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#1 06-27-2008 04:06 AM
- dubfan
- The fist-bump of change
- From: Orlando, FL
- Registered: 11-14-2003
- Posts: 3955
- Karma: 157
Seabird: Iraqi Oil Law -- scoop?
This Iraqi Oil Law making its way thru the Iraqi Parliament...
I can't find any reasonably unbiased and informed opinion on this anywhere. Is this even public yet? (there's a supposedly "leaked" version on the net from Feb. 2007, but who knows if it's the same thing they're considering now).
The political left is making a lot of noise that this thing is the vehicle by which America (via the big oil companies like British Petroleum, heh) will steal oil from the Iraqi people.
I don't get it.
Iraq has oil reserves. Presumably it does not have the resources to extract, refine, transport, that oil etc. so oil companies offer these services for contract. Who then sets the price of the oil? Who sells it? The Iraqis? Or the oil companies on the Iraqis' behalf? How do the proceeds make their way back to the Iraqi government, and from there to the Iraqi people?
If there's "stealing" -- where does that presumably occur?
Q: What's the difference between Dick Cheney & Sarah Palin?
A: When Sarah Palin shoots a lawyer he stays down.
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#2 06-27-2008 02:08 PM
- Seabird
- New lease
- From: The Crucible
- Registered: 07-28-2003
- Posts: 10191
- Karma: 582
Re: Seabird: Iraqi Oil Law -- scoop?
I don't know anything about this. My company is involved there, but I don't deal with them too much. Generally speaking though, when there is "theft", ie, the people not getting the benefit of the resources, it has more to do with a corrupt or despotic government. Those govs either control the leases that we drill, or manage the partnership arrangements and contract with us (or EM, or CT, or BP, or whomever) for our expertise. We pay royalties to whoever runs the place. It's typically considered the job of that local government to decide how the money should be disseminated back to its populace.
The idea that we sneak in there like thieves in the night to drill their shit and make off with it patently absurd and illustrates a general ignorance of how the market works. Oil is a global supply commodity, meaning that whatever is found, goes into a international pot, if you will. Whether we have direct access to reserves in one country is irrelevant to the overall price. The $142/bbl that we're paying (today at least), takes into account all of the light sweet crude on the market.
Last edited by Seabird (06-27-2008 05:43 PM)
Biden 2009!
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