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Big Oil's Secret Out of Iraq's Closet

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  Quote Afghanan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Big Oil's Secret Out of Iraq's Closet
    Posted: 04-Jul-2008 at 18:04
THE ROVING EYE

Big Oil's 'secret' out of Iraq's closet
By Pepe Escobar

NEW YORK - It is not about the "war on terror". It is not about weapons of mass destruction. It is not about "freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people", or to the "Afghan people". It is not about "Islamofascism". It is not about a Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Middle East to Central Asia. New evidence shows once again both George W Bush administration wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq - above all are about oil and gas.

Those were the days - up to a few days ago, actually - when the fateful words "war" and "oil" would never have been aligned in the same sentence anywhere in US corporate media; the days when former defense secretary and Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld insisted Iraq had "literally nothing to do with oil".

But now the US and European Big Oil majors that controlled the Iraqi oil industry up to the 1972 nationalization - today represented by Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron - seem to be back with a vengeance. Thus the New York Times, for instance, can redeem itself from printing Ahmad Chalabi-fed weapons-of-mass-destruction nonsense on its front page for months and actually engage in news that's fit to print.

This past Monday, the paper reported that "a group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq".

The bland language may be misleading. This is no less than the first step in the de facto de-nationalization of the Iraqi oil industry - Vice President Dick Cheney's wet dream.

As James Paul, director of the Global Policy Forum, has summarized it, this is all about:
... a new round of immensely profitable oil deals ... announced by Iraqi Oil Minister Sharistani, in which giants like Exxon Mobil can nail down long-term contracts and take away a large share of the oil from several key operating fields, like the massive Rumaila and West Qurna, some of the world's largest.

Oil can be produced in these fields for about one dollar a barrel, while its value on world markets is now around US$140. With hundreds of millions of dollars of profits at stake - and while the US occupation remains in full force - the oil giants are making their move, seeking to bypass opposition in the Iraqi parliament and ignoring suspicion and anger among the Iraqi public. With world oil supplies visibly running short and oil prices skyrocketing, this is a desperate gamble to control some of the world's largest and most lucrative fields, at huge human and environmental cost.
Meanwhile in Washington, no collective breath is being held, as it's extremely unlikely the supine US Congress will be looking closer at whether the Bush administration is bypassing the Biden amendment, which prohibits the use of US funds to "exercise United States control over the oil infrastructure or oil resources of Iraq". There's too much money to be made.

Big Oil hardball

Hussein al-Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, has always been a huge cheerleader of Big Oil taking over the Iraq oil industry. He dreams of Iraq as the world's second - or at least third-biggest - oil producer, competing with Saudi Arabia and Russia. To get there he is frantically selling out, trying to get voracious, predatory production sharing agreements (PSAs) over the heads of the Iraqi parliament and even harassing Iraqi oil unions.

At this early stage it's still about TSAs (technical support agreements); these are simple consultancy contracts to help Iraq raise its oil production by 500,000 barrels a day, not long-term contracts to develop juicy oil and gas fields.

But oops! Iraqis have not been fooled by the smoke and mirrors - nor by Big Oil hardball. At a press conference in Baghdad on Monday, Shahristani had to admit, "We did not finalize any agreement ... because they refused to offer consultancy based on fees, as they wanted a share of the oil." Big Oil, of course, wants the "Big Prize" (copyright Cheney).

What Cheney and Big Oil really want is to wallow in the extra-profitable 30-year PSAs once the new, International Monetary Fund-redacted Iraqi oil law is forced through the gorges of the Iraqi parliament, sealing a major US-European takeover - the whole thing, of course, protected by a Status of Forces Agreement with its 58 US military bases, total control of Iraqi airspace, total legal immunity for US soldiers and the right for the Pentagon to turn Iraq upside down without even asking the hosts.

And make no mistake, that's what the US power elite always wanted.

Greg Muttit, co-director of the London-based oil industry research group Platform, explains that what's at stake at the current stage are "nine-year risk service contracts for six oilfields"; these are "halfway between TSAs and PSAs". Bids are due by March 2009, with signing in June 2009. As for the technical service contracts for five of the same oilfields, these are "no-bid contracts whose terms were dictated by the oil companies themselves". In other words: Big Oil is telling the Iraqi government what it wants.

And here's the catch. Muttit says, "The tendering of these fields is a big policy change, as producing fields were supposed to be developed by the Iraq National Oil Company [INOC], with only new fields allocated to foreign oil companies." Big Oil, though, wants the whole cake. INOC gets only a shabby 25% stake. Muttit makes an enlightening comparison with Libya, "where the national oil company gets around 80%, which is much more normal for fields of this size".

Meanwhile, in Central Asia ...
Bush/Cheney, unfazed by their own regime's death throes - and following what was already official policy under former present Bill Clinton - now are also poised to have one more crack at the New Great Game in Central Asia, trying to thwart regional energy supremacy by both Russia and Iran.

Last April, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and India signed a Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement, deciding - not for the first time - to build the $7.6 billion TAP (now TAPI) pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and probably India, cutting right through the heart of Afghanistan's Kandahar province, where the neo-Taliban are merrily running rings around the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Construction should start in 2010, with gas being supplied by 2015. The project is backed by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank. The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which cannot even provide security for a few streets in central Kabul, has engaged in Hollywood-style suspension of disbelief by assuring unsuspecting customers it will not only get rid of millions of land mines blocking TAPI's route, it will get rid of the Taliban themselves.

Inevitably, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher weighed in, saying the US has a "fundamental strategic interest" in Afghanistan, without making a single reference to the words "oil" or "gas". In real life, with this move Bush/Cheney believe they can block the $7.5 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, also known as the "peace" pipeline. Fat chance. The three countries are all on board and the pipeline, delivering Iranian gas to South Asia, is a go.

This new US adventure has also sent a frantic red alert right to the core of the Canadian government, which is now contemplating the geopolitical nightmare of having its troops, alongside NATO's, protecting a fragile pipeline in a war zone. The conservatives in power in Canada have committed to keep troops in Afghanistan at least until 2011.

The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives released a report, A Pipeline Through a Troubled Land: Afghanistan, Canada and the New Great Energy Game, written by John Foster, energy economist and former lead economist of PetroCanada, depicting TAPI as turning Afghanistan into "an energy bridge" between Central and South Asia. But Foster is very worried "the quest for 'energy security' risks drawing Canada unwittingly into a new Great Energy Game".

Were investors, perhaps nursed by Afghan opium, to be delirious enough to build such a pipeline - and that's a monumental if - Afghanistan would collect a mere $160 million a year in transit fees. Well, that's maybe not so grim considering it's the equivalent of 50% of Karzai's current annual revenue. The Taliban would love to get a piece of the action.

Forget about all that old 2001 "bringing freedom to Afghan women" rhetoric. TAP's roller-coaster history goes back to the mid-1990s Clinton era, when the Taliban were wined and dined by California-based Unocal - and the Clinton machine. Unocal beat the competition, led by Argentina's Bridas. The negotiations broke down because of money - those pesky transit fees. At the Group of Eight summit in Naples in July 2001 it was decided the US would take out the Taliban by October; September 11, 2001, accelerated the schedule by a fraction.

One of the first actual fruits of the US bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 was that in December, Karzai, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Turkmenistan's wacky Nyazov (now dead) signed an agreement committing themselves to build TAP (by then known as the Trans-Afghan Pipeline). The Russians decided to wait for their counterpunch, and delivered it in style in September 2006.

Gazprom accepted a 40% price increase demanded by Nyazov for his gas. In return, the Russians got priceless gifts: control of all of Turkmenistan's gas surplus up to 2009; a preference for Russia to tap the new Yolotan gas fields; and Turkmenistan bowing out of any Trans-Caspian pipeline project. Nyazov pledged to supply all his country's gas to Russia.

Thus, dead on arrival, lay TAP, the (invisible) star of the "good" Afghan war, as Democratic senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama now sees it. Washington's plan has always been to seduce Nyazov to provide Turkmenistan gas to the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, and then to TAP. This was part of a US grand strategy of a "Greater Central Asia" centered on Afghanistan and India.

Bush/Cheney will never give up. But India will go ahead with the Iranian pipeline. And Turkmenistan is selling all its surplus gas to Russia. Who needs a $7.6 billion, 1,600-kilometer steel serpent in a war zone?

It ain't over till the fat (oil) lady sings. But if the Bush administration "vision" of a perpetual Iraqi puppet regime, with its oil wealth confiscated and under the imperial boot, takes hold, alongside the Taliban having a long pipeline to play with in Afghanistan, the least one can expect is a lot more blood on the tracks.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
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  Quote Afghanan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jul-2008 at 18:05

Meanwhile in Afghanistan:

Big Oil pumps up the ugly Afghan and Iraqi mix

LAWRENCE MARTIN
The Globe and Mail (Canada) / July 3, 2008

In the war zones, the oil deals are coming on stream.

Afghanistan recently signed a major agreement to build an American-backed pipeline. It will traverse the Kandahar region where Canadian forces are fighting. If they're still there, Canadians could well be called on to be a pipeline protection force.

In Iraq this week, the giant oil fields were opened to foreign bidders. U.S. conglomerates such as Exxon Mobil are about to sign no-bid contracts to move in. Big Oil, already brimming with profits, will have a fine Fourth of July.

The new Baghdad deals will trigger more wrangling over the real motivation for the Iraq invasion. There was a time when it was mainly just conspiracy theorists and other assorted weedy types who claimed the aggression was chiefly about oil. But along came Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, who wrote last year in his book The Age of Turbulence, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil." This week's entry of Big Oil in Iraq will only buttress this view.

The Afghan war wasn't all about oil. But that has certainly been among Washington's motivations and now, with the pipeline deal, it will be front and centre. As for Canada, oil wasn't on the radar screen in our war debate. Liberal governments didn't discuss it. "Never once heard mention of it from 2002 to 2006," said Eugene Lang, who worked closely on the Afghan file with two Liberal defence ministers.

In the late 1990s, an American-led oil consortium held talks with the Taliban about building a pipeline from Central Asia - where oil and gas reserves are gigantic - through Afghanistan to Pakistan, from where it could be shipped westward. The talks broke down in mid-2001. Washington was furious, leading to speculation it might take out the Taliban. After 9/11, the Taliban, with good reason, were removed - and pipeline planning continued with the Karzai government. U.S. forces installed bases near Kandahar, where the pipeline was to run. A key motivation for the pipeline was to block a competing bid involving Iran, a charter member of the "axis of evil."

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said recently that Washington has a "fundamental strategic interest" in Afghanistan that extends well beyond ensuring it is not used as a base for terrorism. In Ottawa, energy economist John Foster recently released a report on the pipeline. "Government efforts to convince Canadians to stay in Afghanistan have been enormous," he wrote, "but the impact of the proposed multibillion-dollar pipeline in areas of Afghanistan under Canadian purview has never been seriously debated."

In November of 2006, the Conservatives seemed to take a stand. At a little-noticed meeting in New Delhi, they agreed to help Kabul become an energy bridge through the building of the pipeline.

With the Afghan war not going well, the likelihood is the $7.6-billion project might not proceed for a few years. Canadian soldiers could well be gone by then, though we could extend our deadline one more time. The Americans would certainly like us to help them defend the pipeline route.

What should also be considered is that Afghanistan stands to reap a windfall in transit fees if the pipeline goes ahead. Such a pipeline also would help the U.S. in its energy needs - needs that its entry into Iraq's oil fields would help replenish too.

But the plan should be to get off dependence on foreign oil. The Bush administration has utterly failed to move the ball forward on energy independence. Some war boosters predicted that a successful Iraq war would bring oil down to $20 a barrel. It is now about seven times that price. The war, which cut Iraqi production, contributed to the massive U.S. debt and the plunge in the greenback's value, a significant factor in the prices we now pay at the pump.

Both the American infiltration of Iraq's oil fields and the Afghan project might serve to increase the flow and eventually help stabilize prices to some degree.

War for oil is hardly a savoury option. But get ready. With the signing of the pipeline plan in Kabul, it will soon be part of the debate in this country. 

The perceptive man is he who knows about himself, for in self-knowledge and insight lays knowledge of the holiest.
~ Khushal Khan Khattak
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jul-2008 at 19:31
The oil pipline will be beneficial to all. Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (and I had to force myself to write that last word).
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jul-2008 at 19:43
Originally posted by Sparten

The oil pipline will be beneficial to all. Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (and I had to force myself to write that last word).
 
Smile
 
 
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jul-2008 at 19:59
We have touched on this in other threads and on other forums.  The conflicts of the coming century are probably going to be over resources.  The (relative) winners are going to be the ones who can go after and secure what they need.
 
Dick Cheney isn't Mister Rogers by any means, but his view, articulated well before he took office with Bush, was that proven reserves of oil could never keep up with global demand by the mid 21st century.  Virtually everything of importance economically in modern life is impacted by oil.  Oil therefor is government policy. 
 
The resource imperative is now overwhelming previous norms of state behavior.  It isn't pretty; it doesn't make us look good, but the government NOT having made the move into Mesopotamia, and the oil companies NOT getting access to those fields may have been viewed in future as nonfeasance in office if someone else controlled it.
 
Senator Obama will need to change his tune if he gets into the White House.  It is now long past a matter of leaving Iraq.  John McCain had something in mind with his "100 year" comment, but now he can't say that anymore.
 
EDIT:  The US presence in Iraq will benefit the West for years to come, and, contrary to much opinion, they all know it.  Europe is more dependant on oil from the Gulf than we are.
 
  
 
 


Edited by pikeshot1600 - 04-Jul-2008 at 23:44
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  Quote Mughal e Azam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 05:30
I thought everyone knew this was about oil after Saddam was caught without WMDs. Are we still arguing about this? 
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 15:11
We are arguing about the nature and course of the new "Great Game."  The ramifications of this have only recently been broadly realized.  It is like the iceberg....there is a lot more to it than we see.
 
 
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  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 15:12

Hello pike

Oh we have seen how the west benifited from the invasion, 5 pound/liter gas, runaway inflation and a possibility of total shutdown of major oil routs from the gulf in case Iran is attacked. Even if the US opened all the fields that are "supposed" to have oil like the arctic refuge and the continental shelf it will take years for that oil to reach markets and by that time oil would have doubled, tripled or even quaroupled in price and any excess oil will be effectiveless on the markets.

Already there is a deficit in production that even Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world with excess capacity, couldn't close. The continuing explosion in demand for oil will make the 15 million barrel a day that Saudi Arabia will produce by 2012 just not enough. Even if every oil field in Iraq is exploited, which won't happen, it won't be enough.
 
The war in Iraq had two goals and neither serv the interests of the US or the west, the first is to secure Israel by putting a force ready to intervene on its behalf if a war erupted between it and its neighbours, and war will erupt but this time because of water, see my thread in the geopolitical institute.
 
The second is to force the privitisation of oil and gas in Arab gulf countries for the benifit of US corporations. If this was done this will mean that the oil will be the ownership of these companies and those states will have to buy their oil from them or settle for a quota, like the Iraqi oil law says right now which was taylored by those corporations. After a couple of decades, and those contracts will be effictive for no less than 50 years which is by the way the average productive age of a well in Iraq and the rest of the gulf, not only there will be less oil produced but more oil consumed by the countries of origin, naturally they will want to get more oil from the wells on their lands but according to law they couldn't nd they will become in the 21st century with regard to oil what Iran was in the 19th with regard to wheat, a great producer and exporter of wheat yet suffering from a devastating famine.
 
AL-Jassas 
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 15:19
So we are rushing headlong into the abyss(?) 
 
If it won't be enough, you keep the motor running as long as it will run.  One or two more generations out is about all we can look at anyway.  Whatever happens after that will have to be dealt with by someone else....as those happenings always have been dealt with before.  You can't do more than you can do, and it doesn't matter who you are.
 
 
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  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 15:36
Hello Pike
 
Actually, governments around the world can do a lot of things to cool things down in the oil market and one of the most important of these is to spread a culture of effeciency on car manufacturers. Current technology can develope  cars that can go up to 60m/galon for gas and even more for diesel. Desiel a much more effecient substitute for oil is still under fire from the public and politicians despite the fact that current diesel engines are much more cleaner than before. Mass transit also can help redice the dependence on oil particularly trains which for an unknown reason to me aren't a popular choice in the US. In the long run however people must think out of the box, there are many possible alternatives for gas run vehicles most promising of which is the electric, not the hybrid, cars which are also underfire for god knows why. Also gas (not gasoline) run cars are a great possibilty since gas is abundant and will take centuries to deplete.
 
The US government spends billions of dolars in subsidies for failing companies like Haliburton and GM, companies which couldn't compete in the market place so they returned to ma government and the cons were more than happy to support them. Niether of the presidential candidates have even mentioned scietific research developement and support period let alone suggest increasing money spent on it. If the US government spent as much money on alternative fuel research as they spend on Iraq in a month the problem would have solved itself and everyone will be happy.
 
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 15:44
Right now, a lot of governments and their instrumentalities (Gazprom, etc.) are engineering the run-up in oil prices for their parochial profit.  Of course they are in good company with all the other speculators (oil companies, banks, energy exchanges) who are raking it in now.
 
Politics is in the way of all the semi-sociological solutions (new technologies; mass transit, etc.) you mention.  If the constituents don't want it, it will have to wait until they do.
 
 
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  Quote Ponce de Leon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 17:44
To be honest...I would rather have the Americans devise up this oil venture than Iran or Russia.
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 18:35
Originally posted by Ponce de Leon

To be honest...I would rather have the Americans devise up this oil venture than Iran or Russia.
 
It is in our interests to do it, so we are doing it.  Letting adversaries in on the deal is definitely not in our interests.  Allowing Iraqi resources to be dominated by others (Iran) is not in the interests of anyone else (EU, Saudi Arabia/Gulf states, India, Japan, OR China or Russia).
 
 
 
 


Edited by pikeshot1600 - 05-Jul-2008 at 18:41
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  Quote Zagros Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 19:37

But all of this will blow up in your face because (1) you have not and will never secure the resources there and (2) have bankrupted yourselves in the process. 



Edited by Zagros - 05-Jul-2008 at 19:38
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 19:39
Look, nobody really can disagree on the strategic aims of the US.
 
The fact it did'nt work too well and is now romeo charlie foxtrot, is another issue. Whose to blame, (I vote Franks and Dumsfeld) is another still.
 
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jul-2008 at 21:15
Whiskey tango foxtrot.....let's wait 10 or 20 years for the end game to play out.  It isn't over yet, and all those dire predictions of three or four years ago have not come true.
 
 
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  Quote Mughal e Azam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jul-2008 at 20:23
The only thing these wars will produce is fractured petty sovereignties fighting with each other for pairs of nothing.


Edited by Mughal e Azam - 06-Jul-2008 at 20:26
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  Quote Omar al Hashim Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Jul-2008 at 01:31
With sufficient motivation it is already possible to significantly reduce our dependency on oil. Hydrogen is already advanced enough to replace Petrol if the motivation was there. Indeed technologically we can run our cars on gunpowder.
In WW1 a blockaded Germany invented synthetic rubber. If they were blockaded again, with no source of oil, they'd be all hydrogen in a year.

The dependence on oil is an economic dependence, not an engineering one.


Edited by Omar al Hashim - 07-Jul-2008 at 01:32
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  Quote Kevin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Jul-2008 at 01:36
Originally posted by Sparten

Look, nobody really can disagree on the strategic aims of the US.
 

The fact it did'nt work too well and is now romeo charlie foxtrot, is another issue. Whose to blame, (I vote Franks and Dumsfeld) is another still.

 


I disagree also this issue was all about oil and resources.
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