Investments

Bank Of America Investment A planned 1,100-mile pipeline to carry oil from the Caspian Sea toward world markets won a $125 million loan commitment from a World Bank funding unit today. The International Finance Corp. approved the loan after the Azerbaijan government agreed to audited international reviews on how it spends $29 billion in future revenue from oil projects.

Environmental groups say that the pipeline poses multiple threats. The potential for havoc begins at the Caspian Sea where the sturgeon fish, are already under threat. The Caspian is one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world, and the World Bank estimates that each year a million cubic metres of untreated industrial wastewater is dumped in the sea. Much of this is from oil production, the critics say, and increased production would make it worse at a time when sturgeon numbers are reckoned to be collapsing due to pollution and overfishing.

Investment Opportunity The $3.6 billion pipeline, designed to deliver 1 million barrels of oil daily to the Mediterranean beginning in 2005, is a top priority for the Bush administration. It would provide an important new source of oil not under the control of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Alashankou portion of an oil pipeline to China that is planned to extend from the country's Caspian coast eastward to the Chinese border in future construction.

Banc Of America Investment While most of the project's cost will be borne by BP, its primary sponsor, the IFC funding is important, said Deutsche Bank analyst Adam Sieminski. "It shows a commitment on the part of the international community" to go forward, he said. World Bank officials also approved loans for oil development in the Caspian Sea today and will help syndicate private loans for the pipeline project.

By this time, the Middle Eastern members of OPEC would be looking to supply half of that need. the pipeline would be able to pump as much as 4.2 million barrels per year, easing the US's reliance on the unstable Gulf states for oil. The answer is the world's longest export pipeline, a 1, mile, metre corridor from the Caspian Sea port of Baku, in Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan, in Turkey, via some of the world' ridden nations.

Banking Investment The World Wildlife Fund had urged the World Bank to reject the project, calling it "a potential ecological and social disaster." International social development advocates have warned that the huge windfall of oil revenues flooding into impoverished Azerbaijan could be siphoned off by the country's rulers with little lasting benefit for its citizens.

These institutions', American Development Bank, World Bank, U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, U.S. Import Bank, $352 million in approved financing for 18 projects; thus, fossil fuel financing in the Americas outpaces clean energy by a ratio of 63 to 1. Most of this investment in fossil fuels has come from US taxpayers, who are unwitting underwriters of loans, guarantees and subsidies to Big Oil. Although the Americas have obtained over $22 billion in public support for fossil fuels since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, most of this oil and gas has been exported to the U.S.

Investment Solution Strategic Recurring misuse of oil revenues by developing country governments is receiving more international attention now, as consuming nations led by the United States turn to former Soviet states, West Africa and other trouble spots for new sources of oil and gas imports.

TierOne Corporation is the holding company for TierOne Bank (the Bank), oriented bank that operates from 58 banking offices located in Nebraska, southwest Iowa and northern Kansas and two loan production offices in Colorado. The Bank's principal business is gathering deposits from the general public in its primary market area and investing those deposits, together with funds generated from operations and borrowings, in loans and investment securities.

Investment Banking Services The IFC loan was conditioned on a series of new policies designed to prevent abuses, said Rashad Kaldany, director of the World Bank's oil resources department.

Bank Investment Revenues will be deposited in a state oil fund whose accounts will be audited annually and publicly disclosed, he said.

Alternative Investment Although spending decisions will go before parliament, the fund will remain under the control of Azerbaijan's president Geidar Aliev and his son, Ilham, who was declared the winner in last month's election to succeed his ailing father.

Online Investment Services "When the current leadership wants to do something with the oil money, they will," said Svetlana Tsalik, director of Caspian Revene Watch in New York. Her organization -- funded by investor George Soros's Open Society Institute -- is campaigning for more accountability and international oversight for oil projects in developing countries.

Accompany Essential Investment "There are always risks," Kaldany said in an interview. "The president still retains overall control . . . but there are now additional institutional arrangements that provide some checks and balances."

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