Iraq Cancels Six No-Bid Oil Contracts

New York Times:

An Iraqi plan to award six no-bid contracts to Western oil companies, which came under sharp criticism from several United States senators this summer, has been withdrawn, participants in the negotiations said on Wednesday.

Iraq's oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, told reporters at an OPEC summit meeting in Vienna on Tuesday that talks with Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, Total, BP and several smaller companies for one-year deals, which were announced in June and subsequently delayed, had dragged on for so long that the companies could not no

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Daly]

while the USA was busy spending and killing to take over another countries oil; nations have been coming together to build alliances that will leave us butt out.

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3870.aspx

America cries about the outrage of abortions or not while saudi's build an entire world on water out of sand.

we are being left behind in every possible way

[Bobrobert]

roflmao

War for oil - seems it may have taken a bad turn for Bush and Chaney.

[Rule Of Law]

Associated Press
September 11, 2008

Speculation by large investors, and not supply and demand for oil, was a primary reason for the surge in oil prices during the first half of the year and the more recent price declines, an independent study said Wednesday.

The report by Masters Capital Management said investors poured $60 billion into oil futures markets during the first five months of the year as oil prices soared from $95 a barrel in January to more than $147 a barrel by July.

Since then, the investors have withdrawn $39 billion from those markets as prices have retreated dramatically, the report said.

"We have clear evidence the fund flow pushed prices up, and the fund flow pushed prices down," said Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management.

The report was released Wednesday by House and Senate sponsors of bills to put additional curbs on oil market speculation and comes in advance of a report on oil market speculation expected possibly this week by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates commodity markets.

[JoeBlough]

It would seem the Iraqi's are wiseing up to our plots. Not good for us.

[NicoleAnon]

Does anyone here know how to unregister from this place so they don't have your email anymore?

[JBS]

Edit your profile.

[joebaggadonuts]

Heck of a Job, Brownie.

[eugenegerard]

One trillion dollars, 100,000 plus dead Iraqis, 2 million Iraqis rooted from their homes, 60,000 plus maimed GIs, 4,400 dead GIs and the Iraqi government just crammed the reason for the war up the ass of the neo-cons that started it. The surge worked.

[dlbdpb]

Gee, I can't help but feel "so sorry" for these giant companies, maybe now they'll have an idea how it feels to be "manipulated" by the "oil industry". Maybe Iraq will do to this country what we have done to them. I hope Iraq will say NO to all these giants, then maybe, just maybe, we'll get off our duffs and find the alternative energy that we need so badly for this country and world to survive.

[TrooAmerican]

Dude, even the commanders and the troops on the ground know that the surge could not have worked if, the sunni tribes hadnt already decided to stop working with Al Quaida to attack americans, and began to help get rid of them.
Nor without the Mahdi army being told to stand down for 2 6 month stints
nor wihtout the Mahdi army having completed its unholy quest to ethnically cleanse areas around their strongholds of sunnis.

And mcCainBush says it a success that we have to leave more troops in Iraq than before the surge?
okaaay?

[Daly]

write on

nuance is not something that Mc can recognize

[isis]

Perhaps "we" had a rather simplistic view of what would happen when Saddam was gone.

[Chavez08]

Those pushing for the invasion knew what they were doing. Neoliberals have a very concise mission statement:

- Corporations exploit global, unfettered trade routes
- Corporations exploit direct, unchallenged access to all necessary global resources.
- Corporations exploit all labor equally. Lives of human labor sustained only enough to maintain productivity for massive profit. Once a human laborer is no longer productive or weak, make them disappear.

Saddam wanted a bigger piece of the pie than banker plutocrats were willing to give, that's the only reason for the invasion. If Saddam gave in and let them have anything they wanted, they would have let him continue to rape and murder at will for decades. Bottom line, he wasn't a desirable Neoliberal puppet.

[Dynamohum]

Neo liberal? Explain please!! Maybe neocon. Maybe a mistake?

[Durango]

I think Neo-Colonialist or Neo-Imperialist is a much better term.

Cheney predicted exactly what would happen. Back in 1994 (or so)

[Daly]

"WE" picked Saddam & BLadin too - wonder why all our picks are pucked we keep doing the same thing, getting the same results and voting for more of the same.

honestly the picks have cottoned on; Al Maliki knows that every USA supported guy ends up pucked.

there is a long list of American selecting other country's leaders and next thing you know - pucked.

[JBS]

You might find Chalmer's Johnson's "Blowback" interesting reading.

[RoloTomassi]

Now, let's see if they have the balls to nationalize their oil...but...jeez, isn't that what Qasim intneded to do in 1963 when the US & Britain decided that he had to go? So what if he was a democratic minded leader trying to shore up the oil wealth of his country, US & British oil companies were losing business, and what could be more important than that?

It would only be a matter of time before US officials would be frantiacally searching for excuses to force the current government to dissolve, so they could install a puppet regime that would follow orders....

Indeed, the GOPers are right, the surge is working...but in the bigger picture, it isn't working out the way they had planned. Pretty soon these Iraqis might get "uppity" enough to TELL us to leave, rather than asking kindly.

[Durango]

A couple points:

Unless I am badly mistaken Iraq long ago nationalized their oil. What the US seeks, and these contracts would have done, is to de-nationalize it. That is not going to happen (see above). Any and all Iraqi's are sophisticated enough to know the oil belongs to them. If they try and give it to the oil companies they will end up like the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as Said: Hanging from a lampost in Baghdad.

The current government is a US puppet. But you can see the conflicts. The one certain way to gain or maintain power is to go after the foreign occupiers.

Maliki has to be very careful while there are vast numbers of American troops in country. But you can bet he would like nothing better than to see the backs of the Americans.

[mjt218]

"The no-bid deals are structured as service contracts. The companies will be paid for their work, rather than offered a license to the oil deposits."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?pagewanted=2&sq=oil%20no%20bid%20contracts%20iraq&st=cse&scp=2

These contracts were for supplying technical expertise to assist Iraqi national oil companies. The oil companies were probably hoping that by assisting the oil ministry over a length of time, that they would then be a better position for bidding for rights to physically lease oil reserves and make money through production sharing.

[RoloTomassi]

Thanks for the info; I stand corrected. I know that Qasim atempting to nationalize it back in 1963 was a major factor in all that came after. That said, I sincerely doubt that the US had any intention of leaving Iraq with a nationalized oil scenario, and I would think that a few folks--both in government and in the six oil companies involved--are scrambling to find a way get back into the Iraqi oil mix.

[JBS]

"The current government is a US puppet."

Correction: The current government is:

1 ... an Iranian puppet INSTALLED by a U.S. administration too stupid to understand the implication that "democracy" = majority rule in a country where 60 to 65% of the population are co-religionists of the mullahs in Iran, suppressed under Saddam's regime.

Further complicating things, the Shia NOW in power are neither ignorant of, nor likely to forget just HOW Saddam gained power in the first place, and who greased his way there.

2 ... a government that is only subservient to the current U.S. administration in proportion to the strength of force U.S. troops remaining in Iraq can bring to bear.

3 ... headed for a fall if/when U.S. military force is no longer there to provide a buffer between the current Shia majority and the dispossessed Sunni minority.

The current "stability" is only due to that Sunni minority thinking they can get better conditions by cooperating with the U.S.

There are already signs the Sunni "Awakening" cooperation with U.S. forces that accounts for the "surge success" is falling apart as the Shia dominated government takes over more and more of the functions provided by U.S., and the Sunnis find themselves once again on the short end of the payback stick.

THAT conflict is likely to result in a government even LESS friendly to the U.S., whoever triumphs in the end.

[Chavez08]

That's OK! I'm sure the Republicans are happy enough having removed that evil dictator that mass murdered his own people (with Washington delivered weapons). After all, isn't that why the banker oligarchs invaded and subsequently collapsed the U.S. in the first place?

Capitalism Rocks!!!

[MajorKong]

Silly Iraqis! Acting like they're a sovereign nation or something.

[poco767c]

The surge just failed eh?

[JAB20]

Good for Iraq. We fought this war for oil. We should leave. They should become sovereign and make their own choices about what to do with their own oil. We should be promoting alternative energy to get us off of our dependence on foreign oil first, and then finally, all oil to run vehicles. We should have been doing that long ago. One of the hallmarks of the GWB administration is greater dependence on foreign oil. John McBush will do the same.