I don't have a whole lot to say about this at the moment, but thought that people would find it interesting.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Since we're throwing stuff out there, I caught a little blurb today. The 4 major U.S. Oil companies have been given 2 year no bid contracts to exploit the Iraqi oil fields, which I'm sure comes as an enormous surprise to everyone.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I don't have a whole lot to say about this at the moment, but thought that people would find it interesting.
Can't say I could have predicted anyone taking Prince's angle on this. Apparently Blackwater should move some of it's operations to Sudan, one can't be found guilty of anything there.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote: The 4 major U.S. Oil companies have been given 2 year no bid contracts to exploit the Iraqi oil fields, which I'm sure comes as an enormous surprise to everyone.
quote: Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.
quote: The no-bid deals are structured as service contracts. The companies will be paid for their work, rather than offered a license to the oil deposits. As such, they do not require the passage of an oil law setting out terms for competitive bidding. The legislation has been stalled by disputes among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties over revenue sharing and other conditions.
quote: In all cases but one, the same company that had provided free advice to the ministry for work on a specific field was offered the technical support contract for that field, one of the companies’ officials said.
The exception is the West Qurna field in southern Iraq, outside Basra. There, the Russian company Lukoil, which claims a Hussein-era contract for the field, had been providing free training to Iraqi engineers, but a consortium of Chevron and Total, a French company, was offered the contract. A spokesman for Lukoil declined to comment.
posted
Heh, you know, if they end up getting the contract for that field, the advice they offered was hardly free now was it?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
To be fair, they might not have known they'd get the contract. I mean, as DK pointed out, one company who was giving free advice was passed over in these no-bid awards for an American company. I wonder why they would have done that in that one particular case. There must have been something different from that company than the others.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Urging that the court use the law of a country within which a tort allegedly occurred is commonplace. The only novel aspect here is whether or not sharia is the applicable law in Afghanistan.
Some of the acts that led to the crash are alleged to have taken place in the U.S., so it's possible that U.S. law would be applied to those acts.
quote:I wonder why they would have done that in that one particular case. There must have been something different from that company than the others.
What are the likely candidates for "something different"? Participation in the invasion and occupation of Iraq isn't one, at least by the standards used to reject the "provided free help" factor. Total is a French company. France opposed the invasion. So the difference is not just whether the firm's nation participated in the invasion. Perhaps they are trying to encourage Sarzoky to send troops.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
From what I can tell, working off of very incomplete information, Total wasn't one of the firms providing free advice. Also, I can tell for sure that they weren't, by themselves, offerred a no-bid contract.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
True. They did, however, receive a no-bid contract. And they weren't part of the invasion or occupying force.
So my point still stands. There is some other factor at work here, either in addition to or instead of whether the nation of the company participated in the invasion.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
No. They didn't receive a no bid contract. A consortium of which they are a member received a no-bid contract.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
My point still stands. There is some other factor at work here, either in addition to or instead of whether the nation of the company participated in the invasion.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I don't see how. The consortium includes a company from the U.S.
edit: Which is not to say that I think that the nation of the companies given these sweetheart deals was the prime influence.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Dag, If say, the Bush White House gave out a bunch of no-bid contacts to people who were members of the Bush family, but gave one to a company where only one of the partners was a Bush, would you say take objection to people saying that they were giving these contracts to Bush family members?
quote:As might "not having been a contractor for Hussein's government."
I don't think this holds up, given that many of the companies who were given no-bid contracts were also contractors for Hussein's government.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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This isn't even accurate. Isn't Exxon Mobil really the only US owned company? Or that doesn't matter since they all sell gas to Americans (home or abroad) so they are all Evil Republican Bush Buddies?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Do you know that to be true? It may be so for the big companies - not sure about that - but what about the various smaller U.S. companies that were also given no-bid contracts?
For that matter, what about the over 40 other companies that were looking for these? Perhaps they were all contracting with Saddam Hussein, but I doubt it.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
As I intimated, I don't think country of origin was the prime determiner here. I'd expect that the countries given no bid contracts here would share some important characteristics with other companies also given no-bid contracts for operations in Iraq that many companies that didn't get the bids do not have, even though they may have been U.S. companies, while some of the companies that did get them might not be.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Do you know that to be true? It may be so for the big companies
It is true, according to the article. It makes a big deal about the history.
quote: - not sure about that - but what about the various smaller U.S. companies that were also given no-bid contracts?
I was referring to the big ones. Do you know "that many of the companies who were given no-bid contracts were also contractors for Hussein's government"?
quote:For that matter, what about the over 40 other companies that were looking for these? Perhaps they were all contracting with Saddam Hussein, but I doubt it.
Did any of them (other than the Russian company) give free advice? The article suggests this isn't so, since all but one of the companies giving free advice received the no bid contracts for the fields they advised on.
One thing the article makes clear is that having given free advice is a significant factor in whether someone got the contract - there's only one exception. In fact, the correlation is high enough that the most productive way to analyze this is to look for factors explaining that exception.
I've posited one - using the word "might" quite explicitly.
quote:As I intimated
Perhaps that's the problem here. Maybe you should have just said this instead of "intimating" it.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I don't believe the companies chosen to be allowed to give free advice were selected without an eye on this situation eventually developing.
--- edit: As for itimating, was me saying: "Which is not to say that I think that the nation of the companies given these sweetheart deals was the prime influence." to subtle? I thought that did a good job of establishing that I didn't believe that.
You brought that up yourself. I just didn't agree that your justifications for dismissing it were necessarily valid.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I believe that their being 5 of only 6 supermajor petroleum companies had a lot to do with it.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:I don't believe the companies chosen to be allowed to give free advice were selected without an eye on this situation eventually developing.
Incidentally, I don't necessarily have a problem with this, I was just pointing out that the 'free advice' was obviously a long-term investment opportunity for those giving the 'free' advice.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:As for itimating, was me saying: "Which is not to say that I think that the nation of the companies given these sweetheart deals was the prime influence." to subtle? I thought that did a good job of establishing that I didn't believe that.
First, you used the word intimated to describe your previous statement on this matter. I merely adopted your self-characterization.
Second, you didn't say what you actually did believe until much later. You didn't even say what you didn't believe - that nationality wasn't the prime factor - until after you feigned shock and surprise for sarcastic effect and misstated the situation with the Russian oil company.
You said, "one company who was giving free advice was passed over in these no-bid awards for an American company." Which I wouldn't bother calling out except that you then made a big stink about the consortium being the one to actually get the contract.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Incidentally, I don't necessarily have a problem with this, I was just pointing out that the 'free advice' was obviously a long-term investment opportunity for those giving the 'free' advice.
It's also one I've both benefited from and failed to capitalize on as a small business owner.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Dag, I don't believe you are attempting to deal with me honestly here. I see no benefit in continuing to discuss this with you.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Edit: let me be very clear here: I am not being dishonest in my attempts to deal with you. I also believe that you know this and are making excuses. It's something you have done repeatedly, usually after having some inconsistency in the standards you apply to me and yourself (or sometimes others) pointed out to you in a way that you cannot possibly dispute. I can see I wasted my time even bothering to address you.
I note once again that you refuse to hold yourself to standards that you attempt to enforce on others.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
From what I read in the NYTs about this, many of these major petroleum corporations had operations in Iraq and were kicked out when Saddam Hussein placed oil under government control. It is also the government of Iraq that is offering these no bid contracts. They rejected the petitions of at least 40 other countries, however there are oil lobbyists who act as advisers to the government.
Although no bid contracts are rare, the arrangement as it stands is not especially lucrative for oil companies, most of the money is still going into Iraqi government hands, and hopefully towards infrastructure development.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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This isn't even accurate. Isn't Exxon Mobil really the only US owned company? Or that doesn't matter since they all sell gas to Americans (home or abroad) so they are all Evil Republican Bush Buddies?
Exxon/Mobil is American and is the world's largest energy company.
Shell is Dutch/British, and it's the second largest energy company in the world. You could argue that it's American subsidiary is American, but, it's still owned by the Dutch and such.
BP is the third largest, and it's British.
Total is the fourth largest, and it's French.
Chevron is American, but it wasn't one of the major companies being chosen from what I see. Though it is the world's fifth largest energy company.
All of these companies are multinational corporations. It seems like a decent grab bag of the companies most capable world wide of being able to give the technical support necessary to get Iraq's oil infrastructure back on its feet. To me the real difference is that they aren't being given control of the fields, as is often the case, but instead they're just being brought in for technical guidance and are being paid separately. That's an infinitely better set up for Iraq and the Iraqi people than giving them an actual stake in the fields. It's most like that one or many of these companies would've ended up winning anyway. Though a Russian company probably would've had a good chance too.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It seems like a decent grab bag of the companies most capable world wide of being able to give the technical support necessary to get Iraq's oil infrastructure back on its feet.
That's just crazy talk.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Back to the other article on Shari'a law for a moment, the article has this at the very end.
quote: The National Transportation Safety Board has blamed the crash on Presidential for its “failure to require its flight crews to file and fly a defined route,” and for not providing oversight to make sure its crews followed company policies and Pentagon and FAA safety regulations.
Would Shari'a law actually let a company get away with negligence that killed people? Cause if it's all about moral obligation, I'd say not getting your employees killed to save a buck should be right up there.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It seems like a decent grab bag of the companies most capable world wide of being able to give the technical support necessary to get Iraq's oil infrastructure back on its feet.
That's just crazy talk.
Who of those named would you replace, and who would you put in their place?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Would Shari'a law actually let a company get away with negligence that killed people? Cause if it's all about moral obligation, I'd say not getting your employees killed to save a buck should be right up there.
Speculation only: those who made the policy would be personally negligent, but not the company.
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