Mission Accomplished, baby!

We've made the world (or at least one small corner of it) safe for democracy (or at least rapacious capitalism, as if there's a difference):

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9HM532G3.htm



What were you all thinking the mission was?

kill over 4000 Americans in the process? Or 1 million Iraqis for that matter?

to drive for years and years to come.

Long live Halliburton and Shell!

For instance, we still have to break up the big corporations.
We still have to return to an accurate information system, and remove secrecy systems.

And there is the beer issue, and corrections for actions almost a decade ago.

Although it is not a mission, just doing nothing, while doing nothing, even if it is nothing.

And they still don't own me :) Nor can someone have less then what is not acceptable :)

So what do they have?

mission accomplished.

Who wags the dog now?

prior to the war and still nationalized today. And the Haliburton contract is a service contract - to facilitate the production of oil. Haliburton derives no ownership of oil from the contract. I'm not a fan of Haliburton but let's get the facts straight. I would like to see no foreign companies involved or at worst a company from a non-invading country but unfortunately there are no Iraqi state-owned oil companies capable of taking on such a large project.

Also totally coincidental that deferred compensation payable to any former CEOs of Halliburton is now quite sure to be paid, whereas just a few years ago Halliburton was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. I mean, gee whiz, of all the resource extraction companies in the world to choose from, Shell Iraq just happened to land on Halliburton.

I'll restate my original conclusion: Mission accomplished.

Iraq is striking deals with several oil companies that could transform it into the world's third-largest oil producer and rehabilitate an oil sector that has suffered from years of war, sanctions and most recently the sectarian violence triggered by the 2003 US-led invasion.

Much of the attention has centred on supermajors like Exxon, whose consortium snapped up an initial deal to develop the West Qurna field, while BP and China's CNPC sealed a $15bn deal to develop the Rumaila field.

The market for oilfield services in Iraq will jump from $1.3bn in 2010 to $8bn in 2014, estimates Ergo.

Capital spending on oilfield services in Iraq in 2011 alone will be five times that of similar spending in all GCC nations put together, Ergo believes.

In May, US company Weatherford won a $224mn contract to drill twenty wells in Iraq's south. The firm also expects to run a $300-$400m programme in 2010.

Other US firms including Schlumberger, Halliburton and Baker Hughes have also said they are in talks or are looking to enter the Iraqi market.

Last month, a British delegation with executives of seven firms, including an energy technology supplier and a land drilling contractor, held talks with Iraqi officials in Baghdad.
"Iraq is going to be a very large market, and my peers will not disagree with that," Weatherford CEO Bernard Duroc-Danner told analysts last month. "The only difference in views, if we have any, is on the timing of it."

"The services market will kick off in the next four months in a big way," said Adrian Green, a partner with Upper Quartile, which advises firms on investments in Iraq. "Iraq has been starved of technology, training and development, and capital investment in the service sector for 30 years."

While none doubt the volume of work potentially available, there are no guarantees on margins.

Iraq pushed a hard bargain in the first post-invasion oil licensing round in June and oil majors working on already slim margins will offer similarly tight terms to subcontractors, said Samuel Ciszuk, Middle East energy analyst at IHS Global Insight.

Even if Iraq prefers western expertise and the latest technology to modernise its outdated infrastructure, tight terms favour lower-cost Chinese service firms.

BP, for instance, will rely on its Chinese partner CNPC to provide pipes and equipment for Rumaila. The Chinese firm's involvement was crucial in helping keep the consortium's cost down and allowing it to agree to Iraq's terms.

Western oil service companies will opt to stay away if the margins are too small for them, analysts forecast.

"Projects have to be demonstrably and materially commercial," said Green. "There is no charity angle here."

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/575071-iraq-oilfield-deals-herald-boom-for-service-firms

I'm sure those who cheerlead for the veneer will try to ignore this.