Hydrocarbon Law for Dummies

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by Anwaar Hussain

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Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who was in Japan last week for a four-day official visit, says U.S.-led coalition forces should be able to withdraw from his country in a year and half at the latest, a Japanese newspaper reported on Saturday.

“Personally, I think Iraqi security forces will complete reforms and training in a year or a year and a half. After that, the coalition troops will no longer be needed.” Hashemi was quoted as saying.

No longer needed, huh! Personally, I think that the Iraqi Vice President’s IQ and shoe size are about the same.

One hates to puncture the heartwarming, optimistic naivete of the Iraqi Vice President but the truth is that the U.S.-led coalition forces are not going any where, not for the next about 30 years at the minimum.

How, pray, has the scribe arrived at this conclusion, one may ask.

That, sirs, is a no-brainer. Read on.

Invisible in the smoke screen of civil war in Iraq, the current US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has been working feverishly on Iraq’s first post-invasion Hydrocarbon Law.

The fancy name not withstanding, the law is simply about Iraq’s 112 billion barrels of proven, close to the surface and easily extractable oil reserves, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia, along with roughly 220 billion barrels of other probable and possible resources. Add to this another fact of equal importance. Iraq’s true potential is said to be far greater than this as the country has remained relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions.

The above mentioned two facts alone require an on-station presence of decades of some if not all four of the western oil giants i.e. Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP.

Simple thus far, eh? Let us proceed onwards.

Khalilzad’s untiring efforts were rewarded recently by the passing of the proposed law by the puppet Iraqi government. The lolly in the law is hidden in some of its provisions that are said to be a “radical departure from the norm for developing countries”. And that is that under the new law oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq’s oil, a kind of contract which other oil producing countries do not want to touch by a mile long pole.

Zalmay Khalilzad is an interesting character. One recalls that Khalilzad was once an advisor to Unocal (Union Oil Company of California). A diehard Neocon, he keeps getting sent to places where the oil scent is up in the air. He was appointed as a special envoy to Afghanistan immediately after the invasion and occupation of that country along with another ex-employee of Unocal, Hamid Karzai. Karzai, though, made it to the President of that same country.

Together they drew up a risk analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. Previously too Khalilzad had participated in similar talks between Unocal and Taliban officials in 1997. What is relatively unknown is that while that project remained a ‘pipe dream’, Unocal quietly merged with Chevron Corporation on August 10, 2005, and became a wholly owned subsidiary.

So the gist of the story so far is that Iraq’s Hydrocarbon Law, passed recently by a weak Iraqi government, gives long term concessions to Western oil giants, among them not just Khalilzad’s but many Neocons’ former employers. These oil giants, however, cannot operate on their own in Iraq and need protection from ‘overzealous’ national and regional forces that tend to unbalance the gravy train.

That brings us to Anwaar’s First Universal Law of Hydrocarbon. It states, “Hydrocarbon at rest tends to stay at rest and Hydrocarbon in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by unbalancing forces.”

Something clearly needed to be done regarding the unbalancing forces.

Now here is a map of Iraq oil fields turned over by the Commerce Department, under a March 5, 2002 court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force. (Click here for another map if the earlier link does not work).

And here is an interactive map of the dozen or so permanent American military bases coming up in Iraq with billions of dollars of US tax payers’ money. As of mid-2005, the U.S. military had 106 forward operating bases in Iraq, including what the Pentagon calls 14 “enduring” bases (twelve of which are located on the map) – all of which are to be consolidated into four mega-bases.

Please juxtapose Iraq’s oil map with that of the upcoming permanent American military bases, keep in mind the 30 years provision of Iraq’s Hydrocarbon law, tie it in with the other little fact of these bases being called ‘enduring’ military bases by Pentagon and try calculating a time frame for American forces’ withdrawal from Iraq.

Still not there? Ok here is one more modest piece of information that would surely lead the reader in the correct direction. And that is the little matter of the construction of the largest embassy of any country in any country the world has ever seen.

America’s largest existing embassy, covering 10 acres and consisting of five buildings, is in the world’s most populous nation China. With a population of around 25 million, Iraq’s headcount is just twice that of the state of Illinois. However, this fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River will be the largest of its kind in the world, “the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.”

The designs aren’t publicly available, but the embassy is rumored to be a self-sufficient and “hardened” domain able to house a staff of 8000 people, having its own water wells, electricity plant, wastewater-treatment facility, twenty-one buildings including two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador and his deputy, apartment buildings for staff, a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and an American Club.

The embassy’s 104-acre parcel is “six times larger than the United Nations’ compound in New York and two-thirds the acreage of the Mall in Washington. Protected by 15ft thick walls, its security, overseen by U.S. Marines, will be extraordinary with setbacks and perimeter no-go areas that will be especially deep structures reinforced to 2.5-times the standard, and five high-security entrances, plus an emergency entrance-exit.”

Doesn’t look like the Americans are going any where any time too soon…not to the scribe at least.

The Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi needs to be reminded of Anwaar’s First Universal Law of Hydrocarbon. The invaders knew that all along but chose not to inform the gullible Iraqi Veep.

Thirty years are the minimum that are required to ensure that most of Iraq’s Hydrocarbon, if not to the last drop, stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction wherefrom came the invasion without being acted upon by unbalancing forces. The Barak Obamas, the Kucinichs, and the Nancy Pelosis of this world can climb the nearest trees, their public chest beating on the issue not withstanding. They all work for the same employers any way.

Any one out there that thinks otherwise?

Copyrights : Anwaar Hussain



Comments

2 Responses to “Hydrocarbon Law for Dummies”

  1. Michelle on March 27th, 2007 4:56 pm

    Hey Anwaar:

    I have a few items to add to your essay for a more complete analysis. I’m glad you mentioned the following:

    “…about Iraq’s 112 billion barrels of proven, close to the surface and easily extractable oil reserves, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia, along with roughly 220 billion barrels of other probable and possible resources.”

    There is more to add here; the widespread use of advanced extraction techniques like water-injection and horizontal-brush drilling are the hallmarks of field maturity and imminent production collapse. It is important to note that Iraq’s oil fields are easily extractable because the other great world oil fields are at death’s door, including Saudi Arabia’s great mother, Ghawar. Ghawar is by far the largest conventional oil field ever discovered. Since first tapped in 1948, Ghawar has produced some 60 billion barrels of oil and accounted for 60-65% of Saudi production from 1948-2005. While actual field by field production numbers remain a Saudi State secret, Ghawar is estimated to produce more than five million barrels per day or 6.5% of the planet’s daily production total of 84 million barrels.

    The Saudis have thus far prevented the appropriate authorities from investigating. We have only second hand reports of her demise. Of these accounts, the most notable is investment banker Matthew Simmons’ book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. Simmons assembles a picture of declining Saudi production from publicly available technical reports written by Saudi-Aramco’s own reservoir engineers in recent decades. His portrayal of the situation is dire indeed. He claims that “When Saudi Arabia peaks (enters the unavoidable state of permanent production decline) the world, categorically, has peaked.” It looks like the 2006 numbers confirm Simmons’ 2005 prophecy.

    The writers at the Oil Drum, a data driven oil analysis website, after assessing the production data from several independent reporting agencies, claim that Saudi production is down a whopping 8% in 2006 from 2005 numbers. The decline would have been closer to 14% without the addition of the Haradh III mega-project. They assert that Saudi Arabia has now officially peaked and that the pace of production decline there is likely to accelerate. Remember, Ghawar accounts for 60% of Saudi production.

    Here’s the latest on other fields around the globe:

    “Kuwaiti oil production from the world’s second-largest field (Burgan) is ‘exhausted’ and falling after almost six decades of pumping” according to the chairman of the Kuwaiti state oil company. The L.A. times tells us that “Production at Cantarell, the world’s second-largest oil complex, which provides about 60% of Mexico’s crude, averaged 1.78 million barrels a day in 2006. That’s a 13% drop from 2005.” The famous North Sea basin and it gigantic Forties Field, the oil find that made Britain a petroleum exporter for the past 20 years, is about to experience a precipitous production decline. These fields and others like them have fueled the global capitalist system now enshrined and deified in American mass-culture. Our own [US] Southern oil fields took only 40 years to outlive their usefulness from 1930 to 1970.

    Back in 2000 China’s only super-giant field, Da Qing was also at death’s door. This is interesting to note because prior to Unocal’s merge with Chevron Corporation on August 10, 2005, the Chinese government attempted a hostile buyout (through CNOOC Ltd., which they control 70% of) to gain control of Unocal. This goes counter to your claim of other oil producing countries not wanting to touch Iraqi oil contracts:

    “And that is that under the new law oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq’s oil, a kind of contract which other oil producing countries do not want to touch by a mile long pole.”

    It seems to me that China, or any other super power countries or persons, would gladly take a huge share of the pie, if they could.

    I’d also like to add that National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was a former member of the board of Chevron. The company has named one of their supertankers the SS Condoleezza Rice. I believe her father was a high official with Chevron too.

    More concerning Karzai and Khalilzad [and others]:

    Karzai, a one time leader of the southern Afghan Pashtun Durrani tribe, he was a member of the mujaheddin that fought the Soviets during the 1980s. He was a top contact for the CIA and maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George Bush, and their Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) Service interlocutors. Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA. Karzai continued to serve the agency’s interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal, according to Middle East and South Asian sources.

    Khalilzad, a fellow Pashtun and the son of a former government official under King Mohammed Zahir Shah, was, in addition to being a consultant to the RAND Corporation, a special liaison between UNOCAL and the Taliban government. Khalilzad also worked on various risk analyses for the project.

    Khalilzad’s efforts complemented those of the Enron Corporation, a major political contributor to the Bush campaign. Enron, which filed for bankruptcy in the single biggest corporate collapse in the nation’s history, conducted the feasibility study for the CentGas deal. Vice President Cheney held several secret meetings with top Enron officials, including its Chairman Kenneth Lay, earlier in 2001. These meetings were presumably part of Cheney’s non-public Energy Task Force sessions. A number of Enron stockholders, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, became officials in the Bush administration. In addition, Thomas White, a former Vice Chairman of Enron and a multimillionaire in Enron stock, currently serves as the Secretary of the Army.

    A chief benefactor in the CentGas deal would have been Halliburton, the huge oil pipeline construction firm that also had its eye on the Central Asian oil reserves. At the time, Halliburton was headed by Dick Cheney. After Cheney’s selection as Bush’s Vice Presidential candidate, Halliburton also pumped a huge amount of cash into the Bush-Cheney campaign coffers. And like oil cash cow Enron, there were Wall Street rumors in late December that Halliburton, which suffered a forty per cent drop in share value, might follow Enron into bankruptcy court.

    Assisting with the CentGas negotiations with the Taliban was Laili Helms, the niece-in-law of former CIA Director Richard Helms. Laili Helms, also a relative of King Zahir Shah, was the Taliban’s unofficial envoy to the United States and arranged for various Taliban officials to visit the United States. Laili Helms’ base of operations was in her home in Jersey City on the Hudson River. Ironically, most of her work on behalf of the Taliban was practically conducted in the shadows of the World Trade Center, just across the river.

    Readers will have to continue their own digging, it won’t be difficult to find more; this information has been around for a long time, years.

    On a final note, I would add that it is completely off base to lump Dennis Kucinich with other presidential contenders, or even with other members of Congress. He is unique and has withstood pressure to bend or be bought by controlling interests in his long years of service. He has consistently voted against war and any funding for war. In lieu of the additional Administration’s appropriation request of $120 billion and the House voting for it, Dennis is calling for all citizens to take to the streets:

    The House on Friday passed the controversial supplemental appropriations bill, H.R. 1591, by a vote of 218 to 212, in Roll Call 186. Congressman Kucinich voted NO. Standing firm with him on this NO vote were 13 Democrats: John Barrow [GA], Dan Boren [OK], Lincoln Davis [TN], Barbara Lee [CA], John Lewis [GA], Jim Marshall [GA], Jim Matheson [UT], Michael McNulty [NY], Michael Michaud [ME], Gene Taylor [MS], Maxine Waters [CA], Diane Watson [CA], and Lynn Woolsey [CA].

    Congressman Kucinich immediately released a video, saying, “Washington hasn’t listened. Washington has said More War.”

    Kucinich now calls for Americans now to act, to “go into the town squares … meet in libraries and on university campuses across the country, to cause the policies of the United States to emerge right from the grassroots, and be heard in Washington.”

    Readers can read more on this at the FountainHead forum [renamed TS Forum at this site], scroll down to the appropriate reply:
    Re: Kucinich for President!
    « Reply #37 on 3/27/07 at 1:25pm »
    It Is Time To Take A Strong Stand
    3/24/07 11:49:48 PM Eastern Standard Time
    http://tinyurl.com/36us5s

    After reading the above, I invite all to read through the various posts at Kucinich for President! and to make up their own minds as to what kind of man Dennis Kucinich is. To me, he is a man who encourages us to engage in direct, face-to-face talks; cease using language that defines the other using “enemy” images; and promote more people-to-people exchanges. He embodies all that our country needs at this time, including a true spiritual healing for the united States.

    Sincerely,
    Michelle

  2. Anwaar on March 27th, 2007 7:13 pm

    That’s an eye opener Michelle. Many thanks.

    Anwaar

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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


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