Over a Barrel?
Fred Pearce has a very interesting article on Iraqi oil in the latest New Scientist:
With fears about global warming barely registering inside the Bush administration, the US Department of Energy says it expects US oil consumption to rise by a staggering 48 per cent between now and 2020. “There is a deep and pervading recognition at the heart of the Bush administration that the most significant future vulnerability for the US is its steadily growing dependence on Gulf oil,” says Rogers.
Rogers says securing foreign oil supplies has been a central goal of US foreign policy for 30 years. The Iraq war, from this perspective, represents a ratcheting-up of this strategy. Some hawks in Washington, such as the influential Heritage Foundation, also see it as a chance to break the grip of, or even destroy, OPEC and permanently lower oil prices by raising supplies.
This strategic insecurity is fed by growing fears about Saudi oil supplies, should radicals unseat the current regime there, and increasingly pessimistic predictions of future world oil supplies from US oil companies. Last year, Exxon admitted that new oil discoveries were falling badly behind rising demand. Worldwide, existing oilfields can only meet half the demand for oil expected by 2010, said Exxon director Harry Longwell in the journal World Energy.
Certainly, US oil companies look forward to ‘privatising’ the Iraqi oil industry after Saddam’s fall. They have already held talks with leaders of the Iraqi National Congress, the main opposition group. They are not alone in eyeing Iraqi oil.
Read the full article here
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