Re: oil

["Daru Rateau" <darurateau@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I know this is one of the contentious threads that we should limit to one last 
contribution, so I'm taking one last crack at this one. I'll respond to the 
last post on the topic.


>>Perhaps  growing scarcity has now made expensive deep-water drilling 
>>affordable, even with OPEC pumping flat out? The history of the oil
industry has been boom and bust, most recently illustrated in 1998. You give 
the corporations and OPEC too much credit for control of the market.<<

This doesn't make sense to me. The 'scarcity' we are talking about is an 
artificial one that serves multiple interests: an inflationary effect against a 
deflationary world economy, profits to oil global corporations--even a country 
such as the US thinking that its cheap currency plus high oil will put economic 
rivals like Germany and Japan down (both with overly strong currencies and a 
far higher rate of oil dependency on imports than the US). In effect, something 
very similar with what the US government and global oil corporations did back 
in the 70s and early 80s.

>>With these heavily armed and naval/air backed troops dying every day on the 
>>ground in Iraq  civilian oil technicians wouldn't stand much of a
chance. Oil-men want to make money, not die face down in the desert. The 
blitzkrieg is over now; the sniper and the rocket-propelled grenade rule.<<

The US military most likely figures that its o.k. so long as US soldiers are 
dying in the dozens. How else do you get combat-hardened troops anyway? Not by 
dropping bombs on targets no one sees, let alone assaults from the ground. But 
you are completely wrong about the presence of 'others'. The oil service 
parasites like Halliburton, Bechtel and Shaw are there and there to stay. If 
right now the war zone isn't very naturally profitable, they hope to make money 
off the contracts they get from the federal government.

>>I am presupposing that the oil men in the administration know that the black 
>>stuff is getting scarce. That's why they want to control Iraq. Of
course wanting in accomplishing are not necessarily the same thing.<<

I suppose some of them deep down think the earth might actually be getting 
warmer and warmer from the burning of fossil fuels. That doesn't meant they are 
doing a goddamned thing about it. I think you attribute far too much 
rationality and long-term thinking to a group of people who put the 
acceleration of profits above all else.


>> No they won't be tripping over themselves to get killed. That's the job of 
>> the troops. To kill and be killed until it's safe for drilling and 
>> pipelining.  Some times it is just that simple.<<

They are there trying to figure out what needs to be done to set up Iraq for 
locking into the global system preferred by Dutch Royal Shell, BP and 
Exxon-Mobil. If there were any rush to get Iraqi oil out of the soil, the US 
and the UK wouldn't have destroyed so much of the existing infrastructure in 
the first place. The first profits are going to the federal contractors like 
Halliburton and Bechtel. Others to follow. What they require is that Iraq be 
something more than an old-fashioned conquered and occupied country. The gas 
pipelines across in Afghanistan require this too. So the fossil fuel globals 
are waiting. And they are enjoying the artificially high price of oil that 
Bush's policies have created.

Finally, Jon F. mentions the year 1998. That's an interesting period in the 
global oil industry because people in the industry were complaining about what 
too much Iraqi oil in the world market was doing to their profits--their 
ability to manipulate prices to extract profits. Sometimes it is that simple.

DR
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