NYT: A Promise Unfulfilled: Iraq's Oil Output Is Lagging

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/international/middleeast/02ministry.html?pagewanted=print&position=

With vast reservoirs of oil and the potential to rival Saudi Arabia as a megaproducer, Iraq has long tantalized the world's energy industry, as well as economists and political leaders worried about the impact of high oil prices.

But the new Iraqi government's glaring failure last week to agree on an oil minister and the sectarian bargaining over this crucial appointment, as well as the unabated insurgency, have been new reminders of the political faults that keep the country's petroleum promise unrealized.

"Unfortunately, oil in Iraq is being politicized more and more," Issam al-Chalabi, who was Iraq's oil minister in the late 1980's, told a conference of scholars and oil-company executives in Washington in late April. "This is dangerous."

Mr. Chalabi, now a consultant based in Jordan and Baghdad, is not related to Ahmad Chalabi, the former exile who, in the latest of his political ups and downs, has been appointed interim oil minister.

[Kagemusha]

1. ...Just wondering about that last line...

How does the NYT define 'related'? I mean, Iraq runs on the basis of clans that go back generations and generations, right? ... Well, not like it's important...

[maddezmom]

2. But, But, But

Iraq may triple oil output by 2012
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1437342

[Javaman]

4. I really wonder about that...

I remember an article published about 1 year ago regarding the viability of the oil reserves, stating along the lines that even if the oil fields are put completely on line, that the amount of oil that will be extracted will be minimal, do to the fact that during the time of the sanctions, spare parts and machinery weren't able to be bought. Resulting in a cobbled together oil system. Because of this, the procedures used to extract the oil were substandard, thus "muddying" the oil field. So any real usable oil from those field had been greatly reduced to as little as 15%.
I wish I could find that article. It was part of a larger one talking about how the oil produced in Iraq was going to help pay for reconstruction.

[KansDem]

3. "Unfortunately, oil in Iraq is being politicized more and more..."

This whole boondoggle was political! From Bush's lies, to the Halliburton "no-bid" contracts, from the half-assed Iraqi elections, to the plastic turkey, from the construction of 14 US military bases to the staging of Iraq as a jumping off point for invasions of Syria and/or Iran and all points in between, this whole mess has been one huge clusterfolly!

So why shouldn't the oil be "politicized" as well?

[gdub]

5. Here's a curve ball

Has anyone considered whether the Bush administration actually wants to keep Iraqi oil off the market? I am becoming more and more convinced that US government policy currently favors high oil prices.

[wookie294]

6. You may have a point !!

Fewer oil barrels on the market mean higher gasoline prices, which mean higher profits for Big Oil.

In October 1986, Cheney said "let us rid ourselves of the fiction that low oil prices are somehow good for the United States."

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=28462

[gdub]

7. Thanks, that's excellent. Here is some more information on this...

Re: I am interested in anyone with support for Peak Oil as a hox

Various places on the Internet make put forth the proposition that Peak Oil is junk science, going so far as to decribe it as a hoax. Further still, some say the purpose of the Peak Oil hoax is to drive up current oil prices by creating a perception of scarcity.

Supporting arguments posit the goals of a Peak Oil hoax as:

1) sabotaging the Chinese economy
2) created windfall profits for Western oil companies to fund the next generation of exploration and development investment
3) propping up the US dollar through artificial inflation of "petrodollar" demand and IMF loan reliance by importing nations

Going further, the Peak Oil as a hoax theory points to the entire abiotic/biotic debate, which suggests that hydrocarbons are not, in fact, *renewable* resources and that the Russians have successfully developed technology to exploit it...

[radwriter0555]

8. The whole point was to keep the oil FROM the market.

It's working great.