Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:00:11 -0400
If you're going to protect criminals, and continue their practices, best to hire their legal team.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
Looks like China is going to get the contracts for the oil. The big oil companies want more money than Iraq is willing to pay per barrel of oil. Adds a new twist to why we went to war in Iraq.
The way I read it there was only ONE contract closed thus far and that was awarded to a consortium of BP (as in BRITISH Petroleum) with China National Petroleum... so it's a joint venture with the Brits on an equal footing with Chinese.
None of the natural gas fields have been spoken for yet either, which is becoming an increasingly important resource in the "resources to plunder" department. Otherwise known as "our interests" in foreign policy discussions. To confirm the importance of gas now, witness the geopolitics surrounding the latest gas pipelines plans...
Also, the Sinopec attempted buyout (of the Swiss Canadian firm Addax) hasn't gone through yet either-- so China is on hold for that one.
China will probably do well when it all comes out in the wash, as they say. They certainly seemed to gobble up enough African resources with aplomb! And are reputedly busy with Cuban offshore plans now as well.
Who'z yer Daddy?
On the upside.... given our cozy familial relations with them now as our principal debtors... maybe they'll offer us some sort of an "allowance" once they start pumping all that new oil & gas?
During the run up to the Iraq war, people used to ask me why Tony Blair would lend his more liberal cred to the misbegotten adventure and join himself at the hip with Bush on such an obvious blunder. I would simply say" "BP."
Yep!
"Misogyny,..is bullet-proof. It’s not merely tolerated, it’s openly celebrated ...Except for a puny consortium of bruised and contused blamers ...even the victims of this oppression embrace it."
It's pretty obvious "who'z our Daddy." We should get to subtract the cost of the whole frickin war from the tab China has for us. It's not really clear what exactly BP is going to get out of this. We just know it's the largest oil field. At least there was no mention of Halliburton having their fingers in that particular pie.
On the BBC the jury is in, the oil auction was a failure."BP and China's CNPC agreed to run the 17 billion barrel Rumaila field after Exxon Mobil turned it down." There wasn't a buyer for any of the other oil fields.
Barry
Our departure point is the present, our goal is the future... it is for us to determine.
We may be acting laissez-faire about oil for the cameras ... but with the world’s third largest oil reserves which last year earned nearly $62 billion... I guarantee you, we are right in there somewhere! :) We're currently building (the US Army Corps is) a humongous sea wall at Umm Qasr port south of Basra, on the Gulf, and updating the pipeline there - for the oil industry. Est. cost - $53 million. 70% of Iraq's oil exports go out through tankers in the Gulf there.
There have been other oil & gas contracts awarded earlier, but about 3 weeks ago the Iraqis complained LOUDLY about the plans to award so much of the spoils to foreign firms and they protested to the Oil Minister to dial back the rewards program.
Here's my homework on a handful of deals made. It's actually pretty interesting.
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Article in the Guardian, exactly one year ago today -June 30, 08- talking about the US & the Brits winning oil contracts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/30/iraq.oil
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Here's a big China oil contract won in August 2008
From Arab News
Iraq oil contract for Chinese firm
30 August 2008
THE significance of the success of China’s state-owned CNPC in winning the first big oil contract awarded by the Iraqi government is not yet clear. Some analysts believe the $3 billion 20-year deal to develop and run the Ahdab field in Wasit province, 100 miles south of Baghdad, is a worrying marker for Western oil majors jockeying for position to win other contracts to develop Iraq’s oil and gas fields
[...]
It is worth wondering if the US-led occupying powers encouraged the Nuri Al-Maliki government to strike the first oil deal with the Chinese, as a way of diverting attention away from the strong and justified international belief that Bush’s Iraq invasion was all about blood for oil with the “democratic freedoms” of Iraqis used as a smokescreen.
;)
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=113588&d=30&m=8&y=2008
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A few months later in the Guardian; Gas rights in Iraq contracted to Shell
Sept 24 2008
Shell's $4bn Iraq breakthrough could boost Britain's natural gas supplies
· Critics question secrecy surrounding joint venture
· Oil firm says cheaper fuel will aid local economyShell has become the first western oil company to win significant access to the energy sector in Iraq since the 1970s, in a $4bn move which could bring liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Britain.
The deal has angered anti-war campaigners and senior Iraqi figures who complained yesterday that there was no competitive tendering for the contract.
"Iraq has one of the world's largest natural gas resource bases and I am delighted that the Iraqi government, including the ministry of oil, have supported Shell as the partner for joint venture with the South Gas Company," said Linda Cook, executive director of Shell.
The company will own 49% of the new Iraqi business which will collect some of the 700m cubic feet a day of gas produced by oil suppliers and "flared off" into the atmosphere - a practice condemned by environmentalists as contributing to global warming.
** PSShell's annual earnings for 2007 were reportedly just under $30 Billion US
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At the same time, there is electricity related contracting, w/Americans winning big - Wind turbines of all things! In oil rich Iraq....
SEPT 2008
DUBAI, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Iraq has signed preliminary deals worth billions of dollars with General Electric (GE.N) (as in MSNBC) and Siemens for equipment to almost double electricity generation capacity, a top energy official said on Saturday.
Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this month for General Electric to supply turbines to generate 6,800 megawatts of power, Iraq's Electricity Minister Karim Waheed told Reuters. He declined to say how much Iraq would pay GE for the equipment, but said that each megawatt would cost between $700,000 and $800,000. That would give a value of between $4.8 billion and $5.4 billion.
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FEB 2009
Then Shell takes on a Japanese partner in the gas deal.....
A natural gas deal in the works between Shell and the state-run South Gas Co. will now include Mitsubishi and the Oil Ministry is urging the deal be finalized soon.
An initial agreement between the companies – called a Heads of Agreement, or HoA – signed mid-September, left many questions to be answered about the deal.
Then controversy swarmed after it was revealed that the HoA could lead to Shell getting access and sole rights to a virtual monopoly of the country’s gas sector for 25 years.
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In the meantime the Kurdistan region has also signed a bunch of foreign oil deals, but details are very hush hush as companies signing with them will be 'punished' by the Iraq Oil minister and unable to bid for theirs...
The KRG has signed around 20 contracts with international oil companies for the development of oil and gas fields in the Kurdish-controlled region of northern Iraq, in defiance of objections from the Baghdad government.
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Funny Factoid: The Iraq Oil Ministry spokesman has the dubious distinction of being named "Assem Jihad"! :)
Yea, but those were just the preliminary hearings. :)
The interesting point about your list is that only the GE turbine contract is with a US company and even that is shared with Europeans. I hope the Iraqi people get some electricity out of the deal at least.
Barry
Our departure point is the present, our goal is the future... it is for us to determine.
They've been without any consistent power on and off for so long now. I go crazy when my internet goes down for 15 minutes (like today)...
As for contracts, it's early still, but so far, we got the pipeline, the port, the General Electric contract, we don't know the details yet on the Kurd contracts... Top secret still. And you didn't read the first Guardian article titled - "British & US Companies Win Iraq Oil Contracts" - listing Mobil, Chevron and Total?
It may only amount to $5 billion or so but China only got the $3 billion dollar 20-yr deal...so I'd say they need to hustle some more. ;)
Or maybe our Iraqi proceeds will just be collected by China anyways as part of a timely debt paydown installment plan?
1. The way to lower health care costs is to give companies that have increased health care costs even more money: As Olympia Snowe and many others have articulated, the problem with a public option is that it lowers the cost of health insurance rather than increasing the amount of money private health insurers generate in revenue. While one would think that the purpose of health care reform legislation is to lower the price of health insurance, it appears that for many the purpose is actually to make sure that the companies ratcheting up health care costs receive even more money from the process (ie, through mandates to buy their over-priced insurance and no lower priced, public option).2. The way to fix climate change is to give the companies that are the main cause of climate change even more money: As Collin Peterson and Claire McCaskill have articulated, the problem with climate change legislation is that it doesn't give enough money to the energy and agricultural conglomerates that are primarily responsible for global warming.
3. The way to fix the financial crisis is to give the financial institutions that caused the financial crisis even more money: This one is pretty straightforward and has been covered extensively. From the Wall Street bailout program itself, to making sure that Congress doesn't pass laws restricting executive bonuses out fear that financial institutions won't take our money, the government's solution to fixing the financial crisis is to give the people and companies that caused the financial crisis even more money. The progressive alternative, temporary nationalization, should be opposed because it wouldn't make enough money for shareholders.
If only the Dems were in charge. /snark
"Misogyny,..is bullet-proof. It’s not merely tolerated, it’s openly celebrated ...Except for a puny consortium of bruised and contused blamers ...even the victims of this oppression embrace it."
Just now (2:17 p.m. EDT), breaking news on CNN. Nothing yet at CNN.com.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark: "We're no better than our own sense of humility."
Just saw that on the BBC, finally! Good thing he ran for a 6 year Senate term and not a 2 year House term. :)
Barry
Our departure point is the present, our goal is the future... it is for us to determine.
A True Blue Democrat in the Senate??
Whooo Hooo!!!!
Pretty soon we might get to be the Majority Party again!!! WhooHoo!
Huh...What?
Oh.
That's right.
I forgot...
I hope the long battle with Coleman has prepared him for the fight of his life-- with the "Democrats".
Getting a veto proof majority. I'm not saying we can count on Specter for one of those, but with Franken there I have to say, if we don't get a good climate/energy law and a good healthcare law, I blame Obama for being a guy who wants everyone to like him and making it all about himself for 2012. I didn't bust my chops for all these years to have it all go down the drain, because we have a POTUS who wants to be liked even more than Bill Clinton wanted to be liked. Axelrod is just going to have to suck-it-up and realize it's about running a country, not selling a product.
Not hardly, with the likes of Spector, Ben Nelson, Landreiu, Pryor and yes, Lincoln, posing as Democrats.
has his work cut out for him, doesn't he? If Stan is correct that it takes 67 votes to override a veto, I stand corrected. Being able to keep Lindsay Graham from threatening to fillibuster counts for something. All those people you just mentioned better really think before they go against the party or they will be very visible and feeling the heat.
To get to 60, you have to include the 58 Democrats and the two independents who caucus with the Democrats: Sanders and Lieberman.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark: "We're no better than our own sense of humility."
With Democrats like those, who needs Republicans??
(at Lieberman doesn't call himself a Democrat...say it ain't so, Stan).
A correction: The sixty number has to do with stopping a filibuster, not being veto-proof. Overriding a veto takes 67 votes. However, with a (quasi-) Democrat in the White House, overriding a veto shouldn't be necessary.
But I predict that the Dems will never have the 60 votes to stop a filibuster--not in this Congress. Two senators are out ill most of the time, and as we painfully know, there are some ten or so (supposedly) Democrats on whom we can't count.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark: "We're no better than our own sense of humility."
That slimy Coleman sure wasted a whole lot of money and time for a whole lot of people. Weenie. Congrats to Frankin! I hope he proves to be a stick-to-it liberal! I donated to the dollar a day to make Norm go away thingy -- but only for 14 days. LOL!!
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
Just found this little ditty from last year, June, 2008.
From the Iraq Oil Report with commentary in blue!:
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JUNE 2008
The US is holding hostage some $50 billion dollars of Iraq’s money to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to Patrick Cockburn reports for The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20 billion in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal.
The part I never knew--->All of Iraq’s funds in 2003, as well as funds seized from the previous regime, and all subsequent revenue – most of which is from oil – are held in an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, per U.N. mandate and U.S. presidential decree.
How come I didn't know this?! That means it was under the purview of Timmy Geithner who was named President of the Fed NY Oct 2003 until 2009... ?
This not only lends transparency mechanisms,(ha!) :) but prevents pre-2003 creditors and those awarded damages by court from taking hold of the money.
Iraq’s budget is paid via transfer of those funds to the Ministry of Finance’s account in the Central Bank of Iraq. Which means it then had to pass through the BIS -Bank of International Settlements - in Switzerland; the Central Bank to all the Central Banks. Where Tim Geitner and Bernanke both sit as the only Americans on the select Board of Directors.
We tend to think of the Fed-sters as being apart from issues like the Iraq budget or the war or the confiscated funds from the countries we invade... Interesting. Did anybody know this?
...in the roles Geithner and Bernanke played, I don't see it. The UN and President Bush ordered the system, and it appears that the Fed under Geithner merely were the custodians, and BIS/Bernanke merely conduits for the transfers.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark: "We're no better than our own sense of humility."
http://www.openleft.com/viewQuickHits.do#9673