China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom

[eridani]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/world/middleeast/china-reaps-biggest-benefits-of-iraq-oil-boom.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world’s top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer. China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields.

“The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of this post-Saddam oil boom in Iraq,” said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in Washington. “They need energy, and they want to get into the market.”

Before the invasion, Iraq’s oil industry was sputtering, largely walled off from world markets by international sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein, so his overthrow always carried the promise of renewed access to the country’s immense reserves. Chinese state-owned companies seized the opportunity, pouring more than $2 billion a year and hundreds of workers into Iraq, and just as important, showing a willingness to play by the new Iraqi government’s rules and to accept lower profits to win contracts.

[hobbit709]

1. Another thing Shrub and Cheney botched

They couldn't even steal the oil they were going to steal.

[arcane1]

2. It seems to me that their plan worked perfectly

That oil was never intended for Americans, it was intended for oil companies to sell wherever they wanted.

[hobbit709]

3. But it was the Chinese oil companies that got it instead of theirs.

[arcane1]

4. Ah, I see what you're saying. Good point! :)

[Socal31]

5. Hearing otherwise rational people say that "Iraqi Freedom" was for oil always irks me.

Desert Storm was 100% for Kuwait's oil, obviously. But Iraqi Freedom was more about dick-wagging and revenge for threatening Daddy. And KBR.

[eridani]

6. I'm thinking that Bushco anticipated domination of the ME oil market by American companies

Didn't happen.