Terrible Places

It's been a while since I've done completely new analysis on an absolute hell-hole of a country at work.

Sure, there was a recent Cote d'Ivoire update -- but it was an update, rather than completely new analysis.

Anyway, a client called and wanted to know more about a few countries we don't actually cover (Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea). There's a reason we don't cover them, of course, and that would be because nobody in their friggin' right mind would do business there (aside from flagging ships out of Liberia, of course, which makes great sense). Except there might be hydrocarbons offshore, and political risk doesn't matter so much when oil jumps over $30/bbl.

Now, one of the great things about what we do is that people in our industry largely want the punchline and could care less about academic-style treatises (thank gawd!) -- so we can write bluntly and succintly, so long as we get it right for the most part.

However, I still will probably have to come up with something more elaborate on Liberia than simply, "It's F-ed politically. And companies that hope to exploit its hydrocarbons may well be also."

A good task for a Friday, I think.

[Posted at 22:07 CST on 01/16/03] [Link]