Labels: 2008 candidates, 2008 Election, Exxon, global oil companies, John McCain, oil prices, The Buying of the President 2008
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posted by profmarcus at
8/20/2008
Poor Iraq has been looted, occupied, and disrupted by the industrialized West for a century because of the curse of its oil wealth.
Bush and Cheney clearly went into Iraq primarily in order to put US petroleum firms in precisely this favored position, although that is not the same thing as saying that the oil majors plumped for the war. It is more likely that smaller, hungrier concerns were eager for Iraq to be opened; Cheney was CEO of one of those firms 1995-2000, i.e. Halliburton, which might well have gone bankrupt without the no-bid contracts he was able to throw it once he arranged for the US invasion.
Nearly four decades after the four biggest Western oil companies were expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein, they are negotiating their return. By the end of the month, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil and Total will sign agreements with the Baghdad government, Iraq's first with big Western oil firms since the US-led invasion in 2003.
[...]
The major oil companies have been eager to go back to Iraq, but are concerned about their own security and the long-term stability of the country. The two-year no-bid agreements are service agreements that should add another 500,000 barrels of crude a day of output to Iraq's present production of 2.5 million barrels a day (b/d).
The companies have the option of being paid in cash or crude oil for the deals, each of which will reportedly be worth $500m (£250m). For Iraq, the agreements are a way of accessing foreign expertise immediately, before the Iraqi parliament passes a controversial new hydrocarbons law.
[...]
For the four oil giants, the new agreements will bring them back to a country where they have a long history. BP, Exxon Mobil, Total and Shell were co-owners of a British, American and French consortium that kept Iraq's oil reserves in foreign control for more than 40 years.
The Iraq Petroleum Company (once the Turkish Petroleum Company) was formed in 1912 by oil companies eager to grab the resources in parts of the Ottoman Empire.
Labels: Baghdad, BP, Dick Cheney, Exxon, Halliburton, Iraq oil law, Iraq Petroleum Company, Saddam Hussein, Shell, Total
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
6/20/2008
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez yesterday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States if ExxonMobil pursues international court orders it has obtained against billions of dollars of Venezuelan state assets in a contract dispute.
"If you end up freezing [Venezuelan assets] and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said in his weekly radio and television show. "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger."
Venezuela sells about 1.3 million barrels a day of oil to the United States, making it the fourth-largest source, at 14 percent, of U.S. petroleum imports.
"Hugo Chávez foolishly thought he could get away with it," said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Sons. "You just cannot go unilaterally and confiscate assets at will like that especially when your largest customer is the government of the company you're seizing assets from. Obviously Exxon is going to have the last laugh."
Labels: egypt, elites, Exxon, Gaza siege, global oil companies, greed, Hugo Chávez, Israel, PDV, super-rich, transnational corporations, Venezuela
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/11/2008
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) has won court orders freezing up to $12 billion in Venezuelan assets around the world as it fights for compensation for operations lost to President Hugo Chavez's nationalization drive.
The largest U.S. company sought the asset freeze to guarantee repayment should it win arbitration over the Cerro Negro heavy oil project.
The move is the boldest challenge yet by an international oil major against any of the governments around the world that have moved to increase their holds on natural resources as energy and commodity prices have soared.
"To me it sounds like a very aggressive tactic," said Stephen Zamora, professor of international law at the University of Houston Law Center.
"I can't really say that I'm aware this has been used in other investment disputes. They may be trying to get the government to settle."
Exxon -- which last week posted the largest ever year's profit by a U.S. company -- said on Thursday it has received court orders in Britain, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles each freezing up to $12 billion in assets of Venezuela state oil firm PDVSA. An Exxon spokeswoman said the total that could be frozen worldwide was $12 billion.
[...]
The move underscores Exxon's reputation for toughness in dealing with foes as varied as governments and fishermen, as it has been willing to wage prolonged legal battles to defend its interests around the world.
Labels: elites, Exxon, greed, Hugo Chávez, PDV, super-rich, transnational corporations, Venezuela
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/08/2008
The company is expected to earn $10.37 billion in the fourth quarter, according to earnings tracker Thomson Financial. That's about $330 million shy of Exxon's previous quarterly profit record of $10.7 billion set in the fourth quarter of 2005 - which also was a record for any U.S. corporation.
Exxon is expected to make $39.2 billion for all of 2007, just shy of its previous record of $39.5 billion in 2006, which breaks down to the company earning about $75,000 a minute.
Labels: Exxon, global oil companies, greed, war profiteers
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/25/2008
Iraqi Blocs Opposed to Draft Oil Bill
Kurdish and Sunni Arab officials are concerned over a draft
of a bill establishing a framework for the fair
distribution of oil revenues.
[...]
The draft law, which establishes a framework for the distribution of oil revenues, was approved by the Iraqi cabinet in late February after months of negotiations. The White House was hoping for quick passage to lay the groundwork for a political settlement among the country’s ethnic and sectarian factions.
[...]
The draft oil law would allow regions to enter into production-sharing agreements with foreign companies, which some Iraqis and critics of the Bush administration say could lead to foreigners reaping too much of the country’s oil wealth.
Iraqi officials say all contracts will be subjected to a fair bidding process, but there are fears that American companies could be favored.
it's a heckuva deal when you have the entire might of the taxpayer-supported united states goverment ready and willing to sacrifice people's lives in order to increase your opportunities for expanding business and increasing profits... you don't have to beat down or buy out the competition, you don't have to go through the tediousness of exploration and test drilling, you don't have a huge investment in new infrastructure, the economy is already in ruins so labor costs are laughably low... what's NOT to like...?"Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days," Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb report in the cover story [Britain's The Independent on Sunday].
According to the paper, the law "would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972."
"Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs," the article continues. "After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals."
reading things like this, i just get this incredible feeling of pride in my country... is the u.s. a great place, or what...?
more on iraq's oil law, the reason we went into iraq in the first place... of course, like everything else these days, it comes with the customary dose of cognitive dissonance...
inter press service news agency...[The new oil law] specifies that up to two-thirds of Iraq's known reserves would be developed by multinationals, under contracts lasting for 15 to 20 years.
This policy would represent a u-turn for Iraq's oil industry, which has been in the public sector for more than three decades, and would break from normal practice in the Middle East.
According to local labour leaders, transferring ownership to the foreign companies would give a further pretext to continue the U.S. occupation on the grounds that those companies will need protection.
[...]
On Feb. 8, the labour unions sent a letter in Arabic to Iraqi President Jalal Talbani urging him to reconsider this kind of agreement.
"Production-sharing agreements are a relic of the 1960s," said the letter, seen by IPS. "They will re-imprison the Iraqi economy and impinge on Iraq's sovereignty since they only preserve the interests of foreign companies. We warn against falling into this trap."
[...]
The first draft was seen only by the committee of the Iraqi technocrat who penned it, nine international oil companies, the British and the U.S. governments and the International Monetary Fund. The Iraqi parliament will get its first glimpse next week.
[...]
There's no other country in the Middle East with the kind of oil reserves that Iraq has that would consider signing a production-sharing agreement," [Ewa Jasiewicz, a researcher at PLATFORM, a British human rights and environmental group that monitors the oil industry] said. "It's a form of privatisation and that's why those countries haven't signed these because it's not in their interests."
Labels: BP, Bush Administration, Exxon, IMF, Iraq, Iraq oil law, Iraq war funding proposal, Jalal Talbani, Kurds, Middle East, Shell, Shiite, Sunni
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
5/03/2007
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