Oppose the Theft of Iraq's Oil

[Goku]

From Gitmo to Abu Ghraib, to Iraq to Afghanistan, from secret torture chambers to sending bombs to be dropped in Palestine and Lebanon, from blackmailing Pakistan with a nuclear attack to sanctions on Iran, and now this, trying to steal Iraq's oil, which account for 70% of Iraq's revenue, poor people die in Iraq so Bush and big oil corporations get richer, has there ever been more tyranny in modern days than by Usa under Bush?

The Iraqi Parliament will soon vote on a US-backed law that could hand too much oil revenue and control to foreign corporations.

A Sunni, Shia and Kurd Parliamentarian are planning to stand together and present this petition to the Iraqi Parliament. They want us to help them show that the world supports Iraq's right to its own oil and its own future. Sign below to help us reach 100,000 signatures before they present it.


A message to Iraqis from Citizens around the World:

We support the Iraqi people's sovereign right to the country's oil. We reject the pressure campaign led by the Bush Administration and multi-national oil companies to force Iraqis to adopt this draft Oil Law, which risks conceding extraordinary rights over revenue and production to foreign corporations.

Iraq's oil wealth should be shared fairly among all Iraqis to help them rebuild their country. We affirm the right and responsibility of Iraq's national parliament to take the final decisions on this matter, and call on the US President and Congress to respect Iraq's sovereignty. We stand in solidarity with Iraqi leaders who oppose this unwarranted foreign interference.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/iraq_oil_law/

[Dynasty]

At least Saddams Gone now.....

[Woodrow]

To be honest I can not think of any of the major oil corporations that would be willing to invest a single penny in Iraqi oil ventures. It would be far too costly to protect the equipment and move the oil. The only countries that may have the abilitie to make use of Iraqi oil are Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and Russia.

From the sounds of the oil market China will be the controling force for Iraqi oil.

Iraq, China to revive Saddam-era oil deal as Baghdad seeks investment
The Associated Press

Published: October 28, 2006
BEIJING China and Iraq are reviving a 1997 deal worth US$1.2 billion (€850 million) signed by Beijing and Saddam Hussein's government to develop an Iraqi oil field, Baghdad's oil minister said Saturday.

Officials will meet next month to renegotiate the agreement over the al-Ahdab field, said Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani. He was wrapping up a three-nation tour to secure investment to revive his country's oil industry.

"If agreement is reached very quickly then I expect them to start working right away," al-Shahristani said at a news conference.

China is the world's second-largest oil consumer and has been investing heavily in trying to secure access to foreign supplies.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. signed the al-Ahdab deal in the midst of U.N. sanctions that barred direct dealings with Iraq's oil industry. Beijing was waiting for sanctions to end when the U.S. invasion in 2003 overthrew Saddam's government.

The new Baghdad government courted Beijing because Chinese producers have been willing to invest in Angola, Sudan and other countries that are considered too dangerous or politically isolated.

All other energy contracts signed by foreign producers during the Saddam era also must be renegotiated after Iraqi lawmakers enact a new oil and gas law, which is likely to happen this year.

Beijing had been thought to be out of the running for major contracts in postwar Iraq, with the best deals going to the United States and its allies. But the upsurge in violence there has made the country less attractive to Western producers.

Al-Shahristani said al-Ahdab would be among the first fields offered to foreign bidders, which will need to show technical and financial capability and a proven record in producing oil.

Iraq will need up to US$20 billion (€14 billion) in investment to develop its oil infrastructure, the minister said.

Al-Shahristani met with Chinese energy officials and executives of the country's four biggest oil companies — CNPC, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., China National Offshore Oil Corp. and Sinochem Corp.

He said questions about security in Iraq didn't come up, because the fields that interest Chinese producers are in the south, where violence is minimal.

He said Iraq also wants to develop areas in its western desert and the Kurdish region in the north.


BEIJING China and Iraq are reviving a 1997 deal worth US$1.2 billion (€850 million) signed by Beijing and Saddam Hussein's government to develop an Iraqi oil field, Baghdad's oil minister said Saturday.

Officials will meet next month to renegotiate the agreement over the al-Ahdab field, said Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani. He was wrapping up a three-nation tour to secure investment to revive his country's oil industry.

"If agreement is reached very quickly then I expect them to start working right away," al-Shahristani said at a news conference.

China is the world's second-largest oil consumer and has been investing heavily in trying to secure access to foreign supplies.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. signed the al-Ahdab deal in the midst of U.N. sanctions that barred direct dealings with Iraq's oil industry. Beijing was waiting for sanctions to end when the U.S. invasion in 2003 overthrew Saddam's government.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/...a_Iraq_Oil.php

And Iraq's big oil contracts go to ...
Companies from China, India and other Asian nations are seen getting the first contracts. But don't write off Big Oil just yet.
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
April 5 2007: 1:42 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite claims by some critics that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to take control of its oil, the first contracts with major oil firms from Iraq's new government are likely to go not to U.S. companies, but rather to companies from China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

While Iraqi lawmakers struggle to pass an agreement on exactly who will award the contracts and how the revenue will be shared, experts say a draft version that passed the cabinet earlier this year will likely uphold agreements previously signed by those countries under Saddam Hussein's government.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/05/news..._oil/index.htm

[Woodrow]

From the looks of things the Western World will have no say over Iraq's oil. sounds like it is now a done deal with China.

China's New Oil Source: Iraq
By Frank J Gaffney Jr.
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 26, 2007

Communist China has done it again. Desperate for new sources of energy, the Chinese are moving into an oil-rich nation eschewed by others. In this case, however, the country in question is not a state-sponsor of terror or other pariah state. Rather, it is Iraq, a country the United States has gone to great lengths to make a member in good standing of the Free World – free, among other things, of the influence of those like PRC who had close ties to Saddam Hussein.

Yet now, according to the Financial Times, the Iraqi government last Friday “revived a contract signed by the Saddam Hussein administration allowing a state-owned Chinese oil company to develop an Iraqi oil field.” The deal to develop the al-Ahdab field in Iraq was signed with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in 1997 and was valued at the time to be worth $1.2 billion. What is more, the FT reported that Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani announced that “Baghdad welcomed Chinese oil company bids for any other contract in the country through a ‘fair and transparent bidding process’ to be laid out in the new oil law under discussion in Iraq’s parliament.”

Part of the impetus behind the free Iraqi government embracing CNPC – the PRC’s largest state-owned oil company and an instrument for its partnerships with the world’s most odious regimes – is a harsh reality: China is one of all too few investors who appreciate the strategic opportunities inherent in securing a foothold in Iraq today and are able to accept and mitigate the risks associated with doing business there.

Another consideration, however, has to do with the matter of Iraqi sovereign debt to Communist China dating from Saddam Hussein’s time and estimated to be worth as much as $10 billion. The PRC has insisted that the successor government in Baghdad is responsible for its predecessor’s liabilities.

Source: http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Art...e.asp?ID=28910

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[islamirama]

US Stealing Iraqi Oil

From Bush Admin insiders turned whistleblowers, Bush Admin documents leaked to British news, incl BBC News Investigation 3/17/05 "US Secret Plans for Iraq Oil", etc,etc etc, and now from 7/6/07 interviews on Democracy Now with an Iraqi general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions and the president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union in Iraq---We The People watch helplessly as the Bush Admin is now in the process of trying to legitimize stealing Iraqi oil. Iraqi oil is nationalized and protected under their 70-yr old Constitution, but the Bush Admin and US oil companies with the help of multinational oil companies are changing all that.

http://sf.broowaha.com/article.php?id=1966
-------------------

Secret US Plans for Iraq's Oil
By Greg Palast

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artm...ew.cgi/37/9704

[Woodrow]

US Stealing Iraqi Oil

From Bush Admin insiders turned whistleblowers, Bush Admin documents leaked to British news, incl BBC News Investigation 3/17/05 "US Secret Plans for Iraq Oil", etc,etc etc, and now from 7/6/07 interviews on Democracy Now with an Iraqi general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions and the president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union in Iraq---We The People watch helplessly as the Bush Admin is now in the process of trying to legitimize stealing Iraqi oil. Iraqi oil is nationalized and protected under their 70-yr old Constitution, but the Bush Admin and US oil companies with the help of multinational oil companies are changing all that.

http://sf.broowaha.com/article.php?id=1966
-------------------

Secret US Plans for Iraq's Oil
By Greg Palast

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artm...ew.cgi/37/9704

:w:

You do present a possible scenario.

However, I do not hear anything on the oil market that the "Big Seven" are making any plans to even consider Iraqi oil. The cost of transporting it is getting to be cost prohibitive, even if it were free oil. To add in the costs of needed equipment and security, it seems it would be a money loosing venture and the "Big Seven" are not known to invest in anything that carries risk.

It takes a long time to make an oil field productive and most oil companies see fresh developments as taking a minimum of 25 years to just return the original cost investment. It takes from 50 to 100 years before a field actually produces a satisfactory profit. About the only oil company that is making a reasonable profit from Mid Eastern oil is Aramco. The next largest oil company is Venezuela's Citgo, but I do not believe they have any interest in Iraqi oil.

I believe the remaining 5 of the "Big Seven" are now concentrating their investments on Canada, the oil Shale in Colorado and the development of petroleum alternatives. Petroleum alternatives seem to be coming out ahead as that is where the big money guys are investing.

[Dynasty]

These days oil is everything...

[Woodrow]

These days oil is everything...

:w:

Not as much as it has been. The more progressive Mid eastern nations are now placing there efforts into other sources. the handwriting is on the wall and the days of oil are rapidly coming to an end. We are finally coming to the realization that oil was only a temporary energy solution and if the world plans to stay at todays level alternative energy sources need to be found within the next 5 years.


The Current USA reserves are expected to last for 110 years (The United States has the largest known concentration of oil shale in the world, according to the Bureau of Land Management and holds an estimated 800 gigabarrels of recoverable oil, enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current levels for 110 years. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves) at current usage rates. However, most of the world will be without oil in 5 to 25 years. It does appear that China and Russia will become the largest consumers of Mideastern oil very soon and their combined rate of usage will deplete the Mideastern reserves very rapidly.

Some Chinese oil imports come from Kazakhstan, Venezuela, the Sudan, Russia, and Indonesia. These will no doubt continue, and increase. Nevertheless, a decade hence, the lion's share of China's energy imports will almost certainly come from one source: the major oil exporters of the Middle East. source: http://www.iags.org/sinosaudi.htm