Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil

[donsu]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/43045/

"the prize"

Even as Iraq is on the verge of splintering into a sectarian civil war, four big oil companies are on the verge of locking up its massive, profitable reserves, known to everyone in the petroleum industry as "the prize."

-snip-

Iraq's energy reserves are an incredibly rich prize; according to the US Department of Energy, "Iraq contains 112 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the second largest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia) along with roughly 220 billion barrels of probable and possible resources. Iraq's true potential may be far greater than this, however, as the country is relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions." For perspective, the Saudis have 260 billion barrels of proven reserves.

Iraqi oil is close to the surface and easy to extract, making it all the more profitable. James Paul, Executive Director of the Global Policy Forum, points out that oil companies "can produce a barrel of Iraqi oil for less than $1.50 and possibly as little as $1, including all exploration, oilfield development and production costs." Contrast that with other areas where oil is considered cheap to produce at $5 per barrel, or the North Sea where production costs are $12-16 per barrel.

-snip-

But the real gem -- what one oil consultant called the "Holy Grail" of the industry -- lies in Iraq's vast Western desert. It's one of the last "virgin" fields on the planet, and it has the potential to catapult Iraq to number one in the world in oil reserves. Sparsely populated, the Western fields are less prone to sabotage than the country's current centers of production in the North, near Kirkuk, and in the South near Basra. The Nation's Aram Roston predicts Iraq's Western desert will yield "untold riches."

-snip-

But even "untold riches" don't tell the whole story. Depending on how Iraq's petroleum law shakes out, the country's enormous reserves could break the back of OPEC, a wet dream in Western capitals for three decades. James Paul predicted that "even before Iraq had reached its full production potential of 8 million barrels or more per day, the companies would gain huge leverage over the international oil system. OPEC would be weakened by the withdrawal of one of its key producers from the OPEC quota system." Depending on how things shape up in the next few months, Western oil companies could end up controlling the country's output levels, or the government, heavily influenced by the U.S., could even pull out of the cartel entirely.

Both independent analysts and officials within Iraq's Oil ministry anticipate that when all is said and done, the big winners in Iraq will be the Big Four -- the American firms Exxon-Mobile and Chevron-Texaco, and the British BP-Amoco and Royal Dutch-Shell -- that dominate the world oil market. Ibrahim Mohammed, an industry consultant with close contacts in the Iraqi Oil Ministry, told the Associated Press that there's a universal belief among ministry staff that the major U.S. companies will win the lion's share of contracts. "The feeling is that the new government is going to be influenced by the United States," he said.
-snip-
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a live Iraqi is just in the way

read on, this is part one of a two part (long) article

[bigbrother05]

1. kick

[shadowknows69]

2. and we only had to help kill half a million people to get it

what a bargain. Now the U.S. can ride into the hell we've earned with cheaper gasoline.

[petgoat]

3. They can shove that oil up their SUV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmsOIjzQ1V8

[LibertyorDeath]

4. But it's not about the Oil

:sarcasm:

:sarcasm:

:sarcasm:

[malaise]

6. It was never about anything else

Well maybe it was also about all that water flowing from the Tigres and Euphrates for that greedy neighbour closeby.

[CatWoman]

5. K&R

:kick:

[bridgit]

7. yep, k&r'd...

[leftchick]

8. The REAL Reason for the Iraq Invasion

"The Prize" was no doubt written on cheney's Iraq maps at his secret energy meetings.

[Hugin]

10. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

This thing reads like it was taken from the Energy Meeting notes.

[Selatius]

9. The Sunnis will fight you before you could take the "Holy Grail" from them

It's in their territory in the western deserts.

[Jacobin]

11. That is nothing more than a silly dream

Just take one look at this site, detailing each attack on a pipeline or production facility in Iraq.

Production is below that which existed prior to the 'conquest'

That is the most naive article I've ever read. There may have been the thought that this would be accomplished three years ago, but no one in his right mind thinks we can get to their oil now. No doubt its what they WANTED to do, but I don't think anyone seriously expects to be able to steal their oil successfully anymore

http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

Here's the list since just last MAY:

327. May 6 - six engineers working for Iraq's state-owned Northern Oil Company were kidnapped while they were returning from a meeting in Kirkuk.
328. May 8 - insurgents attacked an oil pipeline with an IED at 45 km south from Baghdad. There were no casualties in the attack, but the oil pipeline had to be closed due to the blast. The pipeline carries oil from Dora refinery in Baghdad to Musayyib power station.
328. May 10 - attack on an oil pipeline pipeline carrying oil from Daura refinery to Mussayyib power station.
329. May 15 - attack on pipeline in the Daura refinery.
330. May 16 - insurgents assaulted a car park in northeast Baghdad, killing 18 people and injuring at least 37. Iraqi police said the gunmen shot five guards who were looking after the garage in the Shaab neighbourhood. They then detonated an IED on a parked oil tanker. The bomb killed 13 people.
331. May 20 - a member of the Facilities Protection Service was killed having been shot by two unknown gunmen in the Hayy ar Risalah district of Basrah.
332. May 21- gunmen killed two policemen working in the Oil Protection Facilities in the town of Ar Riyad 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
333. May 21 - in al yusufiyah, insurgents detonated an IED on an oil pipeline, starting a massive blaze.
334. May 21 - two Oil Protection Service officers were killed in a drive-by shooting in Tikrit.
335. May 28 - a local government worker who works in an oil refinery was murdered. He was shot twice in the neck in the Abu Al Khasib region of Basra Province by four unknown males on two motorbikes.
336. May 31 - insurgents carried out a rocket attack against an oil pipeline in Riyadh.
337. May 31 - a three vehicle convoy was escorting a pipeline repair team from the Ministry of Oil when it was ambushed with an IED in the Rasheed District in south-western Baghdad. After the initial explosion insurgents then engaged the convoy with small arms fire from a plantation near the Al Taji Gas Factory. Two Iraqi police officers were wounded in the attack.
338. May 31 - a security patrol was ambushed with two IEDs the Ad Daura Oil Refinery in southern Baghdad. It is reported that one security officer was wounded in the attack. 339. June 1 - in northern Iraq gunmen opened fire on Col. Ziyad Tariq, deputy-commander of the oil protection force in Kirkuk, killing him and a bodyguard and wounding another bodyguard as they left a restaurant. Also, a maintenance unit from the oil protection force was attacked by gunmen southwest of Kirkuk and two members were wounded.
340. June 6 - four Northern Oil Company employees were kidnapped on their way to the Ajeel oil site.
341. June 8 - Gunmen in Baghdad kidnapped the director general of the State Company for Oil Projects, Muthana al-Badri in Aazamiya, northern Baghdad.
342. June 9 - in Kirkuk gunmen attacked soldiers guarding a pipeline, wounding three of them and killing one civilian. also on the road between the oil-refinery town of Baiji and Tikrit, gunmen killed three oil engineers.
343. June 12 - six people have been killed in a roadside bomb attack in the southern Daura district in Baghdad. The blast targeted a bus carrying workers to Baghdad's main oil refinery and comes a day after al-Qaeda in Iraq vowed to carry out large-scale after the killing of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
344. June 16 - an employee of the Northern Gas Company was similarly shot dead near the oil city of Kirkuk.
345. June 27 - a suicide car bomb exploded at a gas station in Kirkuk, killing at least three civilians and wounding 14 people who were lined up to get fuel.
346. June 27 - three Iraqi policemen from a unit assigned to protect oil facilities in northern Iraq were injured by a roadside IED. A security source said the three men were injured when a bomb exploded as their patrol passed by in an area north of Kirkuk.
347. July 3 - early morning attack section of Yumurtalik pipeline in the city of Hassan about 40 miles southeast of Kirkuk.
348. July 9 - a sabotage attack along Iraq's vital northern oil export route to Turkey fractured both pipelines and repairs will take at least two weeks.
349. July 11 - insurgents killed an engineer working for the North Oil Company, along with his driver, while he was heading to work in Kirkuk.
350. July 11 - insurgents attacked a convoy carrying security personnel tasked with protecting oil facilities south of Mosul, killing at least 10 troops and injuring scores of others. The troops had been ambushed while on a routine inspection of oil pipes in the region. 351. July 13 - attack on a security patrol of the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk killed three policemen and wounded six civilians.
352. July 16 - the head of Iraq's North Oil Company, Adel Qazaz, was kidnapped in northern Baghdad.
353. July 28 - attack near Samarra on a pipeline connecting Bayji and the Daura refinery.
354. July 31 - Iraq’s northern pipeline carrying crude from the northern oilfields to Turkey's Ceyhan port was sabotaged and ruptured, delaying the restart of export from a previous attack on 9 July 2006.
355. August 13 - insurgents shot and killed a colonel in the Oil Protection Facilities, a security body charged with guarding Iraq's oil infrastructure. He was shot while waiting at gas station north of Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad.
356. August 13 - approximately 63 Iraqis were killed and another 140 wounded when bombs exploded in the vicinity of a building, rupturing a gas pipeline and causing a gas explosion near the Hawra market in southeast Baghdad.
357. September 1 - an IED attack targeting an oil pipeline on the outskirts of Musayyib south of Baghdad cut supply to a major electricity station. The pipeline feeds Musayyib's electricity station, which provides power to the cities of Karbala, Najaf, Hillah and Diwaniyah.
358. September 3 - attack on an oil pipeline near Kirkuk.
359. Septmebr 10 - a shooting attack near Bayji. Gunmen in two cars ambushed a bus carrying oil employees, killing four people and wounding one.
360. September 13 - An oil installation guard was wounded in a clash with gunmen who tried to blow up an oil pipeline in al-Fatha using an IED,in an area 20 miles south of Kirkuk.
361. September 17 - an oil pipeline was damaged by an IED in the town of Balad, 55 miles north of Baghdad. 362. September 18 - two militants who attempted an attack a gas tanker were arrested in the area of Shuwan, eastern Kirkuk. The attackers were attempting to hijack the tanker.
363. September 20 - A suicide truck bomb detonated at a police checkpoint at the entrance of a Baghdad oil refinery in southern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 13 others.
364. September 22 - a pipeline carrying crude oil from the fields around Kirkuk to the refinery in Baiji was ruptured during a mortar attack.
365. September 26 - an IED ruptured gas pipeline at Bayji. No one was hurt when insurgents blew up the pipeline, which connects the Bayji refinery and a gas field.
366. September 29 - two fuel tankers were hit with roadside IEDs southwest of Samarra.

[Disturbed]

12. The Multi-Natls will garner the territory.

It may take another 10 years to do so. The "new Iraq Plan" by James Baker will change the "Course". There is no way that any US Govt. will let go of the Iraqi Prize.

[Jacobin]

13. "Letting go of the prize" assumes that one has hold of it to begin with

My take on it is that they are just as delusional when it comes to getting what they want as they are in thinking they have something they don't.

We have utterly no control over anything of any moment in that country. None. Zip. Nada.

[AntiFascist]

14. This explains the course taken by Condi and her ship of state...

[Fridays Child]

15. Does anyone actually believe that this war was never about oil?

Because, if there's anyone out there who harbors such a belief, he or she is certifiably insane. Or a freeper. But I repeat myself.