Big oil has crude designs on Iraq wealth - report

LONDON (Reuters) - Big oil firms may rob Iraq of billions and grab control of its oilfields unless ordinary Iraqis can have a greater say in how their country's riches are tapped, U.S. and British campaigners said on Tuesday.
Big oil is being lured by the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), promoted by Washington and London, which gives them huge returns on investment, but deprives Iraq of up to $194 billion (113 billion pounds), according to "Crude Designs: The rip-off of Iraq's oil wealth".

"Under the influence of the U.S. and UK, powerful politicians and technocrats in the Iraqi oil ministry are pushing to hand all Iraq's undeveloped fields to multinational oil companies, to be developed under production sharing agreements," said Greg Muttitt, the report's author.

Muttitt is an analyst with PLATFORM, a London-based charity focussed on the social and environmental impact of oil.

A push for "energy security" by the United States and Britain is a driver behind this commercial approach, said the report, backed by charities and thinktanks including War on Want, Global Policy Forum and Institute for Policy Studies.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-11-22T055019Z_01_YUE220804_RTRUKOC_0_UK-ENERGY-IRAQ-REPORT.xml

It would be for the good of the country. Exxon executive talking to you from the
Cheney energy plan meeting.
I want those meetings revealed, no wonder gas went down
after the hearings, and right before the 2004 election.

The map of Iraq all carved up sitting on the table at that energy meeting? No wonder dickie fought so hard not to reveal what went on.

Imagine what the documents they won't show us reveal.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/IraqOilMap.pdf
http://www.judicialwatch.org/IraqOilGasProj.pdf
http://www.judicialwatch.org/IraqOilFrgnSuitors.pdf

If you read through the - not the blog world characterizations, but the documents themselves, especially , you will see that PNAC and the NEOCONs are all about "projecting power" to "assert hegemony" over the oil, i.e., to "control the spigot".

Tie this into both a Marxist analysis (first chapter of Marx where the bourgeoisie-proletariat division is developed along with a model of "inevitable exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie") and a classical AlQaida analysis (as described and analyzed by, e.g., Mark LeVine, "Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil" and by Michael Klare, "Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum" and "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict").

Add in "Peak Oil" - be it a geological discussion as in Kenneth Deffeyes, "Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak" and "Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage" or a sociological-political discussion as in James Howard Kunstler, "The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century."

We are going to have either more and more resource wars in farther and farther away places with even stranger sounding names, where they hate us even more, or we are going to have make tremendous life style changes.

Our treasury and our blood spilled to make the world safe for rightwing operators and international oil. Heartwarming. Freedom is on the march.

Wasn't it there they had a map of the oil fields in Iraq all divvied up between the big oil companies?

IRAQI PEOPLE...WAKE UP! STOP FIGHTING! Make Americans go home. Fake it if you have to!

from War on Want, one of the charities sponsoring the report:

-the estimated cost to Iraq over the life of the new oil contracts is $74 to $194 billion, compared with leaving oil development in public hands. These sums represent between two and seven times the current Iraqi state budget.
-the contracts would guarantee massive profits to foreign companies, with rates of return of 42% to 162%.

The kinds of contracts that will provide these returns are known as production sharing agreement(PSAs). PSAs have been heavily promoted by the US government and oil majors and have the backing of senior figures in the Iraqi Oil Ministry. Britain has also encouraged Iraq to open its oilfields to foreign investment.

However PSAs last for 25-40 years, are usually secret and prevent governments from later altering the terms of the contract.

Crude Designs lead researcher, Greg Muttitt of PLATFORM, said:

"The form of contracts being promoted is the most expensive and undemocratic option available. Iraq’s oil should be for the benefit of the Iraqi people, not foreign oil companies.”
http://www.waronwant.org/ (also a link to the pdf report)

Gee, kinda makes you wonder if the Cheney administration is really that concerned about Iraqi people, doesn't it?

why this is not getting more attention here.

try again :bounce:

What a plan!!!

we still do not have good control of the oil.
274. October 3 - a bomb attack in Baghdad on the motorcade of Iraq's oil minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, who was heading to Bayji.
275. October 5 - attack on an oil pipeline near the Kirkuk refinery.
276. October 5 - bomb attack wounded six oil ministry guards.
277. October 6 - gunmen shot dead five oil ministry security guards.
278. October 15 - major power cuts have caused intermittent suspension of oil production from oil fields in the south of the country.
279. October 19 - attack on an oil pipeline at Al-Ishaqi village south of Samarra.
280. October 20 - attack on a major pipeline that links Kirkuk to Bayji. The bombing took place less than 24 hours after th epipeline was reopened.
281. October 24 - 10:00a.m. mortar attack on on a network of oil and gas pipelines 40 miles west of Kirkuk. 16 pipelines cought fire.
282. October 24 - insurgents blew up a bomb under the oil pipeline at al-Malha village east of Hemrin mountains, near Bayji.
http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

and the new communications systems and the worlds largest embassy. Nope, chimpy never wants us to leave.

:eyes:

I posted this to another thread on this topic that was moved to GD.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5453852#top

The legality of it is being questioned. Is Iraq waving this carrot to Russia in exchange for their help with Syria? How's this going to go over with those multinationals that are salivating? :popcorn:

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/exclusive/29.html?mode=9&tit...

Iraq has its "own legal interpretation," of the contract concerning the development of West Qurna-2 oil field, Zebari said.

"During the talks, the sides agreed to continue the dialogue," the minister said, adding that Lukoil had said it wanted to visit Iraq for further talks.
"We welcome this step and gave the company the go ahead," he said.

A consortium consisting of Lukoil (68.5%), Zarubezhneft (3.25%), Mashinimport (3.25%) and the Iraqi Oil and Gas Ministry (25%) signed an agreement in March 1997 on the development of the West Qurna-2 field on PSA terms. The PSA was to expire in 2020. Spending on developing the field, which has estimated oil reserves of 20 billion barrels, is estimated at $6 billion. The sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War prevented Russian companies from carrying out oil projects in Iraq.

However, at the end of 2002, Iraq said it was canceling the West Qurna-2 contract, because Lukoil was not fulfilling the terms of the contract. Lukoil continues to consider the contract valid.

Lukoil announced earlier that it planned to hold talks with the new Iraqi authorities about resuming the project, and that if negotiations were successful it planned to transfer 17.5% of its stake to ConocoPhillips.