Naked colonialism: Iraq's new oil law: not even a fig leaf

[Jcrowley]

Naked colonialism : Iraq's new oil law: not even a figleaf
By Deirdre Griswold
Jan 24, 2007, 17:18

“By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? ... While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.”

-Dick Cheney, who was CEO of oil services
company Halliburton, in a speech to the
Institute of Petroleum in London- 1999

It hadn’t even been seen by Iraqi legislators yet, but details of a new “Iraqi” hydrocarbons law, drafted in reality by U.S. contractors, were revealed Jan. 7 in the Independent, a major London newspaper that has been critical of the Iraq war.

Once information about the leaked document got out, it was condemned around the world as an unprecedented giveaway to the multinational oil companies—in particular, those based in the U.S. and Britain.

“Its provisions are a radical departure from the norm for developing countries,” wrote the Independent. “nder a system known as ‘production-sharing agreements,’ or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the U.S., would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq’s oil.

“PSAs allow a country to retain legal ownership of its oil, but give a share of profits to the international companies that invest in infrastructure and operation of the wells, pipelines and refineries. Their introduction would be a first for a major Middle Eastern oil producer. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world’s number one and two oil exporters, both tightly control their industries through state-owned companies with no appreciable foreign collaboration, as do most members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.”

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_23837.shtml

[tblue]

1. K&R! And the war wasn't about oil. Yeah right.

[Benhurst]

2. Recommended #2

[irislake]

3. So what do you think

the American people will do about this? And what sympathy will the world have for you next time "terrorists" attack your country?

[Benhurst]

4. I fear they will download into their pants, shred what little is left of

the Constitution, and goose-step off in whatever direction The Leader points them.

[rainy]

6. Think about this? Hell, they will never know about it. Our media will

be sure to burry this one. Plus to complicated for the majority to wrap their Limbaugh head around.

[Igel]

5. I was in class with the daughter of an oil

executive. She spent years growing up in Sa'udi Arabia, and her father insisted on her bringing in enough PR packets for all the students. Bilingual, showing how wonderful US-Sa'udi cooperation was, with a few CDs appropriate music, with a few recent copies of Aramco's PR magazine. It was an Arabic class, with the explicit invitation for the undergrads to apply when they graduated from the university.

Sa'udi Arabia doesn't have PSAs, and does have government ownership of the companies and the oil, but they do have significant foreign collaboration.

Unfortunately, the argument has to be that Saddam was also actively encouraging 'naked colonialism', with his signed agreements (stipulating terms) to sign PSAs when they became legal. Had the US wanted, US companies could also have been allowed to sign such agreements, and Saddam, no doubt, would have been happy to have done so.