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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar..._for_iraq_war/

Bush gives new reason for Iraq war

Says US must prevent oil fields from falling into hands of terrorists

By Jennifer Loven, Associated Press | August 31, 2005

CORONADO, Calif. -- President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...ht/4354269.stm

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.

Iraqi-born Falah Aljibury says US Neo-Conservatives planned to force a coup d'etat in Iraq

Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.

"We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities and pipelines [in Iraq] built on the premise that privatisation is coming " Mr Falah Aljibury

An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah Aljibury, says he took part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.
Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...031403677.html

http://www.americanfreepress.net/htm...heney_oil.html

THE BUSH-CHENEY OIL WAR

Administration Plans to Steal Iraqi Oil For Mega-Rich Revealed for First Time

By Richard Walker

Iraqi oil workers are waking up to the fact that a proposed hydrocarbon law the Bush administration wants the Iraqi Parliament to pass will effectively place the country�s massive oil reserves in the hands of big U.S. and British oil giants for decades.

Many Iraqis are only realizing now what experts have been saying since 2003: that the invasion of Iraq was about oil and Israel, and not about America�s security.

The new law would transfer ownership of the majority of Iraq�s oil from the Iraqi government and hand it to multinational oil companies linked mostly to the United States, though the British would have a slice of the action.

There would be no benchmarks establishing how much of the profits oil companies would have to share with Iraq.

The law would not pass muster in any other oil producing country in the world, especially one with the huge reserves Iraq has. The measure was drawn up by Bearing Point, a Virginia company that received a $240 million contract within weeks of the Iraq invasion to work with the Iraqi oil ministry.

At that time, Ahmed Chalabi, the darling of the Washington neo-cons was heralding a new Iraq in which an American-led group of oil companies would take over and manage the country�s oil reserves.

Chalabi was not alone. In 2004, as L. Paul Bremer was vacating Iraq where he had been virtually its ruler, he passed the baton for economic reconstruction�in particular Iraq�s oil future�to a former CIA source, Iyad Allawi and his close associate, Adel Abdul Mahdi. Within months Allawi presented proposals for a new petroleum law to Iraq�s Supreme Council, calling for an end to nationalization and the privatization of the oil industry. To close observers it was clear Allawi was the puppet chosen by the United States to do its bidding in the critical area of oil.

Since then the United States has put continuous pressure on the Iraqis to privatize their oil. A draft of the new law was shown to the Bush administration in 2006, but the Iraqi parliament was not allowed to see it until February 2007.

SLICK DICK CHENEY

This is no surprise to those who have closely studied the Bush Administration�s bogus case for going to war and more importantly the activities of Vice President Dick Cheney, beginning with his first 10 days in office in January 2001. He was the number two in an administration staffed mostly by former oil company executives who understood the importance of Iraq�s oil reserves. None was better informed or better placed to plan to control those reserves than Cheney.

During week two of the Bush presidency, Cheney set up the National Energy Policy Development Group that later became known as the vice president�s �Energy Task Force.� Cheney has since used executive privilege to hide the activities of that that group and its meetings with heads of the big energy companies in the United States.

But Freedom of Information Act searches have provided reporters with insights into what Cheney was up to prior to and after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The group was busy drawing up lists of companies and countries that were keen to get their hands on Iraq�s national resources. The lists were entitled �Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Contracts as of March 5, 2001.�

Cheney knew Iraq possessed oil riches. It had enough oil for the United States to break the OPEC stranglehold on world oil prices. Iraq�s oil is high grade and easily refined. More importantly Cheney knew it would be cheap to extract it from the ground because most of it is in shallow wells 1,400 to 2,000 feet beneath the desert floor. In total, the reserves were reckoned to be several hundred billion barrels with at least 120 billion barrels already located.

There was enough to put Iraq in the top tier of oil producers for well into the latter half of this century.

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Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast

Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world's top energy economist

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Monday, 3 August 2009

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.

In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.

But the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an "oil crunch" within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said.

In a stark warning to Britain and the other Western powers, Dr Birol said that the market power of the very few oil-producing countries that hold substantial reserves of oil – mostly in the Middle East – would increase rapidly as the oil crisis begins to grip after 2010.

"One day we will run out of oil, it is not today or tomorrow, but one day we will run out of oil and we have to leave oil before oil leaves us, and we have to prepare ourselves for that day," Dr Birol said. "The earlier we start, the better, because all of our economic and social system is based on oil, so to change from that will take a lot of time and a lot of money and we should take this issue very seriously," he said.

"The market power of the very few oil-producing countries, mainly in the Middle East, will increase very quickly. They already have about 40 per cent share of the oil market and this will increase much more strongly in the future," he said.

There is now a real risk of a crunch in the oil supply after next year when demand picks up because not enough is being done to build up new supplies of oil to compensate for the rapid decline in existing fields.

The IEA estimates that the decline in oil production in existing fields is now running at 6.7 per cent a year compared to the 3.7 per cent decline it had estimated in 2007, which it now acknowledges to be wrong.

"If we see a tightness of the markets, people in the street will see it in terms of higher prices, much higher than we see now. It will have an impact on the economy, definitely, especially if we see this tightness in the markets in the next few years," Dr Birol said.

"It will be especially important because the global economy will still be very fragile, very vulnerable. Many people think there will be a recovery in a few years' time but it will be a slow recovery and a fragile recovery and we will have the risk that the recovery will be strangled with higher oil prices," he told The Independent.

In its first-ever assessment of the world's major oil fields, the IEA concluded that the global energy system was at a crossroads and that consumption of oil was "patently unsustainable", with expected demand far outstripping supply.

Oil production has already peaked in non-Opec countries and the era of cheap oil has come to an end, it warned.

In most fields, oil production has now peaked, which means that other sources of supply have to be found to meet existing demand.

Even if demand remained steady, the world would have to find the equivalent of four Saudi Arabias to maintain production, and six Saudi Arabias if it is to keep up with the expected increase in demand between now and 2030, Dr Birol said.

"It's a big challenge in terms of the geology, in terms of the investment and in terms of the geopolitics. So this is a big risk and it's mainly because of the rates of the declining oil fields," he said.

"Many governments now are more and more aware that at least the day of cheap and easy oil is over... [however] I'm not very optimistic about governments being aware of the difficulties we may face in the oil supply," he said.

Environmentalists fear that as supplies of conventional oil run out, governments will be forced to exploit even dirtier alternatives, such as the massive reserves of tar sands in Alberta, Canada, which would be immensely damaging to the environment because of the amount of energy needed to recover a barrel of tar-sand oil compared to the energy needed to collect the same amount of crude oil.

"Just because oil is running out faster than we have collectively assumed, does not mean the pressure is off on climate change," said Jeremy Leggett, a former oil-industry consultant and now a green entrepreneur with Solar Century.

"Shell and others want to turn to tar, and extract oil from coal. But these are very carbon-intensive processes, and will deepen the climate problem," Dr Leggett said.

"What we need to do is accelerate the mobilisation of renewables, energy efficiency and alternative transport.

"We have to do this for global warming reasons anyway, but the imminent energy crisis redoubles the imperative," he said.

Oil: An unclear future

*Why is oil so important as an energy source?

Crude oil has been critical for economic development and the smooth functioning of almost every aspect of society. Agriculture and food production is heavily dependent on oil for fuel and fertilisers. In the US, for instance, it takes the direct and indirect use of about six barrels of oil to raise one beef steer. It is the basis of most transport systems. Oil is also crucial to the drugs and chemicals industries and is a strategic asset for the military.

*How are oil reserves estimated?

The amount of oil recoverable is always going to be an assessment subject to the vagaries of economics – which determines the price of the oil and whether it is worth the costs of pumping it out –and technology, which determines how easy it is to discover and recover. Probable reserves have a better than 50 per cent chance of getting oil out. Possible reserves have less than 50 per cent chance.

*Why is there such disagreement over oil reserves?

All numbers tend to be informed estimates. Different experts make different assumptions so it is under- standable that they can come to different conclusions. Some countries see the size of their oilfields as a national security issue and do not want to provide accurate information. Another problem concerns how fast oil production is declining in fields that are past their peak production. The rate of decline can vary from field to field and this affects calculations on the size of the reserves. A further factor is the expected size of future demand for oil.

*What is "peak oil" and when will it be reached?

This is the point when the maximum rate at which oil is extracted reaches a peak because of technical and geological constraints, with global production going into decline from then on. The UK Government, along with many other governments, has believed that peak oil will not occur until well into the 21st Century, at least not until after 2030. The International Energy Agency believes peak oil will come perhaps by 2020. But it also believes that we are heading for an even earlier "oil crunch" because demand after 2010 is likely to exceed dwindling supplies.

*With global warming, why should we be worried about peak oil?

There are large reserves of non-conventional oil, such as the tar sands of Canada. But this oil is dirty and will produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide which will make a nonsense of any climate change agreement. Another problem concerns how fast oil production is declining in fields that are past their peak production. The rate of decline can vary from field to field and this affects calculations on the size of the reserves. If we are not adequately prepared for peak oil, global warming could become far worse than expected.

Steve Connor, Science Editor

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...t-1766585.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...d-1780467.html

BP hails 'giant' oil find

By Holly Williams, Press Association

Wednesday, 2 September 2009

BP was given a shares boost today after the group announced a "giant" oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico.

The find was made at BP's Tiber well, which was drilled to a depth of more than 35,000 feet - making it one of the deepest wells ever drilled in the oil and gas industry, according to the firm.

It is now looking to verify the size and potential of the oil discovery, made around 250 miles south-east of Houston, Texas.

BP shares raced 4 per cent ahead at one stage, making it one of the day's biggest risers in a difficult session for the FTSE 100 Index.

The Tiber well find marks the firm's second major discovery in that area of the Gulf of Mexico.

Andy Inglis, chief executive of BP exploration and production, said the two finds helped "support growth of our deepwater Gulf of Mexico business into the second half of the next decade".

Tiber well is operated by BP, which has a 62 per cent stake, with co-owners Petrobas and ConocoPhillips respectively holding 20 per cent and 18 per cent stakes.

The group first made an oil discovery in this area of the Gulf of Mexico in Kaskida in 2006.

Although this is also still under appraisal, BP said it believes Kaskida has a three billion barrel capacity and confirmed the new find was potentially in "the same league".

It has launched a number of big oil developments in the wider Gulf of Mexico over the past 15 years, including Horn Mountain in 2002, Mad Dog in 2005 and Thunder Horse last year.

Thunder Horse is seen as BP's flagship project in the region, but was hit by a number of engineering problems that delayed the launch of production by three years.

However, Thunder Horse is now running at full operation, and production is now approaching 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon
Since arriving in the Gulf of Mexico, Deepwater Horizon was under contract to BP Exploration. Her work included wells in the Atlantis- and Thunder Horse Oil Fields

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwat...izon_oil_spill >>

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