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Iraq: Who Will Get the Oil?
Christian Parenti, The Nation
Iraq’s postwar oil bonanza remains a mirage. The country has the second- or third-largest reserves in the world, making petroleum the heart and vast bulk of its economy. Thus in March 2003 did Paul Wolfowitz assure Congress that Iraq would “finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” American planners predicted that Iraq’s oil production would triple to a feverish 6 million barrels per day by 2010.
Instead war, corruption, sectarian slaughter and a massive crime wave have reduced the country’s once mighty petroleum sector to an industrial zombie: still ambulatory, functional but essentially dead.
Despite this, oil majors and the International Monetary Fund have been pressuring Iraq to pass a thoroughly free-market hydrocarbons law that would allow foreign companies to make huge profits from Iraq’s petroleum. A draft of the law has just been released; the Iraqi Cabinet has approved it and sent it on to Iraq’s Parliament for debate and approval in March.
(1 March 2007)
Long article.
Cuba oil boom may complicate U.S. embargo
Jane Bussey, Miami Herald
As Cuba’s oil potential grows, a Canadian company has disclosed plans to export the island’s petroleum and set up a possible clash with the U.S. trade embargo.
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The discovery of oil in the Florida Straits and near the Cuban shoreline — potentially billions of barrels of reserves — has boosted Cuba’s energy prospects and drawn the attention of the U.S. oil industry.
Now, a small Canadian energy company, Sherritt International, says it plans to export Cuban oil for the first time — a move that could put the crude on a collision course with the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
Details are few, but questions about the move go to the heart of the embargo: Where will the oil be refined? And how could Sherritt International or subsequent handlers keep the Cuban crude out of fuel being exported to the United States?
The issues rise as the oil and gas industry turns its gaze to the prospect of oil drilling off Cuba — currently forbidden fruit for U.S. companies.
(2 March 2007)
Hugo Chávez exploits oil wealth to push IMF aside
Christopher Swann, Bloombergvia International Herald Tribune
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is using his country’s oil wealth to squeeze the International Monetary Fund out of Latin America, the region that once accounted for most of its business.
IMF lending in the region has fallen to $50 million, or less than 1 percent of its global portfolio, compared with 80 percent in 2005. Meanwhile, Chávez has used his oil wealth to lend $2.5 billion to Argentina, offer $1.5 billion to Bolivia and $500 million to Ecuador.
Chávez is promoting what he calls a “socialist” alternative to the Fund and its biggest shareholder, the U.S. Treasury. The timing could not be worse for the IMF, whose global clout is diminishing as countries from Uruguay to the Philippines pay their debts.
“Chávez is the No. 1 enemy of the IMF in the region,” said José Guerra, a former head of economic research at Venezuela’s central bank and now a professor at Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. “He views the IMF as an agent in the service of the U.S.” …
President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, elected in May 2003, said IMF policies had “devastated” his country, which defaulted on $95 billion of debt in 2001. “There is life after the IMF, and it’s a good life,” Kirchner said in Munich in April 2005.
(1 Mar 2007)
Also posted at Znet.
Rise of Nat’l Oil Cos Crimping Long-Term Crude Supply
John M. Biers, Dow Jones via Rigzone
The rising dominance of national oil companies has relegated the Western oil majors to “second-tier status” and could have a “substantial long-term impact on resource development,” according to a report to be released Thursday by researchers at Rice University.
The report, which notes national oil companies, or NOCs, now control more than 75% of global proved oil reserves, offers broad policy guidance to U.S. officials on navigating a global oil patch increasingly controlled by companies that view their socio-economic mission as equal to, or more important, than their commercial success. It will be released Thursday at a conference hosted by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice.
(1 March 2007)
Iran considers petrol rationing as UN sanctions loom
Staff, Euronews
Iran, OPEC’s second largest oil producer, is expected to start rationing petrol within the next month. The move would come as the international community is discussing what further sanctions to place on Iran for continuing to enrich uranium. The Iranian Parliament has just approved a petrol rationing bill. Although heavily subsidised, like many other basic goods in Iran, much of it has to be imported at market price because the country has a shortage of refineries.
The problem being discussed is how to ration it. An electronic ration card is one option. Raising petrol prices is another. It is presently only 9 cents a litre.
Inflation though is a major worry for President Ahmadinejad’s government, already blamed for soaring prices. He had promised his people that the revenue from Iran’s oil sales would be shared fairly, but with inflation running at 16 per cent, resentment is increasing.
(2 March 2007)
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