Finally They Admit It! No Oil Is Getting Out Of Iraq.....

[leftchick]

Well sort of. "Production is lagging" really means they aren't getting squat......


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/international/middleeast/17reconstruct.html

<snip>

In the case of oil, which provides Iraq with virtually all its revenues, production is lagging despite American spending of well over $2 billion. The northern oil fields are often rendered useless because of insurgent attacks on key pipelines.

In southern Iraq, oil production is constrained by a breakdown of the system that pressurizes underground petroleum reservoirs with injections of water. The Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root repaired the crucial water plant soon after the main fighting ended in Iraq, at high expense. But the oil fields still receive little water, aid officials report, because the aged pipes carrying water to the oil fields break so often. The Iraqi insurgency, of course, also has caused huge delays.



An Iraqi police officer, assigned to protecting oil production and distribution, watches from across the Tigris River as fire and smoke billow from a pipeline fire following an explosion near Beiji, Iraq Monday, April 18, 2005. The Beiji refinery is the largest in Iraq.(AP Photo/Bassem Daham)

Attacks just in 2005.....

http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

2005
186. January 1 - attack on a pipeline from Kirkuk to Bayji.
187. January 1 - attack on a pipeline linking the southern cities of Karbala and Hillah, 46 miles south of Baghdad near the Musabayb power station.
188. January 7 - attack on gas pipeline 9 miles north of Tikrit.
189. January 8 - attack on an oil pipeline running from northern fields to Bayji in the Safra area, 43 miles southwest of Kirkuk. Two guard posts for an oil protection force were also blown up around the area and one guard was wounded.
190. January 8 - attack on a gas pipeline in the Fatha area near Bayji.
191. January 11 - 2:00am rocket attack on a gas pipeline that runs to Bayji near the Fatha production station.
192. January 11 - 6:30am attack on an oil pipeline that runs to Bayji in the Zegheitoun area, 35 miles southwest of Kirkuk. The pipeline had just been brought online on January 9th.
193. January 13 - 10:30pm attack on oil pipeline near Fatha.
194. January 14 - improvised explosive device detonated after midnight damaging an oil pipeline near Bayji and sparking a large fire.
195. January 14 - attack on a pipeline linking Kirkuk and the Daura refinery, near Samarra.
196. January 14 - rocket attack on pipeline complex near Fatha sparked large blaze.
197. January 17 - a bomb blew off a section of a pipeline in Fatha.
198. January 21 - 07:00am attack on pipeline in the al-Tharthar region 12 miles south of Samarra interrupted the flow of oil to the Bayji refinery.
199. February 2 - attack on oil pipeline connecting Bayji refinery to Daura refinery. The attack took place near Samarra.
200. Fabruary 5 - attack on a cluster of eight pipelines west of Samarra connecting the Bayji and Daura refineries.
201. February 6 - attack on pipeline carrying crude oil from Kirkuk to Bayji.
202. February 9 - attack on a gas pipeline before dawn in Fatha, about 15 miles north of Bayji.
203. February 9 - rocket attack on a pipeline linking Kirkuk to Bayji.
204. February 13 - 10:00pm attack on oil pipeline at the al-Dibbis oil field 31 miles north of Kirkuk.
205. February 14 - another attack on oil pipeline at al-Dibbis.
206. February 16 - attack on pipeline carrying crude from Kirkuk to Bayji near Fatha.
207. February 16 - attack on pipeline carrying crude from Kirkuk to Daura refinery.
208. February 16 - another attack on pipeline near Fatha.
209. February 16 - attack on pipeline in the Bajwan area, northwest of Kirkuk.
210. February 16 - gunmen killed Colonel Ibrahim Ahmed in charge of pipeline security. The killing took place at Ajeel west of Kirkuk.
211. February 25 - late night attack on a pipeline connecting the Dibbis oil fields with Kirkuk.
212. March 2 - 10pm attack on gas pipeline to Bayji near Al-Safra 30 miles west of Kirkuk caused the shutdown of two of the Bayji power station's four turbines.
213. March 3 - attack on a gas pipeline that links Kirkuk to Dibbis.
214. March 7 - attack on pipeline near Samarra, 60 miles northwest of Baghdad.
215. March 8 - 1pm attack on oil pipeline feeding Al-Daura refinery near Jorf al-Sakhr, 35 miles south of Baghdad.
216. March 9 - attack on oil pipeline feeding the Daura refinery in Jorf al-Sakhr, 46 miles south of Baghdad.
217. March 12 - attack on oil pipeline connecting Bayji and Daura in Al-Tharthar, near Samarra.
218. March 12 - Rocket-propelled grenades were launched at a pipeline running from Kirkuk to Daura.
219. March 15 - attack on oil pipeline in Fatha which carries crude from Kirkuk to Bayji.
220. March 25 - attack on oil pipeline which connects Iraq northern oilfields with the Daura refinery.
221. March 27 - 9:00am attack on oil pipeline which carries crude from Kirkuk to Bayji. Repairs on the line had just been completed the day before.
222. April 4 - attack on pipeline running through the Riyad area near Bayji.

[bryant69]

1. Yeah, this one was pretty predictable

How are they going to guard miles of pipeline? THey aren't. It's an obvious target, and it has the advantage of being low risk, if planned out right.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[fasttense]

4. Their money?

How do you figure bush is going to let them have that money or oil? When he invaded Iraq he told American citizens that because of the Iraq's oil, this war wouldn't cost us much. Do you really think if Iraq oil production became lucrative, bush would give the money to Iraqis?

[Name removed]

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[mhr]

7. No Conspiracy - It's Called Peak Oil

You must be a Peak Oil denier.

Hope you enjoy living in your tin-foil hat world.

[IrateCitizen]

13. Because we didn't need the oil in 1992

I don't know if you bothered to notice, but oil prices have risen a full $20 per barrel in the past year alone. Since the late 1990's, they've gone from around $10 per barrel to over $50 per barrel. There's a distinct reason for that -- oil supplies are starting to reach the levels of scarcity.

Just look at the activity of multinational oil companies over the past 5 years or so. Shell had to significantly revise their estimates of reserves downward last year. Companies are pushing money into mergers, not exploration. In fact, discovery of oil reserves has plummetted to near nothing over the past several years.

Now, nobody knows for sure what the state is of fields in Middle Eastern countries, like Saudi Arabia, because all the businesses there are state-owned. However, given the fact that Saudi Arabia promised to boost production a few months back in order to bring prices down, and was unable to do so, is not a good sign. What it points to is the fact that there is no longer such a thing as a "swing producer" -- a producer that can increase production to bring prices down -- so we've actually reached the point at which our oil demand is equal to our available production.

This, my friend, is the definition of "peak oil". And what it means is that we are now facing a downward production slope in which oil grows more scarce and expensive as time goes on. It won't take much for prices to spiral out of control -- a mere 5% reduction in supply send prices skyrocketing about 400% during the 1970's gas shortages. That will seem like a day in the park with what we're facing.

The reason that Bush went into Iraq has everything to do with this. If the US can create a police station in the Middle East, it can control the flow of oil and thus maintain some semblance of "the American way of life", which Dick Cheney has declared as being "non-negotiable". At least, that's their thought process on the matter. Personally, I don't think they'll be able to maintain it, because it is clear that things will never calm down in Iraq so long as we remain there, we're overstretched militarily and economically, our culture is rotting out from within, and as oil prices jump over the next few years we simply will not be able to afford fielding a military that is incredibly dependent on oil in order to function.

In short, we will all likely see the end to the way of life we have grown accustomed to in our lifetime. All of it -- gone. Without cheap oil, there is no "American way of life", other than perhaps a return to the 18th century but without the extensive expertise in craftsmanship that existed back then. If anything, it will usher in a new Dark Age for humanity while civilization is forced to re-invent itself.

[bryant69]

10. What a maroon

They want us gone more than they want the oil. And at any rate, is it really reasonable to assume that the most powerful military force known to man can't protect a pipeline, but a bunch of Iraqi civilians can?

[KittyWampus]

12. Their Money?Neo-Cons PRIVATIZED Everything. It's No Longer THEIR $

or their oil...

Remember, Junior/Rumsfeld ordered our military to go without adequate forces to protect the infrastructure or population after the fall of Saddam.

The ONLY thing they protected was the Oil Ministry.

[stellanoir]

3. It's perversely ironic

that the precious petroleum that has cost us so much in blood, treasure, and trashed global opinion of us irrevocably, is literally . . .going up in smoke.

Can you imagine how long the list would be from the last two years?

[leftchick]

9. It is at that link....

The Iraq pipeline watch lists all of the attacks since the illegal invasion. It is a very long list indeed. It is sickening what the greed of a few has cost so many.

[KittyWampus]

11. Even More Irony If You Figure All The Petrol That's Been Spent Fighting

this assinine, misbegotten war.

[acmejack]

6. Looks like we've turned the corner, alright

I wonder if that is a complete accounting. In this age I am leery of any information that our Government might have an interest in. They have such a commitment to truth, isn't it amazing to say "I don't trust these numbers because the US Government lacks veracity and actively promotes disinformation, half-truths and blatant falsehoods"

[Jacobin]

8. Apparently, Iraqis don't want us stealing their oil

Who coulda imagined that scenario? :eyes:

[LibDemAlways]

14. The BFEE is absolutely determined to get it,

and they don't give a shit what the price tag is. If this wasn't really about oil and war profiteering, we'd have been out of there long ago.