Karma, Part 2
Last Saturday, I posted on Iran's pressure to shut out US oil companies in Iraq in favor of Chinese and Russian oil companies. A measure of the success of that pressure was the awarding of a renegotiated oil deal to a Chinese state-owned oil company. In today's NY Times we learn that further moves have been taken to freeze out US and other western oil companies.
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to Western oil companies, which came under sharp criticism from several United States senators this summer, has been withdrawn, participants in the negotiations said on Wednesday.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 now fulfill the work within that time frame. The companies confirmed on Wednesday that the deals had been canceled.
While not particularly lucrative by industry standards, the contracts were valued for providing a foothold in Iraq at a time when oil companies are being shut out of energy rich countries around the world. The companies will still be eligible to compete in open bidding in Iraq.
Interestingly, the article seems to imply that because certain US senators (among them Democrat Chuck Schumer) objected to the no-bid process, the Iraqis decided against proceeding with the multiple deals.
Earlier this summer, a group of Democratic senators led by Charles E. Schumer of New York had appealed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to block the deals, contending that they could undermine the efforts of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites to reach agreement on a hydrocarbon law and a revenue-sharing agreement. This criticism was conveyed to Mr. Shahristani by the American Embassy in Baghdad in late June, and after that the deals were delayed.
Oh, those damned Democrats! Interfering with the oil companies' God-given right to all that Iraqi oil is just not nice. Now we'll have to pay 'leventy-seven dollars a gallon and drill in ANWR all because the Democrats just couldn't leave well enough alone.
Nice try, NY Times, but you should have done your homework. The US may be occupying Iraq, but our influence is pretty tepid compared to that of Iran, one of the direct consequences of the illegal and misbegotten war in Iraq. Perhaps if the Times had bothered to read the Iraqi newspapers (like Azzaman, which was the source of the article I reviewed in last Saturday's post) it might have come up with a more plausible reason for the cancelled contracts.
Of course, that wouldn't play as well during an election campaign, would it.
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 now fulfill the work within that time frame. The companies confirmed on Wednesday that the deals had been canceled.
While not particularly lucrative by industry standards, the contracts were valued for providing a foothold in Iraq at a time when oil companies are being shut out of energy rich countries around the world. The companies will still be eligible to compete in open bidding in Iraq.
Interestingly, the article seems to imply that because certain US senators (among them Democrat Chuck Schumer) objected to the no-bid process, the Iraqis decided against proceeding with the multiple deals.
Earlier this summer, a group of Democratic senators led by Charles E. Schumer of New York had appealed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to block the deals, contending that they could undermine the efforts of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites to reach agreement on a hydrocarbon law and a revenue-sharing agreement. This criticism was conveyed to Mr. Shahristani by the American Embassy in Baghdad in late June, and after that the deals were delayed.
Oh, those damned Democrats! Interfering with the oil companies' God-given right to all that Iraqi oil is just not nice. Now we'll have to pay 'leventy-seven dollars a gallon and drill in ANWR all because the Democrats just couldn't leave well enough alone.
Nice try, NY Times, but you should have done your homework. The US may be occupying Iraq, but our influence is pretty tepid compared to that of Iran, one of the direct consequences of the illegal and misbegotten war in Iraq. Perhaps if the Times had bothered to read the Iraqi newspapers (like Azzaman, which was the source of the article I reviewed in last Saturday's post) it might have come up with a more plausible reason for the cancelled contracts.
Of course, that wouldn't play as well during an election campaign, would it.
Labels: Iran, Iraq, oil companies, the Press
posted by Diane at 9:00 AM
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