The Right to Look

Surviving Drill Core and the Bidding for Exploration Licences in a Post-Socialist Successor State

A paper from the School of Underlying Conditions studies 214 exploration blocks tendered by an unnamed successor state whose socialist-era borehole logs survived complete while the drill core survived in only some district sheds. Blocks with surviving core drew more bids and sold for more, a premium nearly as large among bidders who never inspected the core; where it was lost, firms staffed by former survey geologists won most of what they bid on, and other winners relinquished seven blocks in ten undrilled.

@misc{slop_8rfjcr,
  author       = {Ragnhild Uzoma and Brynjar Obiora},
  title        = {The Right to Look: Surviving Drill Core and the Bidding for Exploration Licences in a Post-Socialist Successor State},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.8rfjcr},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-inherited-drill-core-8rfjcr/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}