Electricity, gas shortages fuel discontent in Baghdad

[Barrett808]

Electricity, gas shortages fuel discontent in Baghdad
By Karl Vick
The Washington Post

The car needed gas, so the Matrood family made a day of it.

Dawn was still hours away when mom and dad bundled the children into their dirty blue Daewoo sedan and set off for the filling station. Dusk was falling when they finally reached the pump, which was flanked by National Guardsmen in ski masks, intelligence officers in jackets and rows of concrete barricades — all necessary to protect a product as precious as a few gallons of gasoline in Iraq these days.

"There were days when we spent the night here," said Abdul Razzaq Matrood of his family. He counted himself lucky after spending a mere 12 hours in a gas line 2 miles long. "We brought our blankets to sleep in the car."

Energy shortages of every stripe bedevil this country, which sits atop the world's second-largest petroleum reserves. Electricity shuts off for whole days. Prices of scarce cooking fuel have risen nine-fold. And gas lines this month reached new lengths, creating yet another venue for violence. At least two men have been killed in Baghdad over places in line or allegations of watering down the goods.

"The whole situation is unbearable," said Elham Abbas, whose family bought a small generator to use when the power went out, only to find themselves struggling to find enough gasoline to make it run. "As if all these explosions, assassinations and the daily suffering aren't enough!"

(more)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002132525_iraqshortage28.html

[saltpoint]

1. Yeah, but freedom is on the march!

[K8-EEE]

2. But....but....Toby Keith Says They Are BUSTLING!

and going to the market!! And it's not like there are bombs going off all the time like they say on the lib-rul CNN...and he's a self-proclaimed LIB-RUL who's a sayin' it!

[Tempest]

3. For the first time in 30 years, Iraq has become a net importer of oil

What progress!

[rainbow4321]

4. Meanwhile... shrub's/Texas oil people are profiting nicely.....

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8784MC80.html


Motorists cursed high oil prices this year but West Texas oil and gas producers hailed them, as drilling picked up and new rigs being were built in the Permian Basin for the first time in 20 years, according to industry officials

Operators are finding it more difficult to find enough workers, Burns said. But if prices remain high — and work plentiful — for long enough, the labor shortage should ease, he said.

"These are good-paying jobs," Burns said. "In the past, people have come into the industry and gotten on that roller coaster ride — they'll be working at these good-paying jobs for a couple of years and then suddenly the job's gone. The longer higher prices are sustained, and drilling activity is sustained, we'll see people getting back into the job market."

Producers are enjoying high prices for oil and gas, and increasing their activity, but they are also looking ahead to the day when the Permian Basin's declining production dries up. Oil producers and others hope to turn Midland into a center for energy research and development

[SariesNightly]

5. High prices = YAY!

I forgot where i read this, but there was an interview where Bush said oil prices were too low and the higher it is the better.

[rainbow4321]

6. There goes our wildlife preserves and National refuges.....

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D879CCKG0.html


Five new gas wells are being built on the world's longest remaining undeveloped stretch of barrier island, a sign rising oil and gas prices are affecting Texas wilderness.

"With gas prices being what they are, there are a lot of people interested in exploration," said Charles Holbrook, project leader at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, a Gulf Coast preserve north of Padre Island.

While the federal government owns pristine woods and beaches, it often does not own the minerals beneath — the result of a compromise between conservationists and the Texas' petroleum industry. "In a perfect world, probably we wouldn't want any drilling here at all," said Juan Rodriguez, a Padre Island park ranger. "But we have no choice because we don't own the subsurface mineral rights."

BNP Petroleum Corp., the Corpus Christi firm building the Padre Island drills, is awaiting final permission to truck derricks and other heavy equipment to the drill sites. The Sierra Club lost a federal court battle over concerns the trucks would crush sea turtle hatchlings. In East Texas, the 163,000-acre Sam Houston National Forest has 68 permitted oil and gas wells. Two weeks ago, the National Park Service issued an oil and gas plan to open 59 percent of the 97,000-acre Big Thicket National Preserve to oil exploration and 41,800 acres to drilling and production.

[mbperrin]

7. Morris Burns is a pathological liar.

There were 4000+ rigs running in the late 70s and around 1100 now. No new rigs are being built; thousands have been scrapped, hundreds more are lying in graveyards.

The largest employer, Key Drilling, is in deep financial trouble and just sold off their drilling enterprise to another independent.

In the last 20 years, I've earned two degrees, work three jobs, and have yet to return to the gross salary I was earning as a 26 year old in 1978.