Georgian government, led by the Georgian Dream, is trying to drive out those US businesses that are investing in Georgia's economy and future; such actions are motivated by geopolitical considerations, including Bidzina
Ivanishvili's alleged links to the Russian government; For critically important American interests, including: the premeditated expulsion of American companies from the port project is linked to Russia's protection of the current processes in Georgia.

Head of Frontera - "There is no winner in such a dispute"
Frontera Research also operates in several countries through subsidiaries. In Georgia, it is represented by several subsidiaries. These include Frontera Riverside Georgia Corporation, Frontera Rissors ULC and Frontera International Georgia. It is a fact that today the public interest in the company was aroused by the letters of American politicians and the lawsuit filed by the Georgian government in the Stockholm arbitration. Zaza Mamulaishvili, co-founder, president and CEO of Frontera Rivers, told RFE / RL:
"I would like the name 'Frontera' to be more widely known for the excellent results we have achieved by investing $ 560 million, and we have created this tremendous value for the country. This is partly probably our fault because we have always thought that we are not producing advertising products because we are looking for and extracting oil and gas.

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