Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: il petrolio iracheno nelle mani di USA, UK e Francia

Oil giants return to Iraq
Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil and Total set to sign deal with Baghdad
By Patrick Cockburn
Friday, 20 June 2008
Nearly four decades after the four biggest Western oil companies were
expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein, they are negotiating their
return. By the end of the month, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil
and Total will sign agreements with the Baghdad government, Iraq's
first with big Western oil firms since the US-led invasion in 2003.
The deals are for repair and technical support in some of the
country's largest oilfields, the Oil Ministry in Baghdad said
yesterday. The return of "Big Oil" will add to the suspicions of those
in the Middle East who claimed that the overthrow of Saddam was
secretly driven by the West's desire to gain control of Iraq's oil. It
will also be greeted with dismay by many Iraqis who fear losing
control of their vast oil reserves.
Iraq's reserves are believed to be second only to Saudi Arabia in the
Middle East, but their exploitation has long been hampered by UN
sanctions, imposed on Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in
1990.
The major oil companies have been eager to go back to Iraq, but are
concerned about their own security and the long-term stability of the
country. The two-year no-bid agreements are service agreements that
should add another 500,000 barrels of crude a day of output to Iraq's
present production of 2.5 million barrels a day (b/d).
The companies have the option of being paid in cash or crude oil for
the deals, each of which will reportedly be worth $500m (£250m). For
Iraq, the agreements are a way of accessing foreign expertise
immediately, before the Iraqi parliament passes a controversial new
hydrocarbons law.
But they mean that the four oil companies, which originally formed the
Iraq Petroleum Company to exploit Iraqi oil from the 1920s until the
industry's nationalisation in 1972, will be well-placed to bid for
contracts for the long-term development of these fields. The oilfields
affected are some of the largest in Iraq, from Kirkuk in the north to
Rumaila, on the border with Kuwait. Although there is oil in northern
Iraq, most of the reserves are close to Basra, in the far south.
Since the US invasion, Iraqis have been wary of foreign involvement in
their oil industry. Many are convinced that the hidden purpose of the
US invasion was to take over Iraqi oil, but the Iraqi Oil Minister,
Hussein Shahristani, has said that Iraq will hold on to its natural
resources. "If Iraq needs help from international oil companies, they
will be invited to co-operate with the Iraqi National Oil Company
[Inoc], on terms and conditions acceptable to Iraq, to generate the
highest revenue for Iraq".
Inoc's technical expertise has deteriorated sharply during the long
years of sanctions. Iraq is currently exporting 2.1 million b/d and is
expecting to have oil revenues of $70bn this year, but its government
administration is too dysfunctional and corrupt to rebuild the
electricity or water supply systems. The government has $50bn in the
Federal Bank of New York.
Mr Shahristani has been highly critical of the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) for auctioning off oil concessions in Iraqi Kurdistan
without reference to the oil ministry in Baghdad. In an interview with
The Independent last year, he said Inoc would never do business with
any oil company that signed up with the KRG, and he also doubted if
the oil could be exported without pipelines. "Are they going to carry
it out in buckets?" he asked.
Several of the small oil companies who have signed contracts in
Kurdistan are hoping that in the long term there will be an agreement
between the Kurds and the central government and they will then sell
out to the majors at a large profit.
The technical support agreements, as the service agreements are known,
may open the door to Iraq for the majors. Mr Shahristani has said that
Iraq will open up the same fields for bidding for long-term
development projects soon. "We're going to announce the first
licensing round by the end of this month or early next month," he
said.
The high price of oil means that Iraq is not under immediate pressure
to maximise its oil revenues. The Iraqi parliament has suspected
anything which looks like giving foreign companies ownership of Iraq's
oil through a production sharing agreement.
The nationalisation of Iraq's oil is one the few acts of Saddam
Hussein's long years in power which is still highly popular, and Iraqi
members of parliament are fearful of anything that looks like back-
door privatisation in the interests of foreigners.
Big four have history of control
For the four oil giants, the new agreements will bring them back to a
country where they have a long history. BP, Exxon Mobil, Total and
Shell were co-owners of a British, American and French consortium that
kept Iraq's oil reserves in foreign control for more than 40 years.
The Iraq Petroleum Company (once the Turkish Petroleum Company) was
formed in 1912 by oil companies eager to grab the resources in parts
of the Ottoman Empire.
The company was formalised in 1928 and each of the four shareholders
had a 23.75 per cent share of all the oil produced. The final 5 per
cent went to Calouste Gulbenkian, an Armenian businessman.
In 1931, an agreement was signed with Iraq, giving the company
complete control over the oi fields of Mosul in return for annual
royalties. After Saddam's coup in 1958, nationalisation came in 1972.

 Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil and Total set to sign deal with Baghdad
Mission accomplished (cit.)!