The Future Price of Oil? Pick a Number
Sydney Morning Herald, June 21-22, 2008.
Some excerpts from
“The future price of oil? Pick a number.”
“The invasion of Iraq cost the world $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone”
“An oil adviser to the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organization…”told a British parliamentary committee last month that Iraq had offered the US a deal, three years before the war, that would have opened 10 new giant oil fields on ‘generous’ terms, in return for lifting the sanctions. “This would certainly have prevented the steep rise of the oil price”, he said. “But the US had a different idea. It planned to occupy Iraq and annex its oil.” “
In this context, in the same newspaper one or two days ago, it was reported that the US was negotiating with the Iraqi government to obtain exclusive oil exploitation rights for some large US companies, without competitive bidding.
One could add that lifting the sanctions would have saved the lives of about half a million children as well.
See previous posts on Iran/Iraq.
June 22nd, 2008 at 9:42 am
According to the German News Magazine der Spiegel (21.6.08), the Iraqi Government has granted exploitation rights to five American companies, explaining this by the advice it had received from these companies over the last years.