Iraq may ease world oil markets with revived exports

[Barrett808]

BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - Iraq may help to ease surging world oil prices as exports from its southern terminal began to normalize ahead of a deal to sell six million barrels of crude from the north.

Oil prices eased back from recent highs after an official from the main Basra oil terminal announced that a sabotaged pipeline in southern Iraq has been repaired and exports are to resume at levels before the attack May 9.

The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in July fell 67 cents to 37.24 dollars a barrel in late trading in London.

New York's reference light sweet crude for June delivery dropped 80 cents to 40.75 dollars in early deals.

Prices had closed at a record high of 41.55 dollars a barrel in New York on Monday after a car bomb blast killed the head of Iraq's Governing Council, Ezzedine Salim, in Baghdad.

"Pumping through the pipeline that has just been repaired started at 9 am (0500 GMT) and we expect the crude to reach the terminal around noon," Moayad Hashem, the official at Basra's offshore terminal, told AFP.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040518/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_oil&cid=1514&ncid=1480

[hatrack]

1. Sure, just as soon as they put out those pesky pipeline fires nt

.

[Alpharetta]

2. pretty rosy forecast for the Iraq exports

Funny how the Iraqi Governing Council and the coalition have not been publishing monthly reports of exported oil.

You'd think they'd be a little more forthcoming with that kind of data.

Especially to back up their pre-war assertion that "Iraqi oil will pay for the rebuilding"

[underpants]

10. Things said the Iraqi oil would pay for:

Rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure
Rebuilding Iraq's OIL infrastructure
Paying off Iraq's debt
Paying for US military expenses
Paying contractors to get Iraq up and running
Oh yeah almost forgot...making the Iraqi people rich.

Did I miss any?

[struggle4progress]

16. Since the US controls all the oil revenue ...

and will into the foreseeable future, I'm betting that the money is going to the contractors.

[bluedog]

3. question I asked on GD

the reserve oil ............bush is filling them up....he filled them up in 2001......where did that oil go?? and..if the US is buying now at these high prices.doesn't that make the price of oil go up........and then in turn raise the price on us Americans?? To me it seems like hes buying now to rally hurt us in the pocketbooks.........

[ILeft]

18. Everything Bush does seems designed to hurt Americans

It's hard to fathom, but true.

I can't think of any action taken by this administration that doesn't appear to have been taken with the intent to harm Americans. These guys are bad news.

[Mountainman]

4. The new post war reason why we went to war in Iraq

I can hear the wingnuts now,

"Aren't you glad now that we went to war in Iraq for oil? It will reduce the gasoline prices you're now paying."

[struggle4progress]

17. I REALLY hope they say this:

they'd be entangled immediately in the "blood for oil" debate.

But I think all we'll get is indirect indications, like the story above.

[David Dunham]

5. The pipeline will be blown up soon.

[Finder]

6. I agree..

Yep!

[Jacobin]

9. Yep

The insurgents have been going after the pipelines from day one.
somehow, they don't take kindly to the U.S. stealing their oil.

[shance]

7. Whos profitting from this oil exporting? The Iraqis?

Liberation for the Iraqis has just been one perk after the other.

[enough]

15. See "Raiding Iraq's Piggy Bank"

In Salon, about the lock-up of Iraqi oil revenues by the US

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/05/17/oil/index.html

Raiding Iraq's piggy bank
If the Bush administration is truly committed to the nation's sovereignty, it should let Iraqis retake control of their own oil revenues.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Andrew Cockburn



May 17, 2004  |  As the occupation of Iraq dissolves further into bloody chaos, the colonial overseers in Baghdad are keeping their eyes fixed on what is really important: Iraq's money and how to keep it. Whatever apology for a "sovereign" Iraqi government is permitted to take office after June 30 -- and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi admits in private that he "has to do" whatever the Americans tell him to do -- the United States is making sure that the Iraqis do not get their hands on their country's oil revenues.

We are talking about big money here: Iraq's oil exports are slated to top $16 billion this year alone. U.N. Security Resolution 1483, rammed through by the United States a year ago, gives total control of the money from oil sales -- currently the only source of revenue in Iraq -- to the occupying power, i.e., the United States. The actual repository for the money is an entity called the Development Fund for Iraq, which in effect functions as a private piggy bank for Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority. The DFI is directed by a Program Review Board of 11 members, just one of whom is Iraqi.

In case anyone should be moved to challenge this massive looting exercise in the courts, President Bush followed up the May 2003 resolution with Executive Order 13303, which forbids any legal challenge to the development fund or any actions by the United States affecting Iraq's oil industry. Since then, the Iraqi oil ministry, famously secured by the U.S. military during post-invasion riots and looting, has been kept under the close supervision of a senior U.S. advisor, former ExxonMobil executive Gary Vogler.

Now, whatever President Bush or his officials may spout in public about the transfer of power being a "central commitment," there is absolutely no intention in Washington of changing the arrangement concerning oil revenues. Queried on this crucial topic, the CPA has stated that it will continue to control the revenues beyond June 30 "until such time as an internationally recognized, representative government of Iraq is properly constituted." Whatever entity is unveiled for June 30, it apparently will not fit these requirements, so the hand-over date is, essentially, meaningless.

more>

[pinto]

8. Will a "soveriegn" Iraq join OPEC?

Hadn't thought of that 'till just now....

[underpants]

13. K.A.O.S.?

[pinto]

14. looks like Bremer on the hotline....

[hunter]

11. Show me the money...

What a bunch of useless talk... Overall, how much did this oil cost? $600 a barrel, maybe?

Yeah, right, this will improve the world economy.

[daleo]

12. An extra six million barrels is nothing

Current U.S. daily consumption: 19.65 million bbl/day (2001 est.)

Six million barrels would run the U.S. for about 8 hours of one day. It amounts to maybe 2 hours of world consumption.

[abracadabra]

19. Not OUR OIL- Not OUR Country-

It belongs to the poeple of Iraq-
And the one man who was going to stand up for that right was killed yesterday in a car bombing just outside of the U.S compound.
how coincidental !! guess it was A Q(who wants to give away the oil the U.S.) dohh


Troops home NOW-
Halliburton- hire your own mercenaries and pump at your own risk.