Iraq oil watchdog says $24.7 bln potential exports lost

[cal04]

Iraq lost $24.7 billion of potential oil revenues in the past three years because violence and political instability have damaged existing operations and blocked new projects, Iraq's oil watchdog said on Thursday.

Years of United Nations sanctions, mismanagement under Saddam and now daily violence since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion have severely degraded Iraq's oil sector and it now needs billions of dollars of capital investment.

The general inspector's office of the oil ministry said in a report that the main reason for dwindling oil production and exports was the failure to complete planned construction projects to expand Iraq's output capacity.

(snip)
Poor technical management and a failure to employ new methods of drilling and extracting oil had led to the loss of many productive wells in Iraq's Rumeila South and north oil fields, it said.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR354929.htm

[Webster Green]

1. The Bush family plan to reduce global warming?

They're closet tree-huggers?

[yurbud]

2. nope, their plan to increase oil company profits--cut production

[LynnTheDem]

3. That would be "years of AMERICAN-ENFORCED UN sanctions..."

And as oil exports were higher under Saddam Hussein, even 2 months after the Gulf War, it's a damn safe bet bush's INVASION and "shock & awe" TERRORIZING and continued bombing the fuck out of Iraq ias the #1 reason for billions of oil revenues gone.

Or at least gone from the people of Iraq.