| Despite any talk of a pullout, will the US really leave Iraq? Iraq has the biggest US embassy in the world, US military bases are scattered all over Iraq where US forces could retreat to and be used when needed, and as Dick Cheney said regarded the need to secure Middle Eastern oil as long back as 1999: "while even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow." That's anxious for greater access to what many in the industry believe will be the greatest supply of the lightest, sweetest, most profitable crude oil on earth. Iraq's oil.
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... "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, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
- Dick Cheney, then Halliburton CEO, 1999 |
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Iraq is sitting on a mother lode of some of the lightest, sweetest, most profitable crude oil on earth, and the rules that will determine who will control it and on what terms are about to be set.
The Iraqi government faces a December deadline, imposed by the world's wealthiest countries, to complete its final oil law. Industry analysts expect that the result will be a radical departure from the laws governing the country's oil-rich neighbors, giving foreign multinationals a much higher rate of return than with other major oil producers and locking in their control over what George Bush called Iraq's "patrimony" for decades, regardless of what kind of policies future elected governments might want to pursue.
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, 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.
http://www.informationclearinghouse...rticle15337.htm |
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