Iraq To Limit No-Bid Deals With Big Oil

Government Says Controversial Contracts With Major Western Companies Will Be For 1 Year

(CBS/AP)  The Iraqi government is planning to limit no-bid contracts being negotiated with several major oil companies to one year to avoid overlap with longer-term deals expected to be signed next June, a senior Oil Ministry official said Thursday.

The no-bid contracts have sparked controversy because several major Western firms have been involved in the discussions. There are concerns that granting such contracts to Western oil companies could feed perceptions that U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein to grab the country's natural resources.

Iraqi officials have stressed that the contracts are only for technical advice and equipment and the companies will receive money in return, not a share of oil production. They say the deals are meant as a stopgap measure to boost oil production until the government completes a bidding process next June on the development of six major oil fields and two natural gas fields.

But some believe the no-bid deals could give the Western firms a bidding advantage in that process, which Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said last month would include 35 foreign companies. The firms he named included seven from the U.S., three from Britain and others from countries like Russia and China.

Five of the oil fields up for longer-term development - Rumaila, Zubair, West Qurna 1, Maysan and Kirkuk - are also included in the no-bid contracts under negotiation, a senior oil official said Thursday. For this reason, the Iraqi government decided to limit those short-term deals to one year instead of two, he said.

"We want to avoid any overlap in this process," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media about this issue.

He said the government will soon ask the majors to submit one-year proposals.

Al-Shahristani was expected to announce the completed contracts at the end of last month. But he said the government was still negotiating the deals because the firms wanted to participate in oil field production rather than simply provide consultancy services for cash.

Neither al-Shahristani nor the senior oil official named the companies involved.

But Iraqi officials have said the government is negotiating short-term technical service contracts with Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron and Total to boost oil production by 500,000 barrels per day.

The U.S. State Department has said it provided advisers to help draft these contracts, a subject that has generated controversy in Washington.

Four Democratic senators, including Senator Carl Levin, on Wednesday called on the State Department's inspector general to investigate whether agency employees encouraged oil deals between Iraq and Western companies.

The State Department insists it only provided technical advice and did not influence the process of granting contracts.

Iraq is currently producing about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, its highest rate since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The government hopes to produce 4.5 million barrels per day by 2013.

Iraq sits on the world's third-largest oil reserves with more than 115 billion barrels, but its oil industry has been battered by years of war and U.N. sanctions.

As for the implications of Iraq's announcement to sign deals with major oil companies, "just announcing it is good news," said Leo Drollas, the senior oil analyst and forecaster at the Center for Global Energy Studies, who added that the move by Iraqi officials had been long-anticipated.

"The announcement would, on its own, without anything else, bring the prices down, the futures prices in particular, because it's a positive event. It will put more oil onto the market," Drollas told CBSNews.com last month, "and more oil is desperately needed."

Violence in Iraq is at its lowest level in four years, allowing a spike in production. But the process of awarding development contracts has been delayed by the inability to finalize a new law on how to divide the country's oil resources. Negotiations over the law have been stalled by political squabbles between the central government and the Kurds, who want more local control over their oil fields.

The Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq has signed more than 20 oil deals with foreign firms to work in Kurdish-controlled fields since it drafted its own oil and gas law in August 2007.

The Shiite-led Iraqi central government says the deals are invalid with no national oil law in place.

A senior U.S. official in Baghdad said Thursday that Washington still hopes Iraqi lawmakers can pass a new oil law despite the current impasse over Kurdish objections. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements.

[mh4cbs1]

the article failed to also state that everytime you pump gas..you condone it..

HAVE YOU CONSERVED YET?

Posted by libsluv2spit

***********************
The pathetic ''arguments'' of a brain dead Bush/McCain supporter. When their lies and mindless slogans fail, they restort to idiotic statements or personal smears - it happens all the time.

[mh4cbs1]

You got to give Bush and Cheney credit for trying!

They LIED us into Iraq and have done everything possible to set up permanent US military bases and to secure long term no bid contracts to begin the OIL THEFT.

But they didn''t plan on or expect an Iraqi democracy. They were forced into it by the continued resistance of the Iraqi freedom fighters. How else could they sell an unpopular war after the WMD Lies were exposed?

And now the Iraqis are not the puppet government that the NeoCons had hoped for.

Maliki wants US OUT of Iraq.
Iraqi people want US OUT of Iraq.
American peopoe want US OUT of Iraq.

Only the Corporate Rulers and the remaining brain dead Bush/McCain supporters want US to continue to occupy Iraq to secure the Oil Theft and enrich the Global Oil Corporations.

[libsluv2spit]

Yet another article that presents the precise reason for our illegal invasion of Iraq: oil.


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Posted by gracchus1 at 07:16 PM : Jul 17, 2008
+ report abuse

the article failed to also state that everytime you pump gas..you condone it..

HAVE YOU CONSERVED YET?

[libsluv2spit]

Posted by samsel3 at 09:21 AM : Jul 18, 2008
+ report abuse

************

does this mean you are so upset about this that you stop buying gasoline?

[samsel3]

The true intent for the Iraq invasion was to gain control of world oil markets for BIG OIL.

The Saudi''s, US oil interests and British petroleum were tired of Saddam flooding the market with cheaper priced oil and then charging US oil companies more for oil then Russia, France, Germany, China and Korea.

The administration is not interested in what you have to pay at the pump. The bottom line is profit for BIG OIL, which is the reason BIG OIL put up 150 million dollars for the election campaign of G.W. Bush.

[samsel3]

The Times of India August 2007 reported : " Iran, Iraq signed an agreement to build pipelines for the transfer of Iraqi crude oil and oil products." Under the deal crude will be refined and sent back to Iraq.

Bush opposed this agreement and wanted the Iraqi Parliment to accept and sign a U.S. designed oil law that would result in huge profits for BIG OIL.

Iraqi oil workers and 63% of Iraqis polled are opposed to the Bush law and prefer a hands off Iraq oil policy.

[samsel3]

On January 26, 1998 in a letter to the President the PNAC asked Clinton to invade Iraq and get rid of Saddam Hussein. Clinton refused their request and they got even.

George W. Bush took their agenda and got it done...........Mission Accomplished !

[samsel3]

The Saudi''s and Big Oil are very happy with the Bush & Cheney energy policy which eliminated Iraqi world oil market manipulation. Saddam kept prices down by selling cheap thus preventing the Saudi''s & Big Oil from getting the prices up. Bush & Cheney opened Pandora''s box & now things will never be the same.

[terribletire]

"There are concerns that granting such contracts to Western oil companies could feed perceptions that U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein to grab the country''s natural resources." "perceptions"??? I think that that is fact is pretty well established at this point.

[firststate]

The Iraqis are starting to remind the US state department and the oil companies that they are a sovereign nation. Maybe W didn''t think they were listening when he kept saying that early in the occupation, but they were. Now they want to control their resources and even want a timetable for withdrawal of our troops, just like a real sovereign nation, go figure.

[gracchus1]

Yet another article that presents the precise reason for our illegal invasion of Iraq: oil.

[ubrew12]

republic1776 said: "You know [Swedes] pay over 50 percent in taxes?"

I KNEW there was a reason they are typically counted among the happiest people on the planet.

[hunterdon6]

Iraq,,,,,,,our 51st state.

[randynason]

diatreme,
Socialist IS Communism.
Example United Soviet Sccialist''''s Republic (USSR)
It does not work.
It''''s leads to Hugh Goverment, regimes, supression of human rights!
But... don''''t worry, the liberals hatred of America, is still hard at work.


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Posted by republic1776

What are you- in high school and doing your homework online? You should have payed more attention in English class and less attention to being "really cool," in a dark and broody way.

[randynason]

Good for Iraq. It''s about time that these people stood up to our fascist, corporate dictates. Now, if only our own people had that same courage, we might start to really make some progress.

[republic1776]

"Sweden have spent BILLIONS"
Sweden paid trillions in taxes, the Government raped them and gave a token billion back....
You know they pay over 50 percent in taxes?

[meanbiker]

http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=171940&page=1

[republic1776]

diatreme,
Socialist IS Communism.
Example United Soviet Sccialist''s Republic (USSR)
It does not work.
It''s leads to Hugh Goverment, regimes, supression of human rights!
But... don''t worry, the liberals hatred of America, is still hard at work.

[punchline3]

"Iraq To Limit No-Bid Deals With Big Oil"

Well! That''s un-American!

[hungry1968]

Iraq To Limit No-Bid Deals With Big Oil




Amazing! This third world, backwards, three year old country, has the intelligence to LIMIT no-bid contracts, that our own government doesn''t.