You are the vice president of operations for Production Tankers, Inc. (PTI), a U.S.-based oil services contractor that provides converted tankers to produce oil from offshore fields. PTI’s converted tanker Ocean Reliable (OR) has been producing oil for Congoil P&P, a small but politically important division of a large West African national oil company, for the past seven years at a field called Naabila.

Two years remain on the present contract. PTI hopes to renew the contract with Congoil for use of the vessel at another field when the present contract expires. You know in all honesty that other opportunities for the vessel are very limited. PTI’s CEO has made the contract renewal a high priority for you and your group. Congoil pays PTI a fee of $43,000 per day for lease and operation of the OR, a rate that has allowed PTI to fully recover its initial investment in the vessel. Oil production has been running at around 7,000 barrels per day, giving Congoil a revenue stream on the order of $140,000 per day at current prices.

Congoil owns Naabila field, is in charge of production operations, and bears all production costs. The large U.S. oil company Amproco serves as commercial and technical advisor to Congoil as part of the agreement granting it the rights to explore and produce other promising areas on the country’s continental shelf. Amproco receives no payment for its advisory role and does not pay any share of the costs of operating Naabila field. Amproco is believed to have some influence with Congoil, although the nature of the relationship between the two companies remains rather obscure to outsiders. Two years ago, as oil production at Naabila began to decline, Congoil asked PTI to install a small natural gas compression system aboard the OR, so that it could implement gas lift operations, a technique used to help sustain production from aging fields. The need for gas lift had been anticipated, and PTI’s contract with Congoil stipulated that, if a gas lift compression system were ever installed, Congoil would reimburse PTI within 45 days for all documented costs. These costs came to $2.5 million and, under the terms of the contract, were invoiced to Congoil.

Gas lift operations began 18 months ago aboard the OR, but despite repeated requests from your operations manager and PTI’s in-country business development manager, Congoil has not yet reimbursed PTI the $2.5 million.

The difficulty seems to arise from Congoil’s belief that some provisions of the contract are unfair and should be overlooked or set aside. Congoil’s general manager, Syanga M’bweni Rugeiro, has maintained that installation of the gas lift compressor represents a capital improvement to the OR, and thus PTI should bear the cost. He and other Congoil officials have also objected to the fact that Congoil is contractually bound to pay PTI the $43,000 day-rate even if the vessel is not producing oil. They recall with considerable resentment an incident almost four years ago when needed repairs in conjunction with an extension of the original three-year contract required PTI to remove the OR from Naabila and take it to port for a 57-day period—during which they continued to pay the day-rate.

As vice president of operations, you have profit and loss responsibility for the OR and PTI’s other production tankers. PTI’s executives have made it clear to you that collecting the $2.5 million, preferably with annual interest of 8 percent, will have a material impact on the company’s earnings for the current fiscal year, estimated by analysts to be in the range of $18.5 million on revenues of $390 million. Given the culture of PTI, you understand that securing payment from Congoil would be viewed very favorably and earn you additional status with your peers and superiors.

You decide to write to Syanga Rugeiro requesting immediate payment of the $2.5 million. You have known Syanga for over seven years, and while you did not negotiate the original contract for the OR, you did negotiate the followon contract at the end of the first three years, when PTI agreed to reduce the original day-rate in exchange for the security afforded by a six-year extension.

You feel that you know Syanga about as well as most Westerners get to know African officials, and you feel your relationship with him is sound. You know that he received his geology degree from the local university and later spent a year studying management at a British university. He speaks good English, and your business relations have been cordial. You have talked with him about his family and once even met his oldest son when Syanga brought him along on a business trip to Houston. He asked your assistance in getting the boy accepted into the engineering program at your undergraduate university, something you were happy to do.

Despite all these interactions with him, however, you have never felt that you understood Syanga very well. His Western education and business manner seem like a thin veneer over a much more substantial base of traditional African values and preferences. Your experience and some modest reading on the subject have indicated to you that the local West African culture is collectivist, high-context, high power distance, polychronic, and risk and uncertainty avoiding. Decision making requires consultation among all affected parties, but nothing happens until the highest-ranking official involved signals his approval. You realize you have drawn most of these assumptions from your reading, but you feel you have also seen some of it in Syanga’s actions. You feel you need to appeal directly to him to pay the $2.5 million owed to PTI.

You decide also to write to Amproco’s assistant country manager, Carl Mouton, asking for his help in getting Congoil to pay PTI the $2.5 million. You have met Carl on several occasions and have a number of common friends in the industry. Also, you have discussed the difficulties contractors can encounter doing business in West Africa. You believe that Carl might be able to influence Syanga to approve your request for payment.

The Assignment In your role as PTI’s vice president of operations, select the appropriate written media for this situation and for the cultures involved (consider text message, e-mail, or snail mail memo or letter) and write two correspondences responding to the situation described in the case:

1. To Syanga Rugeiro, requesting payment of the $2.5 million owed PTI and 2. To Carl Mouton, asking for his assistance in persuading Syanga to pay.

In addition, write a short (one page maximum) explanation of your communication strategy and how your knowledge of intercultural communication issues influenced the decisions you made in organizing the information, expressing your ideas, and developing an appropriate style and tone. In your explanation, comment also on the choice of written media as appropriate for your communication. If given the option, would you choose a medium other than written to communicate these messages? Explain your response.

Syanga Rugeiro’s address is 26-30 Avenida Presidente dos Santos, Dist.

Norte 4, Kinuanda, Congola.