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Baghdad tells the world: "It's our oil"
Sun Jul 05 12:45PM
After a massive build up, the live broadcast proved a big letdown. Iraq offered six oil fields and two gas fields to international energy companies last week, but only one offer was taken up.There were gasps from the conference floor when delegates saw the gap between what the government was offering and what the bidders wanted. The faces gathered around beneath a giant stage erected for the day's proceedings told the story; it had been a disappointment.
Iraq needs money. The country's public services are a shell of their former selves. It is often said that Iraq had one of the best, if not the best- educated populations in the Middle East in the 1970s. But that was the 1970s.
Three wars and 18 years of sanctions put paid to a strong education service. Ahead of Tuesday's energy auction, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said the "huge amount" of money raised would "finance infrastructure projects across Iraq -- schools, roads, airports, housing, hospitals." That was his pitch.
Barely 24 hours after the event he went on national television and denied the auction had been a failure. Oil production will increase, meaning more money as planned, as a result of the successful British-Chinese bid for the biggest oil field on offer, assuming of course that complex contract terms are agreed in the coming months.
But Shahristani's "It's our oil" tone could not have been clearer, as he told the local audience that the foreign companies would end up getting less than one dollar per barrel produced under the deal. Mr Shahristani was clearly trying to appease his fellow Iraqis, mindful that he could be accused of conducting a sell-out.
His comments have not been lost on the international business and diplomatic community in Baghdad. "He might have been talking to Iraqis, but we heard him too," one such individual said.
In this blog, reporters and editors for global news wire AFP blog about the news they report and the challenges they face covering events from Baghdad to Beijing, the White House to Darfur. Arthur Macmillan reports for AFP from Baghdad.Comment on this article
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Damn right, Iraqi oil belongs to Iraq!
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Why is so much energy wasted in the multiple burn offs at every oil facility? Could they not use this energy to run a steam turbine and produce electricity,So much for reducing greenhouse gasses and being eco friendly.Also the yanks should repare Iraks infrastructure as they desroyed most of it in their illegal war.
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1.Damn right, Iraqi oil belongs to Iraq! Huh i thought we all shared the world ok let Iraq keep the oil and withdraw all aid to them, then see how long they would last!
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It's a funny old world.
None of these middle-East countries have made any useful contribution to the world, yet have garnered huge wealth, which has mostly been squandered. Most of the oil itself has also been squandered by a hugely wasteful West. We're coming to the end of an era. now. The West isn't prepared to be held to ransom by a bunch of religious zealots. The technology is coming online to vastly reduce the Wests need for oil.
The real issue will then be..
what the hell do these sort of countries do for a living then...?? They have no industry, no nothing. Everything they have worth mentioning comes from the 'West' they all hate. It'll be back to goat-herding for most of them.
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it is very funny they want all our help plus all the usa can give then they hold the world to help them
it would be nice if the people of the land got help insted of the odd few at the top getting all of everthing
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They could use it to fill their oil lamps because it won't be long before they are back in the 17th century, without any western support.
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Its a USA ,UK deal and China % is small but it looks better if China is stuck in instead of USA and UK might make people wonder .
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The comment from gipsyqueens2 is appalling, divisive and wildly inaccurate. well, it would inaccurate if anyone took this kind of malign nonsense seriously. But therein lies the problem. He/she is probably infecting his/her own kids with this kind of zealotry. Their are religious zealots in the Middle East, of course there are. And in the West too. Do you honestly think that the truth is as clear cut as you present it? Do you ever read anything at all? Or are your opinions based solely on fear and scape-goating? Don't include me in your 'west', I want nothing to do with it. People are people, the world over, some good, some bad, we don't have a monopoly on righteousness. I fear for your children because if you talk like this at home, they have no hope at all. Your comments are really not concerned with oil and the west vs everyone else, instead they expose your isolation and your ignorance. If you are not willing to learn and grow and make a contribution to changing the west for the better, or anywhere else for that matter, then keep your own council. You are consumed by hate, it seems. Maybe you should question where it all comes from.
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Iraq had decent Electrical and water services before the west started to arm
Saddam Hussein. It was the contemtable Thatcher Government who watched as Iraq
used western chemical exports to murder one million Iran soldiers; no wonder the
people of Iran are a bit suspicious of our rapacious media which dances to the
orders of an unelected fool of a Prime Minister.
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The west is caught between a rock and a very hard place. Many years ago we should have invested in non-oil
energy, and invested in electric cars, trains and lorries and reduced our need from oil and gas. France has showed some of the way forward with over 90% of all their power being nuclear. Our supplies now come from some very dubious countries who would cut us off if need be to gain political advantages, just look at Gazprom. As to the arab
states they know they have the whip hand for the moment and will do their best to take advantage of it.
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