Iraqis say NO to profit sharing with big oil

The Iraqi oil ministry says big oil companies are dragging their feet about finalizing short term contracts because they want part of the profits of the oil, not just service contracts. It's a little like your gardener demanding you put his name on the deed to your house in exchange for mowing your lawn.

The Iraqis aren't stupid about this and said no.

Profit sharing is what the big oil companies demanded in the Hydrocarbon Law too, but the Iraqis are unlikely to ratify it with that in, given their hard line here.

It would be ironic if after a three trillion dollar war, over four thousand US soldiers dead, and over a million Iraqis dead, the oil companies got the same deal they would likely have gotten before the war.

Ironically, it is likely that the Iraqis are more eager to ramp up production than the major big oil companies. Before the war, Oil & Gas Journal said they were concerned that once the sanctions came off Iraq, they would pump too much and drive prices down. They would probably prefer to be in the driver's seat so they could set the pace to pad their profits rather than help out the Iraqis--or us.

KEY EXCERPTS:








Monday, June 30, 2008

Iraq offers oil contracts

Hussein al-Shahristani, the oil minister, told a news conference that the deals had not yet been concluded as the companies wanted a share of the profits.

"We did not finalise any agreement with them because they refused to offer consultancy based on fees as they wanted a share of the oil," he said.

Shahristani stressed that Iraq needed the services of experienced companies to realise the potential of its reserves but added that it was not ready to do so at any price.

"It is not possible for Iraq which has large oil reserves to stay at the current level of production. Iraq should be the second or the third source of oil exportation," the minister said.

"We went to these global companies and asked them to offer us consultancy but they will have no privileges or will not get a share of oil."

FULL TEXT

OIL THEFT MOTIVE FOR IRAQ WAR resources

UPDATE: Greg Muttitt at Hands Off Iraqi Oil has a less optimistic and more knowledge opinion of the current contract negotiations.

SEN. Kerry & Schumer want Iraq oil contracts stopped until Oil Theft Law is in place

Either these guys are retarded or they are corrupt with solid brass balls.

The Iraqis are holding up the Hydrocarbon Law not because of the division of income between Iraqi ethnic groups but because of the paltry share of their own oil revenue the US drafted law gives all Iraqis compared (12%) compared to the big oil companies. Other countries with easily accessible oil wouldn't accept terms like that unless they had a gun to their head. Iraq does, and their parliament still won't sign, knowing they could never walk among their own people and live if they did.

Iraqi oil workers, scholars, former bureaucrats, and even average Iraqis oppose the corporate domination model imposed by the law.

By contrast, the short term contracts recently awarded were service contracts which means they are doing a job for the Iraqis, not sharing in the profits. That is the way it should be. That is the way it should be HERE.

The oil companies are parasites, sucking the wealth from under our land as well, giving us next to nothing for it, and then demanding tax breaks and wars to seize more oil fields.

I agree with that climate scientist who said the oil company execs should be tried for crimes against humanity. What they have done to us and the Iraqis and are still trying to do to the Iraqis should be added to the indictment.

John Kerry and Chuck Schumer should either do their homework and stand up for the Iraqis against big oil, which might reduce resentment toward our troops and save some lives, or they should sit down down and shut the fuck up. They could even retire early and go collect their seven figure salaries sitting on boards of directors of oil companies like Sann Nunn, and others who leave ''public service'' which should more appropriately be called ''public servicing the rich.''

The Democrats are better than the Republicans, but only when graded on a curve, and not when they shamelessly pistol-whip Iraq like a robber mad at his victim for not getting the money out of his pockets fast enough.

KEY EXCERPTS:

Senators seek to block Iraq oil contracts
Sens. Schumer and Kerry appeal to Bush administration to stop no-bid deals with big companies until equal royalty distribution is guaranteed.


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two U.S. senators asked the Bush administration Tuesday to stop the Iraqi government from signing imminent no-bid contracts with several U.S. and European oil companies, expressing concern about the distribution of royalties from the deal.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing concerns about a contract that the Iraqi government is preparing to sign with Exxon Mobil Corp., (XOM, Fortune 500) Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), Total SA (TOT), Chevron Corp (CVX, Fortune 500)., BP (BP) and other companies. The contract would let those companies develop Iraq's largest oil fields.

The senators, who released the letter, said they are worried that unfair distribution of oil revenue could inflame the violence between the warring religious and political groups of Iraq.

"We urge you to persuade the to refrain from signing contracts with multinational oil companies until a hydrocarbon law is in effect in Iraq," read the letter from Schumer and Kerry.

FULL TEXT

BACKGROUND ON THE OIL THEFT LAW

Iraq War to keep oil prices HIGH

Iraq War happy ending in sight: Iraqis keep oil, Bush & cronies get nothing

Despite hundreds of thousands of dead, and their country salted with depleted uranium, the Iraqis may yet take control of their democracy and natural resources--IN SPITE of Bush, not because of him.

From before the start of the war, the Bush administration planned to privatize and sell off everything in Iraq to their cronies at bargain basement prices, especially the oil.

The Bushies one mistake is they thought the Iraqis are as stupid as the average Fox News viewer, and would believe whatever hatful of shit propaganda he dished out, and if they didn't, they could scare the Iraqis into obedience by picking up people at random and torturing and raping them at Abu Ghraib.

The Iraqis knew why Bush was there though, and even after Bush vetoed their choice for prime minister and approved his replacement and then threatened him with firing, the Iraqis refused to sign away their oil wealth to Bush's corporate cronies.

If the Iraqis are successful in hanging onto their oil, it might just shave a few years off the hatred Bush has earned for us. But it won't bring back the grandmothers and babies crushed in rubble or the arms burned off a boy in the initial and on-going shock and awe air strikes.

KEY EXCERPTS:

Tomgram: Jack Miles, Baghdad to Bush: You Have 14 Months

By December 31, 2008, according to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, the government of Iraq intends to have replaced the existing mandate for a multinational security force with a conventional bilateral security agreement with the United States, an agreement of the sort that Washington has with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and several other countries in the Middle East. The Security Council has always paired the annual renewal of its mandate for the multinational force with the renewal of a second mandate for the management of Iraqi oil revenues. This happens through the "Development Fund for Iraq," a kind of escrow account set up by the occupying powers after the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime and recognized in 2003 by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483. The oil game will be up if and when Iraq announces that this mandate, too, will be terminated at a date certain in favor of resource-development agreements that -- like the envisioned security agreement -- match those of other states in the region.

The game will be up because, as Antonia Juhasz pointed out last March in a New York Times op-ed, "Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?":

"Iraq's neighbors Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia…. have outlawed foreign control over oil development. They all hire international oil companies as contractors to provide specific services as needed, for a limited duration, and without giving the foreign company any direct interest in the oil produced."

By contrast, the oil legislation now pending in the Iraqi parliament awards foreign oil companies coveted, long-term, 20-35 year contracts of just the sort that neighboring oil-producers have rejected for decades. It also places the Iraqi oil industry under the control of an appointed body that would include representatives of international oil companies as full voting members.

The news that the duly elected government of Iraq is exercising its limited sovereignty to set a date for termination of the American occupation radically undercuts all discussion in Congress or by American presidential candidates of how soon the U.S. occupation of Iraq may "safely" end. Yet if, by the same route, Iraq were to resume full and independent control over the world's third-largest proven oil reserves -- 200 to 300 million barrels of light crude worth as much as $30 trillion at today's prices -- a politically incorrect question might break rudely out of the Internet universe and into the mainstream media world, into, that is, the open: Has the Iraq war been an oil war from the outset?

***

Clearly, some in Washington still think so. Shortly before the collapse of the Iraqi oil legislation effort, Bush's Commerce Department began quietly advertising for an Arabic-speaking legal advisor to help it in "providing technical assistance to Iraq to create a legal and tax environment conducive to domestic and foreign investment in Iraq's key economic sectors, starting with the mineral resources sector." (Read: starting with oil.) As it happens, the job description overlaps heavily with that of the Development Fund for Iraq's existing International Advisory and Monitoring Board, whose responsibility, according to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483, has been to see to it "that all export sales of petroleum, petroleum products, and natural gas from Iraq…. shall be made consistent with prevailing international marketing best practices." Is the Commerce Department already planning for the demise of this board? Like the super-embassy and the super-bases, this bit of Commerce Department staffing-up bespeaks the urge to continue an invasive American presence in Iraq, including Iraq's energy sector, long after December 31, 2008.

But if the occupation is shut down legally after that date and if Iraqi control over Iraqi oil reverts -- legally, at least -- to something close to pre-war status, that Commerce Department expert may find him or herself playing a less-than-major role in Baghdad. Instead, expect a new role for Iraq's hitherto excluded pool of domestic expertise. The Iraq National Oil Company began operations back in 1961; its legacy includes a skilled work force of trained oil workers. Notable, in fact, among those opposed to the failed oil legislation is the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions. Its members object to provisions in the legislation that permit the hiring of foreign oil workers rather than Iraqis and -- in classic Bush Administration fashion -- exclude the union from any participation in contract negotiations. The Federation's protests have attracted a letter of support signed by six Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

FULL TEXT

MORE IRAQ OIL THEFT RESOURCES

Iraq oil law NOT theft for big oil says Bushie Khalilzad, former big oil consultant

Zalmay Khalizad, Bush's former ambassador to Iraq who was a consultant to Unocal on the trans-Afghanistan pipeline claims a Washington Post article about Iraq's Hydrocarbon Law was wrong to say Iraqis oppose it or that it is designed to give Iraq's TENS OF TRILLIONS in oil income to Bush's big oil cronies who are also his former employers.

Khalizad wrote this in a letter to the Washington Post to protest an article that, rather just repeating the White House talking points about the law dividing Iraq's oil profits between various ethnic groups, had the gall to cite Iraqis who opposed it because it gives away the bulk of their oil income to transnational oil companies like Exxon, Chevron, ConnocoPhillips, BP, and Shell.

Khalizad reminds us that neocons really went to Iraq to do charity work and spread democracy not kill people and pry the fillings from their teeth like they do everywhere else, saying:

...the article did not critically examine misplaced accusations that the oil law was designed to enable Americans to take control of these resources. Iraqi leaders themselves sought to enable international investment in this sector because they understood the inefficiency of Iraq's past statist and overcentralized policies.

CONTEXT

See? Isn't it nice how concerned they are for the business efficiency of Iraq? Isn't that what business people do? Spend half a trillion dollars to show someone else how to run their business more efficiently with no thought of profit for themselves?

I guess that's why Bush had to threaten to throw Iraq's Prime Minister Maliki over the wall of the Green Zone if the Hydrocarbon Law didn't pass, why oil workers have threatened to mutiny if it does, and five Nobel laureates have banded together to oppose the law. They all just don't know what is good for Iraq.

EXCERPTS THAT PROBABLY PISSED KHALIZAD OFF IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

Missteps and Mistrust Mark the Push for Legislation

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 5, 2007; A12

excerpts

"This was a very bad move by the Americans to push for this law," said Issam al-Chalabi, a former oil minister. "Now it looks like . . . the Americans are after oil -- they will bring their Exxons and Chevrons and they will control our oil again."

snip

Meanwhile, bitterness was rising from many factions -- unions in the oil-rich port city of Basra, petroleum industry experts, Sunni politicians and those loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- that the law would allow foreign companies to make off with Iraq's oil wealth. A group of 419 Iraqi academics, engineers and oil industry experts would later sign an open letter to parliament stating that "it is clear that the government is trying to implement one of the demands of the American occupation."

The draft oil law, the letter stated, "lays the foundation for a fresh plundering of Iraq's strategic wealth and its squandering by foreigners, backed by those coveting power in the regions, and by gangs of thieves and pillagers."

MORE ON IRAQI OPPOSITION TO OIL LAW

Obviously, the Washington Post article put the neocons in a panic because if they had been thinking clearly they would have realized Khalizad's protest drew MORE attention to their lies and machinations about Iraq's oil not less.

If the Democrats were serious about ending the war and representing the people who voted for them, they would stop talking about the lies that got us into Iraq and whether or not we are succeeding at creating a stable, Democratic Iraq, a propaganda frame which no one in DC gives a crap about, and few outside of DC are fooled into believing they do.

Instead, they should start talking about whether wrestling the oil profits from Iraqis only to give them to transnational corporations will increase hatred of and terrorism toward the US, and what exactly average Americans get in return for our investment of tax dollars and blood to give Iraq's oil to those companies.

If consistently and repeatedly talked about that instead of the embarrassing, patronizing, childish way they and the Bushies talk to us about Iraq now, the war would be over in short order, and Bush, Cheney, and a lot of oil execs would be doing research on how to remove tar and feathers.

OIL THEFT MOTIVE FOR IRAQ WAR

WaPo admits why Iraqis oppose Bush's oil law: it gives away the store to Big Oil

The Washington Post acknowledged the bulk of Iraqi opposition to oil law Bush is forcing on them. Their reluctance has little to do with dividing the income between ethnic groups, and a lot to do with how much of oil wealth Bush's cronies get to take out of the country--far more than from other oil rich countries like Saudi, Kuwait, or Iran.

The remainder of the story was about wrangling between Baghdad and Kurds, who are more worried about losing their oil income to a central government than to oil companies -- at least according this article. A slightly different perspective on Kurdish opinion follows the article excerpts.

EXCERPTS:

Missteps and Mistrust Mark the Push for Legislation

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 5, 2007; A12

excerpts
"This was a very bad move by the Americans to push for this law," said Issam al-Chalabi, a former oil minister. "Now it looks like . . . the Americans are after oil -- they will bring their Exxons and Chevrons and they will control our oil again."

snip

Meanwhile, bitterness was rising from many factions -- unions in the oil-rich port city of Basra, petroleum industry experts, Sunni politicians and those loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- that the law would allow foreign companies to make off with Iraq's oil wealth. A group of 419 Iraqi academics, engineers and oil industry experts would later sign an open letter to parliament stating that "it is clear that the government is trying to implement one of the demands of the American occupation."

The draft oil law, the letter stated, "lays the foundation for a fresh plundering of Iraq's strategic wealth and its squandering by foreigners, backed by those coveting power in the regions, and by gangs of thieves and pillagers."

snip

The Kurds worried that this central control would limit foreign investment in the oil sector, precluding a rapid boost in oil production and revenue for Iraqis, including themselves. Hawrami wrote after the meeting that the annexes and conference presenters "send a clear message: Iraq is closed for business."

FULL TEXT

Oddly, the article leaves the impression that the Kurds objections to the Hydrocarbon Law are primarily about being ripped off by the Sunnis and Shia in the central government, but a poll of Iraqis on the main issue of the oil law, foreign versus state control of their oil showed that like the other ethnic groups, Kurds opposed foreign control albeit by a slimmer margin.

More on this poll

This article could be an encouraging sign. Reading the tea leaves, if the DC elite are forced to admit part of the reality opposition to the oil law, it may mean they are about to give up and want to make that capitulation look like a righteous bowing to the will of the Iraqi people rather than a failure to impose order as the childish Bush narrative says.

IRAQ OIL THEFT RESOURCES

POLL CHARTS: Iraqis don't want to give OIL WEALTH to Bush cronies

Not surprisingly, a recent poll of Iraqis commissioned by Oil Change and other groups found that they know their oil income could provide a decent living for their people.

Iraqis would also prefer that their national oil company develop their oil NOT transnational oil companies, which directly contradicts the intent of the Bush-backed Hydrocarbon Law which will give up to 80% of Iraq's oil income to companies like Chevron, Exxon, and Shell.

Iraqis also said they don't haven't heard enough about Bush's oil law to feel informed on it--sounds a lot like the Patriot Act and just about everything else the Bushies force on us with as little debate and scrutiny as they can get away with.

If we were even remotely interested in teaching the Iraqis democracy, Washington, DC would be talking about the results of this poll. But they don't because as Huffpost blogger Robert Naiman said:

If supporters of continuing the indefinite U.S. occupation of Iraq were forced to concede that Iraqis don't support what the U.S. is doing -- not to mention that nearly a million Iraqis have died -- the whole argument about "cut and run" would be exposed as a cruel farce. If one is engaged in an immoral enterprise, there's nothing brave about "staying the course."

FULL TEXT

Click any chart to see full-sized.

This is the crucial one:


Questions: Have you been kept in the dark and fed on bullshit?




More on this poll

OIL THEFT motive for IRAQ WAR resources

OIL THEFT motive for IRAQ WAR resources

Timeline of big oil
plans for Iraq Oil Theft

Best quick explanation of Iraq Oil Theft Law	In depth study compares Iraq Oil Theft Law with neighbors deals
News on Iraq Oil Theft from Iraqi point of view	Best investigative reporting on big oil & US gov't plans for Iraq oil

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sign Nobel Prize winners petition opposing Iraq Oil Theft Law

Easy contact Congress on Oil Theft Law

Easy contact Congress on Oil Theft Law & broader oil issues

Current stories on oil on Professor Smartass

Detailed report on restructuring of Iraq's oil industry to benefit our oil companies


Greg Palast's timeline of Iraq oil meetings (with video interviews with the players)


Oil & Gas Journal, 2002: We need Iraq War to keep Saddam from pumping too much and lowering prices

***DSM: Bush assures Putin Iraq War won't lower oil prices***


Colin Powell's chief of staff on oil motive for Iraq War

Broader background on oil, war, and foreign policy

Naomi Klein on privatization and its effects in Iraq:

Economic war crimes in Geneva and Hague Conventions:

The Hague Convention of 1907 (IV) see articles 47, 53, 55

The Geneva Convention of 1949 (IV) we've broken almost every section of article 147, and Bush has personally broken article 148.

The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

A good brief summary of neoliberalism:

How "economic hit men" set it up and enforce it:






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Iraqis vow mutiny over Bush OIL THEFT LAW

Why aren't the Democrats denouncing and investigating this Hydrocarbon Law that Iraqis don't want but Bush is forcing on them?

Gen. Jay Garner, the first guy Bush appointed to run Iraq said trying to privatize their oil would lead to violence. He was right, but the Bushies are still trying to do it anyway.

The blood of our troops and the Iraqis is on the hands of the Bush administration but if the Democrats as a group fail to speak out on this economic war crime, it will be on their hands too.

KEY EXCERPTS:



Iraq unions vow 'mutiny' over oil law

"This law cancels the great achievements of the Iraq people," Subhi al-Badri, head of the Iraqi Federation of Union Councils, told the al-Sharqiyah TV station. He referred specifically to laws that nationalized Iraq's oil sector.

Iraq holds 115 billion barrels of proven reserves, the third largest in the world, and likely much more when the country is fully explored.

It could produce more than the 2 million barrels per day, and many are pushing the oil law as a means of solidifying investment in the sector. The law, as drafted, allows for foreign access to the oil, a line that must not be crossed, the oil unions say.

"If the Iraqi Parliament approves this law, we will resort to mutiny," he said. "This law is a bomb that may kill everyone. Iraqi oil does not belong to any certain side. It belongs to all future generations."

FULL TEXT

More on OIL THEFT motive for Iraq War

5 Nobel Laureates fight Iraq OIL THEFT law pushed by Bush & big oil companies

I got this in an email from Antonia Juhasz, who wrote THE BUSH AGENDA, and has been one of the few journalist writing on the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law that does more than retype Karl Rove's press releases.

See the end of the article for a petition to sign in support.

Forcing the Hydrocarbon Law that was dictated by the oil companies to give them up to 80% of Iraq's oil wealth while our troops are occupying the country is a prima facie war crime. Bush will commit the act, but we will pay the price of being hated for decades to come.

See the end of the article for a petition to sign in support.

You might also email, FAX, or snail mail this to your reps in Congress, Pelosi, Reid, and just for the hell of it, the GOP leadership too.

Find & write your representative & senators

Find & write Congressional "leaders"

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE RECIPIENTS AND CONCERNED PEOPLE OF THE WORLD SIGN ON STATEMENT IN OPPOSITION TO THE IRAQ OIL LAW

In support of the people of Iraq, we the undersigned Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, state our opposition to the Iraq Oil Law.

We also oppose the decision of the United States government to require that the Iraq government pass the Oil Law as a condition of continued reconstruction aid in legislation passed on May 24, 2007.

A law with the potential to so radically transform the basic economic security of the people of Iraq should not be forced on Iraq while it is under occupation and in such a weak negotiating position vis-à-vis both the U.S. government and foreign oil corporations.

The Iraq Oil Law could benefit foreign oil companies at the expense of the Iraqi people, deny the Iraqi people economic security, create greater instability, and move the country further away from peace.

The U.S. government should leave the matter of how Iraq will address the future of its oil system to the Iraqi people to be dealt with at a time when they are free from occupation and more able to engage in truly democratic decision-making.

It is immoral and illegal to use war and invasion as mechanisms for robbing a people of their vital natural resources.

Signed by

Betty Williams - Ireland
Nobel Peace Prize Recipient 1976

Mairead Corrigan Maguire - Ireland
Nobel Peace Prize Recipient 1976

Prof. Jody Williams - USA
Nobel Peace Prize Recipient 1997

Dr. Shirin Ebadi - Iran
Nobel Peace Prize Recipient 2003

Prof. Wangari Maathai - Kenya
Nobel Peace Prize Recipient 2004

Also signed by:

Yanar Mohammed – Iraq
Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq

Antonia Juhasz - USA
Oil Change International

***

The letter is the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Statement that has been made in to a Sign-on letter and invites your signatures. To sign, please send you name, country of residence, and organizational affiliation (if any) to Kelek Stevenson with Oil Change International at kkelekk@gmail.com . The full text is below.

The petition was written by Yanar and includes the signatures of several prominent Iraqi and American activists. You can sign the online online petition here
www.petitiononline.com/iraqoil/petition.html

I hope you will sign both.

Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington State sent a copy of the statement to every member of the United States Congress.

Jody Williams and I have conducted interviews on radio stations across the United States, Democracy Now! highlighted the statement in a special program on the law, and United Press International did a story on the release of the Statement
www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2007/06/20/nobel_laureates_...

The debate in the U.S. Congress has finally shifted from “whether” to “how” to end the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But the devil may yet be in the details. We must be vigilant and demand not only that the occupation end, but that as the details of withdrawal are worked out, that the requirement that Iraqis change their oil system is taken off of the table.

For more information on The Iraq Oil Law and activists steps you can take, please visit the Oil Law section of my website which is updated almost daily at www.bushagenda.net/article.php?id=365, Oil Change International’s website www.PriceOfOil.org, and www.handsoffiraqioil.org

Nobel Women's Initiative Iraq Oil Law page

THEIR PETITION OPPOSING THE IRAQ OIL THEFT LAW

IRAQ OIL THEFT RESOURCES