I bet Iran just can't wait for us to start divvying up their oil fields

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticle09.asp?xfile=data/business/2009/December/business_December258.xml§ion=business

Iraq holds oil auction, Shell wins giant field (Reuters)

11 December 2009, 12:06 PMRoyal Dutch Shell and Petronas of Malaysia won a deal to develop Iraq’s Majnoon oilfield, said Oil Minister, in the country’s second bidding round since the 2003 US invasion.

The companies proposed a per barrel fee of just $1.39 per barrel and pledged to increase output from the supergiant Majnoon field to 1.8 million barrels per day, more than double what Iraq had expected. The fee was lower than Iraq had been willing to pay.

“We announce that the consortium of Shell and Petronas have won (the contract) to develop Majnoon, and the fee is less than the Oil Ministry specified,” Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said. French oil major Total, partnered with China’s CNPC, had also bid for the field.

Iraq is offering 10 oilfields over two days in a rare opportunity for oil firms, from Western majors to Chinese and Indian state-owned giants, to gain access to plentiful and cheap to drill Middle East oil reserves.

[madokie]

1. Its all about the oil

and us not wanting to pay the iraqi the price they wanted so we pay them in their deaths with our deaths and a shitload of DU weapons. the Dick and the oil barrons, smart huh

[NNN0LHI]

2. Oil is over $70 per barrel and we give the Iraqis $1.39 per barrel for theirs

Imagine that.

Don

[madokie]

5. And those oily people are able to sleep at night

bunch of scoundrels and nothing else, the whole bunch of them

[pipoman]

7. An auction necessarily

puts competing interests into competition for a product. These companies likely fully understand the cost of production and the market for such rights. This is not to say that they are not going to profit handsomely from the transaction, only that presumably all interested parties had the same opportunity to purchase based on the potential value and Shell was willing to pay the most.

[pampango]

8. delete

[pipoman]

9. "We" are not giving them anything unless you are a Shell Oil stock holder..

[metalbot]

11. The cost of oil comes from the cost of extracting it

It's not as if there are a bunch of Iraqis who are sitting around with barrels of oil that some company is going to buy and sell at 95% profit.

Oil in the ground is worthless until someone drills it and extracts it. The reason that the Middle East has oil "wealth" comes not from the fact that they have so much oil, but the fact that the oil there is (relatively) cheaper to extract. Given that Exxon runs at about a 10% profit margin, you can expect that whomever extracts that oil is going to spend 90% of that $70 price tag on drilling it, managing the rigs, storing the oil, transporting it, refining it, and transporting it again, all of which is done on multi-million dollar pieces of equipment that has a limited lifetime.

Given that Majnoon produces half a million barrels a day, Iraq will get a quarter billion dollars a year from the field with no investment. They'll also get a majority portion of the jobs actually working the rigs.

Comparing the price per barrel for the rights to extract it to the price per barrel is a little bit like comparing the cost of an apple to the cost of a seed.

[pipoman]

3. Who is 'us'....are you Iraqi?

[NNN0LHI]

4. Us is the people occupying Iraq right now

Did you forget about that?

Don

[pipoman]

6. I read the article, it states that the Iraqis are selling rights to their fields..

[NNN0LHI]

10. The Iraqis the article is citing are our puppets we have holed up in our embassy

You think that is a legitimate government?

Suppose we had a foreign army invade and occupy our country with Shock and Awe, kill our government officials and then prop up their imported puppet inside of their embassy in DC. Would you consider that a legitimate government?

Don

[pipoman]

12. Maybe, if Saddam Hussein had been dictating in my country for several decades prior..

[NNN0LHI]

13. So if Saddam was the same occupiers previous puppet it would be OK with ...

... with you if those same people came in and killed untold numbers of your countrymen while removing their old puppet and giving you a brand new puppet? That would make you very happy?



Don

[pipoman]

14. Look, I'm not now, nor have I ever defended Iraq

this thread is about oil sales by Iraqis to a Dutch and Malaysian oil company..we and they are where we are and have what we have. What they have is a lot of oil deep underground, no technology, no equipment, no money to capitalize on that resource, no infrastructure and someone willing to pump billions and create jobs for them without raising a finger.

[NNN0LHI]

15. No you are trying to insult peoples intelligence by claiming Iraq has a legitimate government

When they don't and the entire world knows it.

Not kidding anyone.

Don