16 months & 30 billion dollars to restore Iraq oil output to prewar levels

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0309/02/ldt.00.html

<snip>PILGRIM: Now, many people are scrambling solutions. One proposal being discussed is an oil loan program, using future oil revenues as collateral for loans to rebuild. That's a pretty controversial plan because of the need for an Iraqi government to eventually sign off on that -- John.

KING: And, Kitty, if the oil fields are so damaged and the equipment so damaged, what are we talking about in terms of an investment necessary to get things back up and flowing?

PILGRIM: Well, we spent the day talking to oil analysts. They said about $25 billion to $30 billion to repair the oil fields. That would put production at five million barrels a day, which was the sort of unofficial estimate for 2004. And that doesn't look -- that would be five times what they're producing at this point.

KING: Any sense, if they got that money, how long it would take?

PILGRIM: Oh, 16 months to even get to prewar levels. So there aren't really...

KING: Kitty Pilgrim, proof there that the money will come from the U.S. taxpayers in the short term.

[donco6]

1. Not that we aren't obligated to fix them . . . but . . .

sure could use a few extra bucks to fix up our power grid, and school structures, and clean up a few more Superfund sites, and and and.

Sigh.

[graham67]

2. ???

But oil fields deteriorated under Saddam Hussein's regime. Then oil pumping and refining equipment was looted after the conflict, crippling the industry. Some experts say it could take another 16 months for oil output to even get back to prewar levels, which would generate $25 billion annually at today's prices. Cost estimates on rebuilding Iraq now run in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Looting? Weren't the oil fields the first things the "coalition" secured? :wtf:

edited for clarity

[Q]

3. And Halliburton, Bechtel and Carlyle...

...couldn't be happier.

[cliss]

4. It's amazing

I thought these people were businessmen. Really, the insurgents (whoever they may be) don't need to do any more harm to the Iraqis to get their point across. All they need to do is blast a hole in the oil pipeline. Next, fix it. Lots of $$$ later....

Blast another hole. Fix, etc etc. Halliburton is screwed. The oil pipeline is 600 miles long. What are they going to do? Put an armed officer every 20 feet apart to protect it?

[ClintonTyree]

5. That explains the high cost of gasoline..............

at the moment. The Bush Cartel needs those extra dollars to repair the Iraqi oil infrastructure, and you can rest assured that THEY'RE not going to absorb the costs. Once again, the consumer will bear the cost of Bush's oil buddies' escapades, and they'll never have to be at risk. Keep the gas prices artificially high, make a ton of money, repair the oil fields, make even more money. Another win/win situation for the Bushies.

[Robbien]

6. Riverbend, a female Iraqi has a blog and has blogged a bit on this

Here is an eye opening part:

Yesterday, I read how it was going to take up to $90 billion to rebuild Iraq. Bremer was shooting out numbers about how much it was going to cost to replace buildings and bridges and electricity, etc.

Listen to this little anecdote. One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad- we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.

As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.

Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.

A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!

Something you should know about Iraq: we have over 130,000 engineers. More than half of these engineers are structural engineers and architects. Thousands of them were trained outside of Iraq in Germany, Japan, America, Britain and other countries. Thousands of others worked with some of the foreign companies that built various bridges, buildings and highways in Iraq. The majority of them are more than proficient- some of them are brilliant.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com

The above was part of her 8/28/03 entry. If you have time, also read her 8/30/03 entry on a road trip, scary stuff. Oh hell, the whole blog is great.