Iraq Says UN Must Reduce Reparations Paid from Oil

World - Reuters

Iraq Says UN Must Reduce Reparations Paid from Oil

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By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi delegation will travel to the United Nations on Wednesday to demand full control of the country's oil revenues and a cut in war reparations imposed on Iraq.


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We will negotiate on the basis that Iraq must be fully in charge of its resource wealth and the five percent of oil revenues we pay must be reduced further," he said in reference to reparations for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.


Iraq has paid around $20 billion of reparations of an estimated $300 billion. A U.N. resolution a year ago reduced war reparations from 15 percent of oil proceeds to five percent.


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Iraqi officials say the reparations, estimated to be largely owed to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, are unfair.


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Iraq exported 3.2 million barrels per day before the 1990 Gulf War, but exports are now down to 1.8 million bpd as the crippling embargo limited the country's ability to maintain the infrastructure.



more.....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040518/wl_nm/energy_iraq_dc&cid=574&ncid=1480

... while it is occupied after an illegal war and its infrastructure destroyed?

It's called: Adding Insult to Injury

Halliburton alone is reportedly (BBC) said to have Iraq contracts worth as much as $18 billion. Of course, Bechtel and Flour also have big, big contracts too.

It will all be billed to the Iraqi oilfields.

during the purported embargo, do either have a legal leg to stand own regarding this current request?

This story was from the NY Post about a week ago:

...A source in the intelligence community tells me that the U.N. oil embargo of Saddam Hussein was worthless because Iraqi oil was being shipped all these years to a Caribbean island called St. Eustatius, unloaded into onshore tanks and then reloaded into U.S.-bound tanker ships.

The same switcheroo is being done with Iranian oil, I'm told.

Oh, and the source says Washington would rather nobody know about this.

http://www.nypost.com/business/23936.htm

Hadn't heard that one. Thanks for finding and posting. :thumbsup:

it is certainly a well kept secret. I'd like to see an investigative reporter sink their teeth into this. So far this is the only source for that story that I'm aware of.

We were filling our reserves almost exclusively with Iraqi oil.

The story made Iraq's oil out to be a very ideal crude oil, low in impurities, sulfur, etc.

I'll see if I can find it.

US buys up Iraqi oil to stave off crisis

Seizing reserves will be an allied priority if forces go in

Faisal Islam and Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Sunday January 26, 2003
The Observer


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After the loss of 1.5 million barrels per day of Venezuelan production in December the oil price rocketed, and the scarcity of reserves threatened to do permanent damage to the US oil refinery and transport infrastructure. To keep the pipelines flowing, President Bush stopped adding to the 700m barrel strategic reserve, but ultimately oil giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell saved the day by doubling imports from Iraq from 0.5m barrels in November to over 1m barrels per day to solve the problem. Essentially, US importers diverted 0.5m barrels of Iraqi oil per day heading for Europe and Asia to save the American oil infrastructure.


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But for opponents of war, it shows the unspoken aim of military action in Iraq, which has the world's second largest proven reserves - some 112 billion barrels, and at least another 100bn of unproven reserves, according to the US Department of Energy. Iraqi oil is comparatively simple to extract - less than $1 per barrel, compared with $6 a barrel in Russia. Soon, US and British forces could be securing the source of that oil as a priority in the war strategy. The Iraqi fields south of Basra produce prized 'sweet crudes' that are simpler to refine.


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Washington is split along hawk-dove lines about the role of oil in a post-Saddam Iraq. Two sets of meetings sponsored by the State Department and Vice-President Dick Cheney's staff have been attended by representatives of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhilips and Halliburton, the company that Cheney ran before his election.


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While the State Department is mindful of cynical world opinion about US war aims, officials do not always stick to the script. Grant Aldonas, Under Secretary at the US Department of Commerce, said war 'would open up this spigot on Iraqi oil which certainly would have a profound effect in terms of the performance of the world economy for those countries that are manufacturers and oil consumers'.


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Five years ago the then Chevron chief executive Kenneth Derr, a colleague of Rice, said: 'Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas - reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to.'


more . .

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,882517,00.html



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Trading With the Enemy
U.S. Refiners Reportedly Buying
Most of Iraq's Oil

By John K. Cooley

July 20 —


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An authoritative Iraqi source says that as much as 90 percent of the actual amount of Iraq's estimated 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) are going to U.S. Gulf coast refineries. "Most of Iraq's oil exports in July are destined to the U.S., with a few going to Europe," reported the authoritative oil journal Middle East Economic Survey.


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Works Great, Less Taxing

Sources say American refiners prefer the Iraqi Kirkuk and Basrah oil varieties, because of their low sulfur content. When they can remove the sulfur more easily, refiners can make higher profits.


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Oil industry sources tell ABCNEWS that the U.S. companies most heavily involved at present are Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Bayoil and Koch Petroleum, which use it in their refineries in Louisiana and Texas.


Getting it to Market


Most of the U.N.-authorized oil sales have gone to Russian private trading firms as a reward for Moscow's pro-Iraqi positions in the U.N. Security Council, MEES editors said.


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Watching the Money Trail


America's refiners are getting most of their Iraqi oil from Ceyhan, Turkey, the terminus of a pipeline between Kirkuk and Ceyhan, because loading Iraqi crude oil there cuts out the need for supertankers to steam all the way around the Arabian Peninsula.


more..

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/iraq010720_cooley.html