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TechnoratiDeals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back
BAGHDAD - Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.
Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP - the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company - along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.
The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.
The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.
There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq's Oil Ministry.
Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.
For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world's dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.
While enriched by $140 per barrel oil, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world's oil patch becomes off limits. Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.
The Iraqi government's stated goal in inviting back the major companies is to increase oil production by half a million barrels per day by attracting modern technology and expertise to oil fields now desperately short of both. The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenues it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency.
For the American government, increasing output in Iraq, as elsewhere, serves the foreign policy goal of increasing oil production globally to alleviate the exceptionally tight supply that is a cause of soaring prices.
The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.
It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.
A Shell spokeswoman hinted at the kind of work the companies might be engaged in. "We can confirm that we have submitted a conceptual proposal to the Iraqi authorities to minimize current and future gas flaring in the south through gas gathering and utilization," said the spokeswoman, Marnie Funk. "The contents of the proposal are confidential."
While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies.
"The bigger prize everybody is waiting for is development of the giant new fields," Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in a telephone interview from the firm's Paris office. The current contracts, she said, are a "foothold" in Iraq for companies striving for these longer-term deals.
Any Western oil official who comes to Iraq would require heavy security, exposing the companies to all the same logistical nightmares that have hampered previous attempts, often undertaken at huge cost, to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure.
And work in the deserts and swamps that contain much of Iraq's oil reserves would be virtually impossible unless carried out solely by Iraqi subcontractors, who would likely be threatened by insurgents for cooperating with Western companies.
Yet at today's oil prices, there is no shortage of companies coveting a contract in Iraq. It is not only one of the few countries where oil reserves are up for grabs, but also one of the few that is viewed within the industry as having considerable potential to rapidly increase production.
David Fyfe, a Middle East analyst at the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based group that monitors oil production for the developed countries, said he believed that Iraq's output could increase to about 3 million barrels a day from its current 2.5 million, though it would probably take longer than the six months the Oil Ministry estimated.
Mr. Fyfe's organization estimated that repair work on existing fields could bring Iraq's output up to roughly four million barrels per day within several years. After new fields are tapped, Iraq is expected to reach a plateau of about six million barrels per day, Mr. Fyfe said, which could suppress current world oil prices.
The contracts, the two oil company officials said, are a continuation of work the companies had been conducting here to assist the Oil Ministry under two-year-old memorandums of understanding. The companies provided free advice and training to the Iraqis. This relationship with the ministry, said company officials and an American diplomat, was a reason the contracts were not opened to competitive bidding.
A total of 46 companies, including the leading oil companies of China, India and Russia, had memorandums of understanding with the Oil Ministry, yet were not awarded contracts.
The no-bid deals are structured as service contracts. The companies will be paid for their work, rather than offered a license to the oil deposits. As such, they do not require the passage of an oil law setting out terms for competitive bidding. The legislation has been stalled by disputes among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties over revenue sharing and other conditions.
The first oil contracts for the majors in Iraq are exceptional for the oil industry.
They include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today's prices: the ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash.
"These are not actually service contracts," Ms. Benali said. "They were designed to circumvent the legislative stalemate" and bring Western companies with experience managing large projects into Iraq before the passage of the oil law.
A clause in the draft contracts would allow the companies to match bids from competing companies to retain the work once it is opened to bidding, according to the Iraq country manager for a major oil company who did not consent to be cited publicly discussing the terms.
Assem Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman, said the ministry chose companies it was comfortable working with under the charitable memorandum of understanding agreements, and for their technical prowess. "Because of that, they got the priority," he said.
In all cases but one, the same company that had provided free advice to the ministry for work on a specific field was offered the technical support contract for that field, one of the companies' officials said.
The exception is the West Qurna field in southern Iraq, outside Basra. There, the Russian company Lukoil, which claims a Hussein-era contract for the field, had been providing free training to Iraqi engineers, but a consortium of Chevron and Total, a French company, was offered the contract. A spokesman for Lukoil declined to comment.
Charles Ries, the chief economic official in the American Embassy in Baghdad, described the no-bid contracts as a bridging mechanism to bring modern technology into the fields before the oil law was passed, and as an extension of the earlier work without charge.
To be sure, these are not the first foreign oil contracts in Iraq, and all have proved contentious.
The Kurdistan regional government, which in many respects functions as an independent entity in northern Iraq, has concluded a number of deals. Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, for example, signed a production-sharing agreement with the regional government last fall, though its legality is questioned by the central Iraqi government. The technical support agreements, however, are the first commercial work by the major oil companies in Iraq.
The impact, experts say, could be remarkable increases in Iraqi oil output.
While the current contracts are unrelated to the companies' previous work in Iraq, in a twist of corporate history for some of the world's largest companies, all four oil majors that had lost their concessions in Iraq are now back.
But a spokesman for Exxon said the company's approach to Iraq was no different from its work elsewhere.
"Consistent with our longstanding, global business strategy, ExxonMobil would pursue business opportunities as they arise in Iraq, just as we would in other countries in which we are permitted to operate," the spokesman, Len D'Eramo, said in an e-mailed statement.
But the company is clearly aware of the history. In an interview with Newsweek last fall, the former chief executive of Exxon, Lee Raymond, praised Iraq's potential as an oil-producing country and added that Exxon was in a position to know. "There is an enormous amount of oil in Iraq," Mr. Raymond said. "We were part of the consortium, the four companies that were there when Saddam Hussein threw us out, and we basically had the whole country."
James Glanz and Jad Mouawad contributed reporting from New York.
© 2008 The New York Times
74 Comments so far
Show AllWell Boys, now you really know what you have been fighting and dying for. Mission Accomplished!
Most of the world's oil is extracted, refined and distributed by governments, thus proving the "oil industry" or "oil majors" are not necessary. When will America wake up and nationalize its oil industry, and prohibit trade with the "oil majors"? You can expropriate the oil outright or seize the unearned takings by excise taxes.
The role of capitalists is at the creation phase of an industry, up to the point its equipment replacement and R&D are self sustaining. After that point, they're harmful. They engage only in rent seeking and power seeking, and become a threat to America. Witness the Iraq war as only one example.
The mother of oil wars.
Nobody has to drive the American Army out. A steady supply of IEDs delivered from decentralized sources can make pumping and delivery of crude impossible for a very long time while they are holed up in Fortress Baghdad. And all sorts of splinter groups with wildly different agendas in the whole of the middle east can at least agree on that one project, even if only to protect their own markets.
It's another shell game, the American government is promising big oil goods it is a long way from being able to deliver. Shell wants out of Nigeria because social unrest is making it impossible to get oil out so why would they want more of the same in Iraq? Paying for the private army to guard oil workers, pumping stations, batteries and and pipelines really drives up the cost of the product.
Perhaps the American government figures it's a way to get the albatross from around it's own neck.
Straight back to the so-called "Paris Peace Conference" of 1918/19 when the Brits insisted on having Mosul for its oil and deceived the French in the process! How many of our youngsters know today that this conference created all preconditions for World War 2 and the subsequent colonial wars in Asia and Africa? Iraq is now being made ripe for a nationalist Arabic(and not Islamic)uprising. This time Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites may cooperate to drive us out.
We have known this fact since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. Sadam threatened to accept only Euros, not dollars and Bush and Cheney were pissed. So followed various reasons for our invasion and illegal war. Sometimes the truth is out there from the beginning but is followed with many deceptions only to come back in our face. But will the public reckon with the true facts. Life goes on and justice lies in wait for a better day.
Well golly gee, we sure are lucky aren't we. No weapons of mass destruction were found so that part of the war was a disaster. But now at least our oil companies can get to Iraq's oil. What a lucky break!
God IS on our side.
SavetheBOR writes: Why didn't they just hire Blackwater and let the paid killers risk their lives to get access to the oil; rather than deceive young patriots into giving their lives…?
And what about the millions displaced and killed in Iraq? The didn't deserve to pay for american greed.
Big Oil companies are greedy pigs
Good luck Mike Gravel,
I hope you can get a new 9/11 commision put together this November.
Now more than ever , we need to find out why the trade towers and 3000 people were murdered.
Those buildings fell at the speed of gravity, watch any building deomlition video and compare.It wont take much to see that those buildings did not fall down on their own.
4000 GI deaths and 75000 injured , 700000 Iraqis dead, 2,000000 Iraqsi refugees.
1 trillion dollars in debt. A watered down constitution,
Warrantless spying by thousands of Americans on thousands of Americans ,,Mind Control,fear, and a corrupt major media network.
OIL,OIL,OIL,OIL,OIL,OIL,
This reeks of an inside job.
Osama Bin Ladin= USA-CIA inside job, Hang all the traitors.
Who the hell runs this country---OIL!
Obama was a surprise to the fascist eleite who thought that Mcain would be the next president. Because we now know that Obama will win in a landslide this group of murdering corporate greedy bastards have had to speed up the closing process.
Military base deals, oil contract deals , to ensure no pull out.
Give the Neocon Mafia their due, they F--ked us all, and are laughing all the way to the bank.
Thank you Democrats, you kept a vidual watch and made sure to line your pockets in the process.
Scumbags and traitors ,,, all of them.
First of all Saddam Hussein didn't nationalise Iraq's oil industry, his uncle, who was the leader of Iraq until 1979, did.
Secondly, America's greatest ally-Saudi Arabia-nationalised their oil in the 70's as well, where is the hue and cry over this?
It was necessary for oil rich nations to nationalise their oil holdings during these times as they would have been impoverished by the multi-national oil companies and those governments who backed them up.
The irony today is oil producing nations could use a helping hand from the big market players, especially technological help. Of all the nationals only Saudi Aramco is capable of technological ability as good as or even exceeding that of the "private"sector.
With modernization, Iraq's oil fields, current and hopefully future, have a real chance of increasing daily production. This of course assumes the violence and chaos disappears.
Then again, oil had nothing to do with the invasion and occupation of Iraq.....right?
Now that big oil has what they want in Iraq, bring the troops home. The real mission of the Iraq war has been accomplished. The war for oil is over. If big oil needs security in Iraq, let them hire it. They can afford their own security. Don't use our taxpayer supported military to protect big oil's enormous profits and overpaid CEO's. Now Bush can truthfully say "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED".
And fuck the New York Times for never speaking the truth, not before the war, and not now.
They could and should have spoken the truth when they knew it and prevented this travesty. Except they are big business first and foremost, just like the president, just like Obama, (just like Hillary).
so it goes
I repeat, this war is not about oil.
I repeat, this war is not about oil.
I repeat, this war is not about oil.
Except for the fact that this war is about oil.
"There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract"
The NY Times can pretend something else but everyone knows today that the top two criminals in the White House mostly wear their intents on their sleeves so "suspicions" over those intents are simply meaningless. It's not clear which stragglers are going to follow the NY Times over the cliff of delusions but it is crystal clear to progressives that several different intents by several different groups combined in some way to cause federal "public servants" to immorally/illegally bludgeon the US Constitution, the laws of the land, and millions of Iraqis with this latests gargantuan imperial failure.
The exact combination of intents is irrelevant. We need no proof that certain criminals are focused on the oil for the wrong reasons, and plenty of other criminals are focused on the war for the wrong reasons, etc. We know human nature and we know how to organize society to suppress the dark side. We don't need the New York Times so please let it fail.
Bet Henry Ford never thought he'd be responsible for the demise of our world when he brought out the T-Model. Oil, and the industries that it spawns, is destroying our world. All wells should be sealed off, not further developed.
'Driving to Hell' is the title of my latest post. This excellent article gives it further weight.
www.dangerouscreation.com
Five western oil monsters in talks with the Iraqis for "no bid" contracts? Does anyone else see the lunacy in this statement by the NY Times? Don't we expect the five to actually COMPETE? Of course not in this merciless "new world order" but even if we had competition it's still a crime on top of crime for those oil companies to exploit the "opportunity" pried open by Darth Viper and the Cowboy Chimp. They make the railroad robber barons look like amateurs. We progressives are sure glad we to never give them one penny or one vote, ehh? But hey that's not enough is it? We should be marching down the streets tearing out gasoline pumps in solidarity with our Iraqi brothers and sisters, ehh?
I'll enlighten you ~ROCKIN BOB~.
Obama says he will not do as he promised he would do last year and repeated that promise several times since during his primary run.
That is: ___ Obama just announced that he will not use Federal funding, which is limited to a specific amount, for his campaign expenses. He will spend all he wants to spend and McCain will be limited, for he is going to use the federal funding as he promised he would do.
BTW BOB, Kitty may be a bitch, I don't know about that, ___ but I'm not. I doubt that she is either. I do suspect however, that you're a big mouthed asshole. ___ You write like you are.
Obama says he fears the Republicans will run damaging TV ads agaisnt him, and therefore he has to spend more money to help distort his lies.
Besides, Obama says most of his campaign funds are comiong from small donations. Haa Haaaaa haaa. Hee hee heee, whoop. Funny guy there Obama is. ___ A riot.
Well at least when he's our president Obama won't keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years. ___ Maybe only 30.
I read that post too Rich, and I'm hoping it is from someone who has just awakened, and does not yet understand the "big picture", but that is probably just wishful thinking on my part.
If anyone needs a bit more evidence before finally giving up, & concluding that American citizens are just too dumb to run their own country, look no further than the post of Mr. 'Botcha' (5:12 pm) above.
As near as I can make out, this f*ckwit thinks the Iraqis should "pay back" American taxpayers in oil, after all the good $$$$ the generous US taxpayers invested in the cause of shattering Iraqi society, murdering a million of their people, while creating 4 million refugees & a living hell on earth. You see, "we" the taxpayers have been cheated -- so it's up to the Iraqis to make good on our losses. [*** slaps forehead in despair ***]
Grimly amusing, too, the touch at the end of the post, warning us how dangerous it would be if the dreaded "terrorists" got all that money instead!!
"The companies provided free advice and training to the Iraqis." Oh bless their sweet souls! Such caring brings tears to my sarcastic eyes.
OIL OIL OIL Huge profits!~ that's why we're there. When it comes to making money for a few at the expense of many, the Democratic-Republican Party is united in support.
I just heard that criminal coddling Pelosi say she didn't like the war funding bill the Democrats just helped pass in the House.
She said it was important to pass a bill Bush would sign. She said it gives the troops what they need and doesn't tie the hands of commanders in the field.
Why the f*#& not! Since when do commanders in the field set the policy and not the Congress? Why is so important to have Bush sign a bill that keeps our troops fighting and dying to prop up a colonial-style puppet governments and keeps the profits flowing to Big Oil, Big Profits Inc. and the Military Industrial Complex?
Why the f*#& is it so important to keep the war going? Does she think the Democrats are doing this to keep the troops happy? Are we doing this for the over-whelming majority of Iraqis that want us to get the hell out of their country? Are we doing it for the American public who want to end the occupations?
Are the Democrats nucking futs? Can't the Democratic supporters see their party has basically joined forces with the demonic Republicans to screw everybody but the rich and powerful. Dump the God-damned Democrats!
HELLO_KITTY; NO I HAVEN'T HEARD THE LATEST ACT OF HYPOCRISY THAT CAME OUT OF OUR NEXT PRESIDENT'S CAMP. WHY DON'T YOU ENLIGHTEN US, BITCH!
"Not clear what role the US had in negotiating the contracts?"
Please help me up.
How about we bombed the country to rubble, killed 1 in 35 people, and took over: that would be the US's humble bit part in this slasher flick.
We should put Exxon logos on every GI's coffin.
My heart to Cindy Sheehan. My son, the fool, tried to join but was turned down-dyslexic.
And this is the way the Free Market system works, supply and demand. They have the oil supply, and we demand that they turn it over to us, and the military is the foreign policy tool that gets it done. And we will stay there for years at taxpayer expense to make sure it gets done.
Not that I am in this for the purpose of sparring or having a verbal duel with fellow C. D. readers, but I just took note of the first comment posted relative to this article, it was by baruch @9:31am
I have determined, based upon when I have posted comments in the past, that times indicated are Eastern
That would mean that baruch's posting would actually convert to 8;31 am Central time whereas the Common Dreams Views did not appear in my inbox until 2;59pm
I feel that this puts me to a serious disadvantage but not unlike current gas and food prices, and decisions being made (or more often, not made) in our Houses of Congress, something I'll just have to live with.
I read the above article in the NY Times this morning and another version of it came as a part of my Yahoo News. I believe their source might be either Associated Press of Reuters but I'll have to check back to be sure.
Although the wording in the text is somewhat different, basically the facts contained are essentially the same, with one possible exception. The Yahoo article I read mentioned that Iraq approved these no-bid contracts with western oil companies in March. Why are we not hearing about it until mid-June?
This does not appear to give immediate relief but rather more in the long range category. I read elsewhere that China is raising their fuel prices shortly and their demand should decrease and lower oil prices to a slight degree.
Don't get too excited with this breaking news though. If some Arab forgets to change his underwear tomorrow, you can bet it will be an excuse for crude to rise again.
I live in North Dakota where they recently have found that there are billions of barrels of oil more than there was originally thought to be. So what is this supposed to mean? Is this going to affect the price of gas and heating oil in North Dakota? No!! Why do they even put it in big headlines in the paper out here? I sure hope it doesn't start to make anyone feel that it's still OK to buy big gas-hogging vehicles. I, myself, drive an old '91 Geo-Metro to work and back every day. And, I am hoping and praying that the Automobile industry will continue to focus on building smaller and more gas-efficient cars for the future. People should never again be fooled by the big oil industries into thinking that oil and gas will ever be anywhere close to affordable again. Get rid of the big SUV's and Cadillac trucks. Don't let big oil make a slave out of you. Insist that the auto manufacturers get as far away as possible from making the big gas-guzzlers that will keep us in slavery to big oil. We are the consumers. Let the auto manufactures know that we are going to insist they build the most gas efficient cars possible for the future.
And the rise in gas prices has prepared the public to not complain because they will get their meth, er, I mean gas at a lower price....lower price, hmmm, that is why Bush asked the media NOT to show pictures of caskets of dead Americans who were sacrificed for this oil victory; don't want people to realize the true price that was paid. Trillions in cost, thousands killed, and thousands upon thousands with physical and mental disabilities that will be there a lifetime.
Why didn't they just hire Blackwater and let the paid killers risk their lives to get access to the oil; rather than deceive young patriots into giving their lives...?
Botcha,
The Iraqis didn't ask us to invade, and they definitely never made a deal like, "hey, if you get rid of Saddam, we'll pay you back in oil". It's their oil, they don't owe us anything.
But it's all moot anyway. The US is the biggest consumer by far, both absolutely and per capita, of oil on the planet, of course we're doing everything we can to secure as many sources of it as we can while there's still time. Anybody who honestly thinks we're just going to clear out of Iraq and let the Iraqis decide for themselves what to do with their oil... well, I've got a bridge you might be interested in.
The US taxpayers, not specific companies, must get repaid the huge and growing economic losses from Bush's idiotic militarism. The Afghanistan occupation should stop immediately. But Iraq oil gives us a unique way to recover from the economic damage of the Hawk hijacking we the USA citizens have suffered. There was no similar way to recover from the Vietnam and Korean Wars and losses that continue growing rapidly every day and are roughly about the same now in current dollars as these Bush Crusades. Nearly as important is keeping all that income out of the hands of the terrorists there.
Shrub..There will come a time when YOU have no place to hide and no place to run. When that happens, I would not wish to be in your place for all the oil in Iraq and all the CONgresspeople's money in Swiss bank accounts!
Once upon a time Iran nationalized it's own oil and Big Oil sent Kermit Roosevelt of the 'CIA" to overthrow that democracy and exicute their president. Now history has repeated itself in Iraq. If,just by chance, the Bush/Cheney perminate Iraqi military bases that the American taxpayer are paying for happen to align with the Big Oil interests in Iraq then we will understand the real mass murderers in Iraq are. Not only Bush/Cheney and our Congress but also the top corporate executives of these Big Oily Giants. Will their ends come at Nuremberg or Spandau?
Everybody who still thinks ours is a government of, by, and for the People, raise your hand.
And I thought AIPAC owned the US Government. The Israelis are pikers compared to Big Oil. Maybe the plague of American amnesia has finally got me; as a former environmental lawyer, I should have remembered that the greatest toxic waste law (CERCLA) in US history was introduced into Congress specifically to deal with the oil industry's horrendous toxic waste discharges into our environment -- only to emerge from Congress with the oil industry (along with the atomic energy industry) enjoying a unique statutory exemption from legislation originally aimed primarily at it.
Hmmm...where has this type of thing happened before? Germany, perhaps? Soon after the Wehrmacht started laying tank tracks across Europe, ever greater numbers of ordinary Germans turned into:
well-fed parasites. Vast numbers of Germans fell prey to the euphoria of a gold rush...As the state was transformed into a gigantic apparatus for plundering others, average Germans became unscrupulous profiteers and passive recipients of bribes.
The U.S. is an oppressive and war mongering Empire, and yet we are "all" so proud and virtuous.
God bless America, the land of the free and the brave. Why would God bless any other nation? The work of the devil always appears as virtuous.
When do the five percent of us hit the streets????
Come on Bushie, get out that banner
"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"
|It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts"
Maybe it had to do with this:
http://www.mcall.com/bal-te.contracts10dec10,0,901454,full.story?coll=all-travel-utl
36 years ago, that would still have been the Ba'ath Party, secular, socialist, makes sense nationalizing the oil industry to use the income for Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein was there, but others were in charge. Hussein came to power at the end of the 1970s. Once in charge, he got rid of any lefties in the Ba'ath Party for the foreigners. But then he got sucked too easily into a proxie war with Iran.
It's always been a problem in Iraq, and in all those oil rich Muslim countries, to get rid of the lefties who would use oil revenue for locals, so that foreigners could get those revenues. Anything democratic was seen a leftie (more often than not it was) and so was jumped on , with Western support. I figure that is why dissent had no where to go but into the sectarian realm.
I notice Hussein's tough laws on labour unions were kept in place by Bremer, so there won't be much hue and cry from organized oil workers over the foreigners getting their hands on all that oil.
Sadr and his people might notice, tho. Altho, good thing about religious groups is that they seem less interested in material world, more interested in spiritual affairs. So they might be more inclined than secular lefties to let the foreign oilers make their money.
too funny
Citizens of United States get what they deserve
.. nada
...zilch
...no-thang
they are not informed
1) Exxon Mobil, 2) Shell, 3) Total, 4) BP
I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.
When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the OIL and the wine!"
When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
~PAUL K~ are you nuts? No one wants to hear about the methane gas spewing out into our atmosphere and some will tell you it's a myth.
BTW, thank you for the link. Scary shit huh?
Cost of Iraq war to US taxpayers: $2 Trillion+
Cost in blood and wealth to Iraq: unimaginable
Profits for Western oil interests: priceless!
The oil companies have been trying for 36 years to get back into Iraq. Now with 4100 dead American soldiers; another 30,000 seriously wounded, over 1 million Iraqi's dead and 15% of their population displaced from their homes, we have finally achieved victory in the proxy war fought on behalf of the oil companies. It should be obvious to all Americans by now that this is what the Iraq war has been all about. What huge price to pay for American greed and a permanent blemish on our history. The saddest thing is that we will have a lot more dead American soldiers while securing and protecting the oil companies' investment for them. All so we can keep driving our huge trucks and SUV's to the mall.
Another sad realization is that even though our oil companies have finally succeded in getting the oil, what makes anybody think they are going to get it for us?? They will sell it on the open market to the highest bidders who will be those nations with the most valuable money so we will be screwed anyway. Was any of this worth the cost???
Come now, its not about oil, its about bringing freedom and democracy to the middle east.
Iraqi crude is prized because it is among the cheapest in the world to suck out of the ground. Around 10 years ago, it was either Fortune or Forbes magazine that published a world map with the costs of extracting crude from the world's oil fields. At that time, it cost 18 dollars per barrel to extract oil from aging US oil fields, but only 2 dollars per barrel to get Iraqi crude out of the ground.
Such is the reasoning behind the drums of war with Iran. This due to the old US only restrictions that limit US oil companies from doing business with Iran, except for their off shore subsidiaries participating as junior partners with foreign firms.
If any of this was truly about bringing peace, justice and democracy to the Middle East, the US would have stopped meddling in the region, Israel would have left the occupied territories, and signed the NPT. Instead we have more illegal settlements in Palestine, blood for oil in Iraq, and NATO troops guarding record opium crops in Afghanistan.
I'm glad our leaders have the peoples' best interests at heart.
Obama is indeed going to be a front-man for this operation. He's now openly sucking up to every conceivable big-money operation, from AIPAC & the anti-Castro fanatics to the Wall Street banks (where his "advisors" come mainly from the Robert Rubin clique). His newly-announced foreign policy team consists of old-line Democrats like Madeleine Albright, Lee Hamilton, David Boren, Warren Christopher, Tony Lake, Sam Nunn, etc. These same people were the backbone of the Bill Clinton administration.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20127.htm
An estimated 21 trillion dollars worth of sweet crude oil is under Iraq. An oil man from TX is elected(ha!) president and proceeds to establish strategic military dominance in an oil rich area of the world, as our TV and most print media cheered him on like it all was some big sporting event America needed to win. It is what big oil and military industry corporations wanted, it is what they needed, and our current corporate-facsist (republican and democrat) government obliged. In the process they used our young, patriotic military personnel to fight,kill, and die to secure the future profits of America's largest and most wealthy corporations. I have said before and I will say it again- it is the money, it is always the money and if our next president continues this vicious travesty we must engineer a tax revolt. Stop paying federal taxes, don't join the military and if your already in the armed services, walk away and the rest of us will support you.
Why is gas $2.50 in Mexicali? and $4.80 in Calexico?
Let Pemex into the US.
kelmer: Right on. Protecting the wells is difficult, but not impossible. All those miles of pipelines are another matter entirely. And somehow I doubt that the average Iraqi is going to be much deterred by the terms and conditions of those no-bid contracts.
The article says, ever so tactfully:
"...There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism....
Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry...."
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The NYT would never say this too loudly, but they're willing to say it quietly. Note how delicately they brush past the issue of whether the war was in fact launched for oil & the profits of oil companies.
This is an issue that NEVER receives prominent & direct focus. Antiwar protestors regularly march with signs that shriek "NO WAR FOR OIL!!" but the media takes the position that these protestors present no issue even worth discussing.
Yet here, the NYT is virtually acknowledging the very same point -- yet drawing no conclusion from it.
They better have bullet proof pipelines. Lots of leaks expected.
It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq's Oil Ministry.
Hard to type while rolling on the floor. I'm sure they "advised" them about a very short lifespan if the right "advice" wasn't followed.
But wait, wait, we are not sheep. We are going to have CHANGE with a new president.
Whichever one wins in November, there WILL be Change. The most dramatic change will be, ___ the Bushes will leave Washington DC, ___ unless of course McCain wins and Jeb is his VP.
That's it, the beat will go on.
"Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that," Gen. Abizaid
John McCain doesn't really plan to have the American military stay 100 years in Iraq, rather just until the oil production there runs past a local peak, or until hydrogen or something else kills the price.
And people say the war was a disaster... Seems to me like some people got exactly what they wanted.
Good article for those few benighted souls still wondering about the motives behind the U.S. invasion and occupation. This is
the reason for the permanent bases and the largest "embassy" in the world. And this is why Obama will not withdraw all U.S. forces unless there
is tremendous pressure from us.
It's not clear how much more of this US "assistance" Iraq can take, but it looks as if Iraqis won't have much choice, what with Big Oil's foot in the door:
"The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament"
With the SOFA deal ready to be stuffed down Iraqi throats, it's not hard to imagine who this oil law will favour in the end.
the GREAT OIL SPOILS of IRAQ.....I guess 4100 dead gi's and marines was worth it........MMMMM..anybody care to tell me what country is next ? IRAN ?
sounds like the Mafia stood for election and won...and no-one noticed..eh?
Hey, I might re-think my plans of having that 48 foot motor home after all and tow a forest green, Lincoln SUV behind it. Wheeeee.
I cannot believe that it took me so long to understand precisely why we had to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Thirty six years ago he expelled the US oil companies. Honestly, although I read the news, this specific and oh so telling fact was a blind spot for me.
As for the new contracts on oil and military bases, I say that a contract signed under extreme duress is not valid.
Lovely...now gas prices in the US can resume perhaps their artificially low ceiling as we resume business (exploitation) as usual.
Aha! On June 30th we will be able to claim victory, we will have won this miserable war when the Iraqs give up their rights to their own natural resources. The big oil companies and Bush will hang us a huge banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished for Real!" So forget any exploration or development of alternative energy sources. We will definitely have to help these companies build their business' with incentives and more tax breaks.
And we will be able to move on to the next conquest, Iran and then who knows what horrible leaders will need to be gotten rid of in the future.
And now for your up-to-date methane forecast:
About half the Arctic Ocean is now turned to mush. Look for yourself at
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.0.html
Open water in the Arctic Ocean is linked to higher temperatures melting the permafrost in Arctic land locations.
We have one party of the rich in this country-two branches, of course. Rich grab what they want and have a huge military to back them up.
But maybe the chickens will come home to roost: we're so awful--torture,needless wars,health care a mess, infrastructure too--that China looks good and Russia has tons of money and huge native energy supplies, not to mention Venezuela...
Could be down the tubes with the good ole USA. Even the Great Black Hope wont solve the problem.
US oil contracts - done deal, or 'check's in the mail' hype to justify the invasion during the US elections?
"The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for..."
...will - or would - "lay the foundation for" right wing election period justifications of the invasion on the grounds that it 'got back' Iraqi oil for a gas-starved US.
Funny timing for this 'news release' - was it fed to NYT, I wonder.
Today the big story in energy is that the Chinese are lowering the subsidy they give their people on gasoline. Well from where I sit the American people are letting big oil use the lives of our and Iraq children and the fortune of the American people to steal or as they would say subsidise the big oil companies. IF the cost of this occupation was put on the price of a gallon of gas the American people would finally see the true cost of War.
I find it interesting that we threaten to bomb Iran, when some members of our government are involved in nuclear armament and narcotics trafficking on the black market with Iran.
Any surprise now why W is itching to bomb Iran?
Iran's help would be the logical choice for the Iraqis to develop their fields and markets.
Most Iraqis would much prefer Iran's help than America's.
But that certainly would not sit very well with Mr. Bush.
Let's see...it was Saddam...no, it was the aluminum tubes...no, it was the Niger yellowcake...no, it was his drones carrying poison gas...no, it was the mushroom cloud...no, it was democratization...no, it was Al Qaida...no, it was...waitaminnit...did'nt Rummy say we were wrong if we thought it was for oil (that we killed millions of Iraqis, now over 4,000 of our own and got us into a trillionaire debt)? And now they say it's Iran...
Oh big surprise... (being sarcastic here!) What's going on here people?! We don't need oil and we have to start learning to live without it! Not only is it affecting us environmentally, but it is also affecting us greatly mentally... we are addicted to it, just like heroine! We are hooked! Of course America went to war for this reason, along with a billion other selfish reasons! When are we going to find our true selves in the midst of all of this mayhem?!
Mission Accomplished!