Worldwide Oil Business and Oil Companies

2008-06-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

Since the second Industrial Revolution when the Diesel Engine was invented, crude oil became THE source of energy used by manhood and the central pillar of modern civilization. And as such, since the early twentieth century, nations have looked forward to secure a basic oil reserve to ensure their development. As a consequence, oil companies, alike their ancestors coal companies, began thriving and taking central stage in modern economies. They were first based on their geographical position as by the time global economy did not exist yet and each nation would rely on itself or its colonies, in the case of certain European powerful countries like France or Great Britain, for crude oil deliveries. This shows why the United States of America had a high rate of development : indeed, the US soil was so rich in natural resources that its sources of raw material (crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico States mainly Texas, iron in The North East etc.) and its industry were nearly stick to one another whereas the European Nations had to fetch their raw materials in their colonies. The role of crude oil became outstanding since the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War as since that time absolutely all the modern War Machine’s functioning was exclusively based on crude oil and that is when the US, in their title of standard-bearer of the West and head of The NATO, began a campaign to secure their “Petroleum Security”. This of course was good odd for oil companies whose activities before 1945 were limited to the American territory. Now they could expand their influence far beyond the national borders. Securing oil geographic concessions became the mission they were assigned to by the Government who helped them to fulfil such mission. So the questions one could ask now are : at what extent the influence of oil companies is spread within the Economy, and in the modern frame, in the Global Economy ? Between the sources of crude oil and the gas stations in their homelands, what is the margin of benefit that oil companies put in their “pockets” ; namely, what is their financial weight ? And finally, do oil companies have a role in politics, if yes what is the weight of this role ? Dear readers, you would be surprised as to what you would discover about oil business and the companies controlling it and their influential, if not directive, role in the worldwide financial, economic & less known geo-strategic & political aspects !

OIL COMPANIES HISTORY

►Major oil consuming nations’ history
►Oil producing nations’ history

OIL COMPANIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST

►Halliburton in Iraq
►ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia

OIL COMPANIES BUSINESS

►Oil Consuming Nations
►Oil Producing Nations

OIL COMPANIES AND POLITICS

►The White House And The Arabian Crown
►Mossadegh, The Shah And The West

OIL COMPANIES VERSUS BIOTECHNOLOGY

►Biotechnology : Future of Modern Civilization
►Biotechnology Versus Oil Industry

OIL COMPANIES CONSPIRACY

►Mercenaries and Oil Business
►9-11 and Oil Lobby

OIL COMPANIES IN EUROPE

►Oil & Gas, Ukraine Orange Revolution and Russia
►European Oil Companies and Pre-2003 Iraq

OIL COMPANIES IN NORTHERN AMERICA

►The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve
►Oil Industry Development’s Challenges

OIL COMPANIES IN LATIN AMERICA

►Venezuela and Iran, the Hawks of The OPEC
►Newly Discovered Oilfield Off Brazilian Coast Will Revolutionize Oil Sector

FUTURE OF OIL COMPANIES

►Global Warming and Oil Companies

Global Warming and Oil Companies

2008-06-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, global warming is a very concerning issue related to the welfare of the whole planet. All must be concerned about this very dangerous phenomenon that is occurring by our fault. When one knows than nearly forty percent of the global warming causes occur directly from automobile and airplane traffic, we are tempted to wonder what are oil companies, who directly supply or own these sources of global warming, doing to prevent further destruction of global environment fragile equilibrium. When facing the general public opinion awakening and awareness of the problem, major oil companies, who are pointed to as responsible for global warming by the average consumer, tend to begin financing and engaging campaigns for encouraging fight against the phenomenon as well as financing renewable energies technologies, sometimes against their will but at risk of loosing their consumers if fail to do so. It is the case of BP (British Petroleum) whose United Kingdom established CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Peter Mather declared that “An increasing number of members of the public want to do their bit and have a direct impact. Our research shows that people are aware of it but they don't quite know what to do about it” and insisted about the fact that “it’s not about market share but about doing the right thing”. But eventhough industrialized countries seem to wake up and governments taking the right decisions such as the greatest achievement when it comes to fight Global Warming, The Kyoto Protocol. It was adopted on the eleventh on December nineteen ninety-seven and consists in penalizing companies established on national territory not respecting the maximum allowed CO2 Gas emission. As of two thousand and seven, only sixty percent of countries in terms of global CO2 emission have ratified the protocol, and this excluding the number one oil-consuming and as such biggest polluting country in the World, The United States Of America. But eventhough the US did not sign the protocol, public opinion nevertheless puts pressure on oil companies and the State to begin seriously thinking about development of green technology, preservation of the Planet and promotion of Environmental values as seen with Al Gore’s political engagement concerning these matters.

Venezuela and Iran, the Hawks of The OPEC

2008-06-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

Why is the US so insisting about the Iranian Nuclear Program ? Why is Hugo Chavez so negatively targeted by the US as the new “Red Power” in Latin America ? Why is the couple Iran/Venezuela the new “Axis Of Evil” to the Americans ? Well the answer is easy. These two major producing and exporting nations are nowadays involved in an economic war against the US. As it is well-known, the US’s greatest weakness is its dependence on oil and when we know that these two countries are major players in the OPEC, number one petroleum countries club (or “cartel” according to some) in the World, we can make the relation between the “eco-war” they launched and its effective results on Western economies. Furthermore, they are now joined by Non-Aligned countries Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia and China (who joined them for ideological purposes as well as economic ones as China is number two oil importing nation in the World after the US). These countries’ only aim is to gain independence from the Industrialized Block (Northern America and Europe, Japan staying neutral when it comes to such situation while belonging to the major industrialized countries or “Triad”) and specifically from the US Dollar and indirectly from the Petrodollar. But alike the crisis in 1973, the increase of oil prices benefits major international oil companies implanted in oil producing nations and involved directly with the owning of the oil-related infrastructure in these countries, and on the contrary, the situation is catastrophic for smaller oil companies qualified as intermediary (those which’s role is to sell directly to the consumer refined and transformed crude oil without owning geographic concessions for the direct exploitation of oilfields). So naturally, the benefit margin for the major corporations is huge as if compared, the price of crude oil and the price of gasoline by liter for instance are really far from one another knowing that the difference between these two is to go to the oil companies’ CEOs, boards of directors and shareholders. After the IEAE vote concerning the Iranian Nuclear Program, it becomes now crystal clear that this new “Third World Opposition Force” on the international scene is composed of Iran and the countries who voted against IEAE sanctions namely Syria, Cuba and Venezuela. Venezuela even withdrew its appointed officials in israel (including the Venezuelan Ambassador) during the Lebanon Month War of 2006 opposing israel and Hezbollah without sending them back until now.

Newly Discovered Oilfield Off Brazilian Coast Will Revolutionize Oil Sector

2008-06-25T13:54:00.000-07:00

In 2007, Brazil was already known as an import emerging country and an expected future great economic power but another event added the importance of Brazil on international stage : the discovery of the Carioca/Sugar Loaf Field. Indeed, the national oil companies Petrobas, Repsol and BG Group actually discovered what could be the third largest oil and gas field in the World in terms of reserve (thirty three billion crude oil barrels at least and up to forty billion barrels). This discovery already began attracting international giant oil companies seeking to be awarded a concession individually or under the form of consortiums (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell etc.) but the one which most benefited of the situation is Brazilian-State-Owned Petrobas as its shares jumped after the discovery from twenty four dollars to one hundred and sixteen point seventy-seven dollars. Not surprising that this new oilfield played a role in the oil sector, or at least will play as soon as developed and prepared for full-scale exploitation especially when we do actually know that Brazil plans as a consequence of this discovery to apply for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) membership and aware of the size of the new oilfield soon entering the commercial market, I do personally think that crude oil prices decrease is not to be scheduled yet on the international economic agenda. Moreover, given Brazil’s already tremendous economic growth independently from crude oil exports but still depending on imports, the future situation resulting from a Brazilian membership in the OPEC will be that not only Brazil won’t rely anymore on foreign oil deliveries which will lay down any limit to the speed of its economic growth but furthermore, given its economic independence when it comes to oil exports, it will be able to vote an oil deliveries cut down in the OPEC without even tickling its economy but given the fact that the country is encouraging international trade and free market one can deduce that it won’t be likely to be the source of such votes and decisions only if forced to. But a question still remains unclear, will the Brazilian State award the exploitation of such huge resources to private or public oil companies, and furthermore, national or foreign will they be ?

The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve

2008-06-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

Since the 1973 Crisis and the inability of oil companies to sustain national oil consumption, the White House launched a program ensuring that in case of oil shortage due to external factors such as embargos from oil producing nations, the US could sustain its oil consumption for a certain time before relying once again on foreign deliveries. So the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was established in several sites using four billion dollars-cost artificial sixty meters wide and six hundred meters deep salt domes which’s crude oil storage capacity ranges from six to thirty-seven million barrels. There are six storage facilities, four presently exist, one is planned and one has been shut-down. The retired one is the “Weeks Island” (Iberia Parish, Louisiana) in 1999, it had a capacity of seventy two million barrels but has been decommissioned due to structure-failing risk because of fresh water-eroding from nearby aquifer. The planned facility is in Richton (Mississippi, USA), it would have a capacity of one hundred and sixty million barrels and able to be filled with nearly the equivalent of one million barrels every day. Finally, the operational facilities are : Bayou Choctaw (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA), it actually has a capacity of seventy six million barrels and will endure extension rendering able to be filled to maximum capacity of one hundred and nine million barrels. Big Hill (Winnie, Texas, USA), it actually has a capacity of one hundred and sixty million barrels and planned extension will render it capable of being filled at maximum capacity with two hundred and fifty million barrels. Bryan Mound (Freeport, Texas, USA), it has a capacity of two hundred and fifty-four million barrels divided in twenty salt domes. West Hackberry (Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA), it has a capacity of two hundred and twenty-seven million barrels. Although these numbers look outstandingly high, according to the Department of Energy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve can support only fifty-nine days of current US oil imports and if added to the private oil companies’ inventory protection, the lifetime of petroleum reserve expands to one hundred and fifteen days. So even when it comes to national energy security, it is clear that the US Government still depends on the oil companies to help support national petroleum security programs although its objective is to render the State completely independent from any external factor, national or extra-national was it.

Oil Industry Development’s Challenges

2008-06-25T13:50:00.001-07:00

While challenges in other countries, especially in the Third World, are politicians, speculation and money, American oil companies must face in their homeland challenges that can be even harder to handle. These are mainly what oil businessmen call in private the “green pain in the ass”. Indeed, environment advocacy and defense groups are nowadays really active in preventing development of oil drilling projects at home when these projects are to be promoted in protected natural areas such as Alaska. This State has been the target of greedy oil companies for its huge oil reserves, eventhough difficult to exploit given the polar climate and the ice. Such planned developments have encountered a huge opposition from public opinion which is promoted by groups such as Greenpeace. And for fact, this opposition can be justified : on the twenty-forth of March nineteen eighty-nine, a huge oil tanker carrying tens of millions of oil liters, the “Exxon Valdez”, took the sea from an oil terminal in Alaska. In order to avoid icebergs, the ship went out of the navigation trackways then failing to return back it struck Bligh Reef spilling as such 40.9 million liters of crude oil into the sea at Prince William Sound (Alaska, USA). According to Sarah Graham of the popular-science magazine “Scientific American”, the oil spill killed between 250,000 and 500,000 seabirds, more than 1,000 otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles and 22 orcas as well as destroying billions of salmon and herring eggs. Given no choice for the cleaning process, the authorities had to use high-pressure hot water and this resulted in the destruction of micro-organisms on the shoreline, organisms which were the basis of the ecosystem’s food chain such as planktons etc. Today oil companies tend to take it carefully when it comes to Polar oilfields given the vigorous skepticism of public opinion and they insist on the environmental security aspect o’too seriously like did British Petroleum when it wanted to develop its BP Amoco Northstar project but the harsh climatic conditions made skepticism even tougher as the oil drilling and exploitation technologies used nowadays have never been tested under extreme glacial climatic conditions before and environment defense groups fear that if an oil spill occurs from the offshore drilling site itself it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible due to overwhelmingly high cost operations, to conduct a efficient cleaning process. This led those defense groups to take action and filed lawsuit against British Petroleum in the Alaska State as well as in Federal US Courts to stop the project. On the other, they established as well live opposition by setting up a camp, “ Ice Camp Sirius”, one mile off the Northstar building site.

Oil & Gas, Ukraine Orange Revolution and Russia

2008-06-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

During the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Election, an unprecedented event took place. For the first time since 1991, a Ukrainian politician dared opposing the position of Ukraine as a satellite of Russia and showed signs that he wanted “to get rid of Russian grip over his country”, this man is Viktor Yushchenko. The other man participating in the elections was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Accusing the last of rigging the elections, a political struggle began between the two candidates to the Ukrainian Presidency. During this struggle, a terrible event took place : Yushchenko was poisoned and immediately his partisans blamed Yanukovych. But unusually, while normally behind the Head of The Government Prime Minister Yanukovych, Ukrainian Security Services, who were aware of his doubtful activities and ties in the business world, helped the political opposition led by Yushchenko. Indeed, on November 28 2004, when Prime Minister Yanukovych ordered ten thousand troops of the interior ministry’s security forces to be mobilized in order to prevent the manifestation planned by the political opposition in the capital city Kiev’s Independence Square, the officers of the Ukrainian Security Services warned Yushchenko about the planned mobilization. They justified their act as “prevention of bloodshed”. Moreover, the Ukrainian Security Services commanding officers did not sincerely want Yanukovych to become president and began performing mutiny acts justifying them now that Yushchenko is president, as part of their duty to protect their country and preventing men like Yanukovych from taking power is part of that duty. Of course, normally it wouldn’t be tolerated but the exceptional circumstances under which Ukraine was requested to make personal deductions and taking the adequate actions. So they literally provided the political opposition with evidence (wiretap recordings, classified documents etc.) proving Yanukovych’s obscure ties with some businessmen as well as scandalous documents proving electoral fraud. But if Yanukovych lost even control over his security services, how could have he been able to pursue his election frauds and actions alike it ? Well according to some sources, it is thanks to Russian support that he has been able to stand tight in his position. How does Russia justifies its involvement in the elections of a foreign country ? According to the Russians, Yushchenko was tied with a criminal and sworn enemy of the Kremlin : Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The fact is that Berezovsky financed through fake companies the campaign of Yushchenko although it is forbidden by Ukrainian Law that any foreigner participates in one way or another in “National Political Affairs” which include elections as well. Berezovsky even confirmed meeting with Yushchenko’s representatives in London but made no allegations whatsoever about financial support of the Political Opposition. On the other hand, Yanukovych did the same as he was awarded Kremlin consultants and advisers to help him with his political actions, met several times during the elections with Russian President Vladimir Putin, received support speech in the Russian-State-Controlled Media and was even provided with Russian-State-Controlled businesses financial help. Some even pretend that the Kremlin was the instigator and executor of Yushchenko’s poisoning as Yanukovych could have never done it alone without the support of his Security Services ; but of course those allegations are not proven yet and can be disputed and non taken seriously. Eventhough Putin’s protégé lost the elections, the opposition came to power in Ukraine and Russia lost the country as one of its last zones of influence, the Kremlin did not say his last word. Indeed, following presidential elections in Ukraine, Russian oil companies, mainly Gazprom, suddenly have risen gas prices from fifty dollars per thousand cubic meters to two hundred and thirty ! Alleging even more that if Ukraine does not comply with the newly fixed prices, these oil companies, surely under Kremlin pressure, would close their hydrocarbons delivery through pipelines crossing Ukrainian territory causing as such a huge downfall in the country’s national income.

European Oil Companies and Pre-2003 Iraq

2008-06-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

Since Gulf War One in 1991, during which The Arab Republic Of Iraq’s Armed Forces under late President Saddam Hussein’s Command invaded tiny neighbor Kingdom Of Kuwait, Iraq has been victim of a terrible embargo and submitted to an “Oil For Food” program. Although the oil deliveries and imported goods in Iraq should have been strictly and closely watched after by The United Nations, some high regime figures in cooperation with Western, and mainly European, businessmen sold oil outside the frame of the “Oil For Food” program under fake companies or pretended humanitarian organizations. But amongst all oil companies who took advantage of the situation, none did more than French ones. Indeed, France used to be before and after 1991 the closest Western country to the Saddam Regime. For instance, they provided him with a nuclear reactor in the 80’s . After the 2003 Iraq War, discovered and declassified documents showed that French oil companies were extremely closely tied with the Iraqi regime concerning their major oil deliveries destined to their consumers. These ties were born not only from the “traditional” fact that France is a close partner of Saddam but also through corruption of Iraqi Regime VIPs in order to be awarded geographic concessions over the oil-rich Iraqi oilfields such as Majnoon in Southern Iraq or Mosul in Northern Iraq, all this resulted in huge project worth billions of dollars such as Bin Umar Project three point four billion dollars for the development and the exploitation of Majnoon Oilfield. According to The French Justice, the corruption for the awarding of concessions or access to oil reserves was conducted through subsidiaries of the oil companies in “tax heavens” such as Bermuda and the Bahamas and their connections in Switzerland, mainly in Geneva. It is said that between 1996 and 2001, nearly twenty million dollars were transferred through those subsidiaries and Swiss connections to offshore accounts in Tax Heavens in the Caribbean Sea. Other discovered documents showed that US oil companies as well took advantage of the situation making secret deals in order to use excess capacity of French pipelines in Iraq to award themselves as well a bit of the Iraqi oil, and this outside the frame of the “Oil For Food” UN program.

Mercenaries and Oil Business

2008-06-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Every one knows that oil companies deal with some of the most stank places on Earth. Like every chaotic region where war is daily life, economy is arms trade, businessmen are arms dealers and traded goods are weapons, we can nearly at one hundred percent find also the presence of mercenaries. Unfortunately, this situation is more likely to be found in the continent of Africa, and especially in the 90’s. At the time, in Nigeria, one of the biggest oil-rich undergrounds in the World, an enormous and genially conceived cunt took place. This story is real and unique as it is a friend of mine, a Frenchman actually who used to work in The Federal Republic Of Nigeria, who told me it. The crude oil exported from Nigeria is actually loaded in oil tankers then sails to its destination. As such, it is first stored in huge tanks in the harbor of Port-Harcourt, South-East Nigeria, to be then loaded on the appropriate tankers. Unfortunately for the oil companies dealing in Nigeria, a regime VIP hired some mercenaries (mainly former American US Marines and Navy Seals as well as Apartheid-Era South African soldiers) to proceed to the operation he was planning. So when the tanker arrived at Port-Harcourt waiting for its crude oil delivery from the harbor’s tanks, the mercenary team dived underneath the tanker, dug a hole directly into the inner reservoirs of the tanker but as they were closed water did not flood in (just a matter of physics) then connected the hole to a pump hidden in the port complex through a very long pipe. Once the crude oil began being transferred from harbor tanks to tanker’s reservoirs, the mercenary team activated the pump so the result was that all the oil contained in the tanker directly flooded back to tanks connected to the pump the mercenaries used. So when the tanker arrived to its destination there was no oil in the reservoirs and that VIP regime resold back the crude oil he stole from the oil company’s tanker to award himself a nice healthy profit ! Of course, in order to respect the rights and privacy of the characters and oil companies I talked about in this article, no name whatsoever will be revealed to the reader as, given the fact that this story is not official, there is a risk of judicial trial.

9-11 and Oil Lobby

2008-06-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

We all do remember the eleventh of September two thousand and one, when two airliners crashed into the World Trade Center (or Twin Towers) in the city of New York killing at least three thousand people. Following the event, president George Walker Bush launched a retaliation known as “The War On Terror”. This led to the war in Afghanistan against the Talibans and Osama Ben Laden’s organization Al Qaeda ; then two years later to Gulf War 2 following which Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime fell down. Since then, Afghanistan and especially Iraq found themselves in an infernal cycle : Civil War. That is what we see on TV or hear on radio, to sum-up what is served to us by the Media. But what about what happens in the backstage ? Well according to some sources it is quite different from reality. I want to expose all point of views so I read what they have to say, found it quite logical and that’s why I am going to talk about what seems to be the most astonishing, incredible but unfortunately deceiving as well of all the geopolitical, political and business scandals that I heard of until now in my entire life ! During the Communist Era, the Soviet Union’s political directorate actually developed on the one hand the oilfields of Siberia given the fact that they are USSR’s most viable in time and quantity, on the other hand they proceeded in a strategy that left the oilfields of Central Asia untapped in order to constitute a reserve that would be used once the other oil sources of the Soviet Union would be depleted. But in 1991, Mikhail Gorbatchev sounded the collapse of the Soviet Union into a dozen countries so the new governments of Central Asian countries, especially Kazakhstan, found themselves with huge untapped, but non-developed as well, oilfields. This immediately drew attention of greedy oil companies who wanted to get the geographical concessions. Ok, the companies got their concessions, then what, bloody oil can’t get all by himself to the doorstep of the Consumer, can he ? Given the fact that the Central Asian countries are enclosed by neighbouring countries, the oil companies have to find a way to get the oil to an ocean-access harbor. Then another problem have risen, who are those neighbouring countries ? Well there is Russia, China, Afghanistan and Iran, and if one counts countries on the other side of the Caspian Sea then there is Azerbaijan as well. Each of these nations have no reason to let the planned pipelines pass through their territories : Russia is itself an oil exporting nation so allowing those pipelines would be hijacking its own oil exports, China is a rapidly growing and developing nation so it would allow those pipelines in exchange for a part in the concessions which the US would never agree for, Afghanistan is under Taliban and Al Qaeda control, Iran and the US have no diplomatic ties since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 don’t even bother asking. The only option left for the US is to force a passage for its pipelines ! The most reasonable plan that was designed by the White House and the Pentagon is actually to overthrow the Taliban Regime in Afghanistan in order to create a passage to the Indian Ocean access harbours of its ally Pakistan as Afghanistan and Pakistan are themselves neighbouring countries. But an unjustified war would be scandalous and not tolerated by the international community so in order to do war you have to find a good reason, and this reason was a retaliation for 9-11 and the War on Terror initiated after the attacks on the World Trade Center. The result, as we all know, was the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by the US Armed Forces ! But there is another scandal hiding behind this one, once the “war on terror” over and US-puppet Hamid Karzai in power, who was awarded the rights to build pipelines on Afghani soil ? Well, given the fact that all the oil companies established in Central Asia depend on the planned pipelines in Afghanistan in order to get their oil to Pakistani harbours, if a company was to have monopole over the control of these pipelines, it would become absolute ruler of the oil trade in Central Asia which represents a multi-billion dollars a year business and that is precisely what happened ! Indeed, amongst all oil companies, Halliburton (a company which’s CEO used to be present Vice President Dick Cheney until presidential elections in 2000) was the only one to be awarded the right to build pipelines on Afghani soil. Astonishing isn’t it ? well the only question that can come out of all this is : did some Bush Administration high political figures took advantage of 9-11 ? or worse, is there even a tie between 9-11 events and the White House ? Now it is up to the reader to make his mind about all this or wait until secret documents are declassified to discover what really happened.

Biotechnology : Future of Modern Civilization

2008-06-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

Renewable energy is an alternative to oil worldwide dependence. Renewable energy is nowadays composed of a series of sources of big enough in quantity and powerful enough in energy to sustain modern high level of energy use. These are : wind power, solar power, geothermal power, hydroelectricity and of course biofuel. Wind power is collected and exploited through huge wind power plants. They are composed of a sort of enormous post at which’s top is placed an aircraft-like three-branches turbine. Their functioning is quite easy : the wind pushes the three helixes connected to the turbine which makes it turn, so the faster it turns the more energy is produced that’s why for maximum efficiency, this kind of power plant is placed at hilltop or in a place where there is a very strong wind force. Solar power, the most effective and reasonable choice for an alternative energy source, is collected and exploited through photon cells collection panels. Although solar power plants are still late in industrial application, the particular photon panels are popular in the market today and attract more and more private investment. What is really revolutionary about these particular panels is that each building can produce its own energy or a part of the total consummated energy eventhough this still depends on the size of its roof, the available place on the ground to place such panels if roof is not enough to do so etc. So the only real problem with “particular solar energy production” is the high cost and the surface. Geothermal power consists of using the groundwater’s steam generated through naturally produced heat in order to make power plant turbines turn (just like a classical steam engine). Eventhough financially viable, renewable and “clean” (the most stunning example of the use of such energy is Iceland), this power source suffers a very heavy handicap : its geographical and geological limits as it is a non-volatile source of energy like sunbeams or winds but is concentrated on certain geographical points making its exploitation, if not naturally produced phenomenon, impossible. Alike geothermal power, hydroelectrical energy depends grandly on the hydrography and more precisely this time on the hydrographical patterns of a country (to sum-up, the size of the rivers) as the more a river’s water stream is powerful and its bed is large the more the electrical production capacity of its dams is important ! This can extend to such scale that, for instance, the 50 billion US dollars planned dam of Inga in the Democratic Republic Of Congo (former Zaire) at the Congo River’s mouth is expected to be able to deliver enough power to light all of Africa ! But as seen in the previous example, hydroelectricity remains a high cost source of energy which is added to some environmental negative effects such as salt accumulation in the artificial lakes created after the construction of a dam (example of the Barrage Of Aswan in The Arab Republic Of Egypt). Finally, the most promising biotechnology capable of replacing oil, and on which even oil companies and corporation bet on, is biofuel. This kind of fuel, as its name implies, is totally made from organic bodies or contains a small percentage of crude oil-related material such as sugarcane, colza or corn extracted ethanol. The most illustrative example is Brazil’s. Indeed, in three years (2003 – 2006), nearly forty percent of Brazil’s gasoline consumption was lost in favour of sugarcane extracted ethanol fuel while cars using this kind of fuel went from three percent to seventy percent in the same period ! Of course new technology means new habits, the emergence of alternative propulsion led to a revolution within the biggest oil consuming sector in the world : automobile. As a result, cars are today divided in three categories which are hybrid vehicles (petroleum / electrical based vehicles), petro-free cars (total non use of petroleum) and petro-cars (petroleum and biofuel based vehicles).

Biotechnology Versus Oil Industry

2008-06-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Biotechnology has always been the deadly enemy of oil companies and corporations. For a fact, their purposes are totally and diametrically opposed : while biotechnology’s purpose is to promote renewable sources of energy, non destructive for the environment as possible ; oil industry is known as the most polluting and not advantageous in the long run source of energy. But how do the oil companies manage to keep their “grip” on the energy sector, well it is through hijacking the development and promotion of “green technologies”. But again, how do the oil companies manage to hijack biotechnology ? well there is a close tie between politics, oil business and biotechnology. Oil companies constitute a very powerful lobby as the oil business’s powerful figures such as CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) and important shareholders contribute in the campaigns of politicians, even more, sometimes the politicians themselves are or used to be part of these figures (Vice President Dick Cheney used to be the CEO of Halliburton until US Presidential Elections in 2000 etc.), so given the fact that the Research And Development (R&D) in the field of biotechnology as well as its industrial applications need a lot of money and financial backing for a long term result, which does not fit with the private business’s strategy, the only option left is state financial backing for such costly operations. And that is when the oil lobby enters the game. Indeed, given the fact that they back politicians in their campaigns, notably congressmen, given the fact that any state financing needs Congress approval, and finally given the fact that “the oil business will still be on the move provided that we don’t start running automobiles on water (a symbolic way to represent biotechnology) and provided there is still chaos in the Middle-East”, the oil lobby will continue using and if needed pressuring its political connexions in the Congress or The White House to hijack any chance of biotechnology to make its way in the industrialized modern economies ! But what are these green technologies that frighten so much these oil nababs ? What kind of answer and solution they could bring to modern societies ? is their application reality or an eccentric dream ?

The White House And The Arabian Crown

2008-06-25T13:36:00.000-07:00

In nineteen thirty-two, after a long struggle against the Al Rasheed tribe which started in the eighteen seventies, thanks to the help of the Ikhwans, Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud finally seized power over the Sands of the Arabian Peninsula and founded a kingdom that bares his tribe’s name : The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom’s main income used to be a tax that Muslim pilgrims used to pay on their way to Holy Mecca but soon oil was discovered in the coastal plains of Al Ghawar on the Persian Gulf. Since the oilfield’s size was tremendous, countries began flowing in the palace of Abdul’Aziz in the Saudi capital city of Riyadh asking to be awarded a geographic concession for the exploitation of the oilfield. While great industrialized nations’ representatives were still negotiating with Ibn Saud, such as France, Great Britain, Germany or Japan, the Americans were the first to put money on the table without further discussion so they were awarded the so much desired concession and the Arabian American Oil Company (or Aramco) was created. As the Ulemas, or Religious Scholars in Arabic, were extremely conservative and against the presence of any non-Muslim on Saudi land, the Americans began building hermetic domiciliary complexes hosting their technical and administrative staff on duty in Saudi Arabia where they could lead their western way of life without interfering with the current Islamic Law outside these complexes’ walls. An unofficial but obvious agreement was signed between The Arabian Crown and The White House : The Americans would offer protection to the Saudi Crown in exchange for oil. As a result, the first US military base was opened in Dhahran. Although a balance was established, event after event the presence of westerners, especially Americans, became first undesired, then rejected to finally be fought against. The first event that brought the Saudis to be against this presence on their soil was the assassination of The King Faysal Ibn Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud in 1975. The fact is that by agreeing to the US exclusive presence on their soil the Saudis have sort of signed a “pact with devil” like we say ; if the Americans agreed to protect the Saudi Crown they would never agree losing it as one of their precious allies in the Middle-East and that is what almost happened with King Faysal. In fact, King Faysal began internal and external policies that did not please some people in the Saudi Court and the Americans as well. His internal policy consisted in a financial purification of national public accounts which would have resulted in a tremendous decrease of the earnings of the members of The Royal Family as these people used to enjoy opulence and splendour while the condition of the Saudi People was getting worse so you can imagine the state of mind of some princes who did not want to tuck up their sleeves and get to work while they could have petrodollars flooding in their bank account every month without lifting a single finger. The external policy that did not please the Americans this time occurred in two parts, the first one is a long term policy consisting of an Islamic Alliance Policy (strengthening ties with Muslim countries such as Pakistan etc.) crippling as such US hegemony on the Muslim countries non-tied with the USSR, the second one is a nowadays extremely popular measure in the entire Muslim World that King Faysal took in 1973 which is cutting out the oil deliveries to the US after they backed israel in the war that opposed it to the Arab Countries making him as such the first Muslim Leader to actually succeed into opposing and hurting the US in their might as the embargo’s consequence was the 1973 Economic Crisis. Becoming more and more rebel against US hegemony over his country, more and more popular not only in his own country but abroad in all the Muslim World, he was finally assassinated in 1975. Although the official version declares that the man who killed him avenged the death of his brother by a Saudi police officer who Faysal refused to trial as he was only doing his job when the tragedy occurred, what really happened remains unclear but the Arab and Muslim Street blame the Americans and some “traitors” in the Saudi Royal Family for what happened. The second event that made the Saudis more doubtful about an American presence on their soil is the Gulf War Of 1991. That year, the Armies of The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded The Kingdom Of Kuwait, Osama Ben Laden offered to bring back his Mujahideen (or Fighters in Arabic) from Afghanistan, where they were fighting the Soviet invasion in the eighties, in order to protect the Arabian Peninsula from the advance of the Iraqi Armies then to take back Kuwait but his offer has been rejected by the Saudis who preferred to rely on their “oil for protection” agreement with the USA and as such called on Washington to bring troops in Saudi Arabia to protect it from Saddam’ Army. As a result Ben Laden went down in the streets to condemn The Saudi Crown, The USA and their “godless alliance”. Given the doubtful mood of the Saudi street towards a foreign military presence on their soil, some became hostile to this presence and joined Ben Laden which resulted in the creation, within the Kingdom, of a strong armed opposition force to non-Muslim presence at once, military or civilian.

Mossadegh, The Shah And The West

2008-06-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

In the fifties, the second Shahanshah (or “King Of Kings” in Farsi) of the newly established imperial Pahlavi Dynasty in Iran finds himself confronted with an outstanding dilemma : the recently organized free and democratic elections resulted in the victory of the Iranian National Front of the very popular political leader Mohammed Hedayat known as Mossadegh. This man’s speech was that Iran’s petroleum was The Iranian People’s exclusive property without any other pretender to this title like were the British at the time who used to control the Iranian oil and the Iranian State benefiting only from the taxes the British oil companies used to pay as any other usual company. So we can notice that what wanted Mossadegh is to kick the British out by nationalizing all the oil reserves and oil-related facilities and by doing so the totality of crude oil export’s income would be benefiting the Iranian People. But although Mossadegh was democratically elected, it was not sure that Mohammed Reza Shah would choose him as Prime Minister because his actions would lead Britain to a full-scale war with Iran over who’s going to get the control of the very oil-rich Persian underground but if the Shah would please the British by choosing not to name Mossadegh as Prime Minister he would provoke the people’s anger as they chose that man and by extent they agree with his decision to nationalize the foreign-owned local oil industry. So there were two opinions in the Iranian imperial sphere ; either choose to go along with the popular choice and name Mossadegh and prepare to confront Britain or choose to name a pro-western prime minister and prepare to confront a popular uprising, some people even said at the Imperial Court that “it would better for the Crown to confront some angry, unorganised and weak mobs with forks rather than The British Navy and The Royal Air Force”. But the Shah chose to stand by his people’s side and named Mossadegh as Premier, the British accepted to negotiate the terms of their grip over Persian petroleum and accepted to reduce by half but this wasn’t enough for the Iranian Prime Minister who wanted to honour the promise he made to the People but the Shah this time had no choice but to refuse Mossadegh’s proposal to continue political and diplomatic struggle until obtaining what he wanted. The confrontation becoming more and more harsh, the finally became opponents on the Iranian political scene at such point that Mossadegh chose to take action first, rallied the Army to him and forced the Shah into exile. Mossadegh becoming more and more tied to the Soviets, the Americans decided to help the Shah regain power in his country for two purposes : ensuring that the USSR won’t get Iran as an ally at the West’s expense, kicking the British out of Iran and taking control over Iranian oil reserves. So in 1954, after several months of embargo, the Americans organized a fake popular uprising in Tehran by paying some popular political figures and providing them with weapons. This resulted in Mossadegh’s arrest and trial, he was condemned to capital punishment but was finally only jailed in order no to make of him a martyr to the eyes of his supporters. Since then, Mohammed Reza Shah became the closest ally of the US in the Middle-East, opening as such his country’s doors to US oil companies and initiating The White Revolution in the late sixties, early seventies having as a purpose to transform Iran into a Western-like country. This resulted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeyni which will overthrow the monarchy and engage in a conservative religious-oriented revolution consisting in a coming back to the Muslim Traditionalist Way of Life in Iran. The Ayatollahs will ask the US to hand them the exiled former king, they will refuse and this will result in the famous US Embassy Crisis. Following this crisis, diplomatic relations between Iran and the US were cut and as such not only the Americans lost their best ally in the region, lost control over one of the most oil-rich undergrounds in the World but also the US Oil Companies present in Iran at the time lost oil-related infrastructure (refineries, wells, rigs, pipelines, offshore platforms etc.) worth billions of dollars.

Oil Consuming Nations

2008-06-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

Global Overview

It is undoubtedly clear today that the “Northern Countries” (or Industrialized Countries), who concentrate the major part of oil needs in the World but not the adequate oil reserves to sustain these needs, are totally dependent on oil imports to keep their economies on the move. In the United States Of America, for instance, out of the total national energy consumption, forty percent came from oil in nineteen ninety-eight (nearly twenty-five percent of the worldwide oil consumption) while its proven oil reserves represent only three percent of the worldwide oil reserves ! So, apart from the reliance on foreign oil deliveries we can even notice the weight of oil companies in the economy at a national scale. So the main question one could ask is at what extent the Industrialized Countries, backbone of the World Global Economy, depend on crude oil imports ? We will answer the question through a comparison between the oil consumption, the oil production and oil imports of the top-ten oil consuming nations around the Globe.

Top-Ten Oil Consuming Nations’ Comparison

Consumption Production Imports D.O.F.O.D.

USA 20.588 8.331 12.220 59.35 %

China 7.274 3.858 3.438 47.26 %

Japan 5.222 0.125 5.097 97.61 %

Russia 3.103 9.677 NONE NONE

Germany 2.630 0.147 2.483 94.41 %

India 2.534 0.847 1.687 66.57 %

Canada 2.218 3.288 NONE NONE

Brazil 2.183 2.166 NONE NONE

South Korea 2.157 0.007 2.150 99.67 %

Saudi Arabia 2.068 10.665 NONE NONE

NB1 : D.O.F.O.D. stands for “Dependence On Foreign Oil Deliveries”
NB2 : The data is to be considered in million of crude oil barrels per day

To round-up the analysis ; we can say, knowing that the energy sector is the backbone of every modern economy and that the oil business is the backbone of the energy sector itself (40 % in the US for example), that oil companies constitute a powerful lobby in every industrialized country and moreover, considering that these countries themselves account for more than 5/6th of the Global Economy, that these oil companies are a powerful and influential lobby at a worldwide scale as well.

Oil Producing Nations

2008-06-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

Global Overview

In two thousand-and-five, the worldwide crude oil production was nearly equivalent to eighty-four million barrels per day. The structure of the petroleum industry is subdivided into five main sectors which are the upstream, the downstream, pipeline services, offshore services, various services and supply. The upstream consists of the exploration of geographic areas which could hold commercially viable crude oil reserves, the development of discovered oil fields (the large ones called “elephant fields”) preparing them as such to the production phase. The downstream consists of sending crude oil to the refineries where it will be transformed making it as such suitable to enter the market (retailing phase) and sold to the consumer ; by the way, the downstream includes as well the shipment via oil tankers. Eventhough shipment on tankers is included in the downstream, the pipeline branch of the petroleum industry is so important that the American Petroleum Institute classified it alone alike the offshore (also called “marine”) branch which has been set independent from the upstream sector. Finally, the last sector, various services and supply, consists of activities such as Research And Development (R&D) etc. As for the oil companies, they are classified in three categories according to their size, this classification includes only the private sector. There are the Supermajors, only six private oil companies in the world hold this title : BP (British Petroleum), Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, Shell, Total S.A. The second category is Majors, the third one is Independents (or Jobbers). Concerning countries, the most famous organization related to the petroleum industry is undoubtedly the OPEC (or Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) ; this international institution works as a cartel who’s objective is to coordinate oil-related activities of its members and by extent the World’s as well as they have got in their underground the largest part of worldwide oil reserves namely two-thirds and participate in thirty-five point six percent of the worldwide crude oil production ! Its headquarters are based in Vienna (Austria) since its creation in September 1960, in the Iraqi capital city Baghdad (Arab Republic of Iraq) mainly through Saudi-Venezuelan cooperation, more precisely by their respective ministers concerned with the matter namely Mr. Abdullah El Tariki (Minister Of Energy And Mines of The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia) and Mr. Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo (Minister Of Energy And Mines of The Bolivarian Republic Of Venezuela) closely followed by The Kingdom Of Kuwait, The Empire Of Iran (now The Islamic Republic Of Iran) and The Hashemite Kingdom Of Iraq (now The Arab Republic Of Iraq). All these countries were later joined by The Kingdom Of Qatar in 1961, The Republic Of Indonesia and The “Jamahiriyaa” People’s Republic Of Libya in 1962, The United Arab Emirates in 1967, The People’s Democratic Republic Of Algeria in 1969, The Federal Republic Of Nigeria in 1971 and finally The People’s Republic Of Angola in 2001, two other members did temporarily join the organization but rapidly quit due to high membership fees (two million dollars) as well as an incompatibility between the quota of crude oil production fixed by The OPEC and needed local production to keep their economies on the move, these are Ecuador in Latin America and Gabon in Africa, they will be followed by Indonesia in 2008 apparently for the same reasons but these still remain unclear. On the other hand, The Arab Republic Of Syria, The Republic Of Sudan and The Republic Of Bolivia have been invited to join the organization and The Federal Republic Of Brazil is thinking of presenting membership proposal due to recent discovery of large oil fields in The Atlantic Ocean (five hundred million barrels). To round-up, the term of utmost importance when it comes to the financial aspect of the petroleum industry is petrodollar, this specific currency was born when it became clear that some countries had their economy so tied with oil export that almost all its currency income came from dollars earned through the selling of crude oil abroad. The name “petrodollar” was created in 1973 by Professor Dr. Ibrahim Oweiss (Economics Professor, Georgetown University).

Oil Production Related Top-Tens

* Top-Ten Oil Reserves, as of 2007 :

1) The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, 260 billion barrels (or 41 billion cubic meters)
2) Canada, 179 billion barrels (or 28.5 billion cubic meters)
3) The Arab Republic Of Iraq, 115 billion barrels (or 18.3 billion cubic meters)
4) The Islamic Republic Of Iran, 105 billion barrels (16.7 billion cubic meters)
5) The Kingdom Of Kuwait, 99 billion barrels (or 15.7 billion cubic meters)
6) The United Arab Emirates, 97 billion barrels (or 15.4 billion cubic meters)
7) The Bolivarian Republic Of Venezuela, 80 billion barrels (or 13 billion cubic meters)
8) The Federation Of Russia, 60 billion barrels (9.5 billion cubic meters)
9) The “Jamahiriyaa” People’s Republic Of Libya, 41.5 billion barrels (or 6.6 billion cubic meters)
10) The Federal Republic Of Nigeria, 36.2 billion barrels (or 5.76 billion cubic meters)

* Top-Ten Crude Oil Production, as of 2007 :

1) The Federation Of Russia, 9.5 million barrels per day (or 1.51 million m3)
2) The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, 8.8 million barrels per day (or 1.4 million m3)
3) The United States Of America, 4.9 million barrels per day (or 0.78 million m3)
4) The Islamic Republic Of Iran, 3.9 million barrels per day (or 0.62 million m3)
5) The Arab Republic Of Iraq, 3.7 million barrels per day (or 0.59 million m3)
6) The Federal Republic Of Mexico, 3.2 million barrels per day (or 0.51 million m3)
7) Canada, 2.7 million barrels per day (or 0.43 million m3)
8) The Kingdom Of Kuwait & The United Arab Emirates, 2.5 million barrels per day (or 0.4 million m3)
9) The Bolivarian Republic Of Venezuela, 2.4 million barrels per day (or 0.38 million m3)
10) The Federal Republic Of Nigeria, 2.3 million barrels per day (or 0.37 million m3)

* Top-Ten Oil Reserve Life To Current Level Of Crude Oil Production, as of 2007 :

1) Canada, 182 years
2) The Kingdom Of Kuwait, 108 years
3) The United Arab Emirates, 107 years
4) The Arab Republic Of Iraq, 101 years
5) The Bolivarian Republic Of Venezuela, 91 years
6) The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, 81 years
7) The Islamic Republic Of Iran, 74 years
8) The “Jamahiriyaa” People’s Republic Of Libya, 63 years
9) The Federal Republic Of Nigeria, 43 years
10) The Federation Of Russia, 17 years

* Top-Ten Oil Fields :

1) Ghawar Field, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, at least 75 billion barrels
2) Burgan Field, Kingdom Of Kuwait, at least 66 billion barrels
3) Ferdows / Mound / Zagheh Field, Islamic Republic Of Iran, 38 billion barrels
4) Cantarell Field, Federal Republic Of Mexico, 35 billion barrels
5) Bolivar Coastal Field, Bolivarian Republic Of Venezuela, at least 30 billion barrels
6) Safaniya-Khafji Field (Saudi Arabia) & Esfandiar Field (Iran), 30 billion barrels
7) Azadegan Field, Islamic Republic Of Iran, 26 billion barrels
8) Sugar Loaf Field, Federal Republic Of Brazil, at least 25 billion barrels
9) Rumaila Field, Arab Republic Of Iraq, 17 billion barrels
10) Romashkino Field, Federation Of Russia, at least 16 billion barrels

* Top-Ten Oil Companies, by size according to controlled oil reserves :

1) Saudi Arabian Oil Company (or Saudi Aramco), Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, 295 billion barrels
2) National Iranian Oil Company, Islamic Republic Of Iran, 287 billion barrels
3) Qatar Petroleum, Kingdom Of Qatar, 165 billion barrels
4) Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (or ADNOC), United Arab Emirates // Iraq National Oil Company, Arab Republic Of Iraq ; 137 billion barrels
5) Gazprom, Federation Of Russia, 115 billion barrels
6) Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, Kingdom Of Kuwait, 107 billion barrels
7) Petróleos De Venezuela S.A., Bolivarian Republic Of Venezuela, 102 billion barrels
8) Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Federal Republic Of Nigeria, 62 billion barrels
9) National Oil Corporation, “Jamahiriyaa” People’s Republic Of Libya, 45 billion barrels
10) Sonatrach, People’s Democratic Republic Of Algeria, 40 billion barrels

Halliburton in Iraq

2008-06-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

The first question one could ask when reading the title “Halliburton in Iraq” is “who is Halliburton ?”. Well Halliburton is rather famous amongst US and even world oil companies, so for sure it is a major player in the oil business but its influence transcends this frame. Lets first introduce this corporation shall we : Halliburton Energy Service is a multinational corporation operating in more than one hundred and twenty countries, it was founded in nineteen nineteen (1919) in Houston (Texas, USA) by Mr. Erle Halliburton where it has established its headquarters until adding second headquarters in the city of Dubai (Emirate of Dubai, United Arab Emirates) in March 2007 where Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David J. Lesar is temporarily residing and working given the company’s flourishing business in the Middle-East. Oil well services and equipment being its industrial sector, the company sells technical services to the petroleum industry and operates as well, at a lower level, in the construction business. Its revenue is fifteen point three billion US dollars (Wall Street Journal) and net income is evaluated to three point five billion US dollars. It has a workforce of fifty thousand. The interest of talking about Halliburton is the controversy it sparkles concerning the Iraq War, the place of Vice-President Dick Cheney as a former chief executive officer (CEO) of Halliburton until the 2000 American Presidential Elections during which he retired with a compensation of thirty-four million dollars ! This kind of controversy is not new as the same case was seen during the Vietnam War, concerning this time the ties between former President Lyndon B. Johnson and Halliburton former subsidiary Brown & Root (later renamed Kellogg, Brown & Root, better known as KBR). So when in October two thousand-and-two Halliburton saw its US based oil production slowing down at such extent that it risked bankruptcy as shares value fell from twenty two dollars a year before to twelve point sixty-two (which equals a decrease of nine point thirty-eight dollars !), it decided to diversify its outlets so when the 2003 Iraq War (or Gulf War 2) broke out and the Saddam Hussein Regime fell down in rubble in April 2003, Halliburton’s subsidiary Brown and Root arrived in Iraq with mission to “assessing the condition of oil-related infrastructure, cleaning up oil spills and other environmental damage at oil facilities, engineering design and repair or reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, assisting in making facilities operational, distribution of petroleum products, and assisting the Iraqis in resuming Iraqi oil companies operations.” (quoted from declassified documents of The US Department of Defence or DoD). Moreover, Halliburton, as an operating company in the construction sector, was awarded as well with some juicy reconstruction contracts in Iraqi other than the already mentioned oil-related ones totally equivalent to nearly nine hundred million dollars ! But why, amongst all the oil companies available and more qualified than Halliburton or KBR, did the Army Corps of Engineers in its Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (or LOGCAP) chose specifically this company and its subsidiary for the job ?! Make the link yourself : The White House representing the supreme federal power in the US, and Supreme Commanding of the Armed Forces being included amongst the Federal prerogatives of the White House so control over the Pentagon by extent ; moreover, when you know that Vice-President Dick Cheney was the former Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Corp. and was an “executive officer” in The White House during the 2003 Iraq War ; so the only option left is that the US Army Corps of Engineers received instructions from the vice-presidency to pick Halliburton, easy as stealing candies from a baby, the candies being the money and the baby being The American People !

ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia

2008-06-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

Well it seemed to me of great importance to talk about Aramco. This company, a shadow in worldwide public eye, is the backbone of all the US oil companies and furthermore used to be parent to them so to sum up, “no Aramco = no oil for the US” ! Formerly jointly owned by large US oil companies and the Crown of Saudi Arabia, this corporation was founded on the twenty-ninth of May nineteen thirty-three when following the discovery of oil fields in neighbouring Kuwaiti Kingdom and Bahraini Kingdom, King Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia awarded a geographic concession to the company Standard Oil of California (Socal) allowing it to explore the sands of the Saudi Desert in search for fields of the precious Black Gold ; the task was delegated to a fully-owned subsidiary of Socal : California-Arabian Standard Oil (Casoc). During the following four years, exploration was led but was unfortunately unsuccessful ; as a result, fifty percent of Casoc were sold to the Texas Oil Company. Although the efforts deployed during the four years were unsuccessful, the fifth year offered a surprise of outstanding size ; in nineteen thirty-eight, the seventh drill site, also referred to as Dammam Number 7 (it is located several miles north of Dhahran – future site of the first US military base in the Middle-East) offered a production of nearly two hundred and forty cubic meters per day (1,500 barrels/day), this discovery encouraged the company to continue research over the Arabian Sands. Casoc flourished and its name was changed in nineteen forty-four to Arabian American Oil Company (or Aramco). The massive oil drilling potential of the Saudi oil fields becoming more and more famous, it began to draw attention of a lot of oil companies. As a result, in nineteen forty-eight Socal and Texas Oil Company were joined by two other American oil companies namely Socony Vacuum (who purchased ten percent of Aramco) and Standard Oil of New Jersey (who purchased thirty percent of Aramco) leaving at the end the original owners (Socal and Texas Oil Company) with only thirty percent of total Aramco shares. Given the huge ditch between the earnings of the US investors and the Saudi Crown, King Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud threatened to nationalize all the oil-related infrastructures owned by foreign companies in his country in order to get Aramco to share its profits on oil sales half/half with Saudi Arabia. Finally, the payer for this condition were not the companies themselves but the American Government whom agreed to award US Aramco with a tax break called the Golden Gimmick in order to replace the profits lost due to sharing profits with the Saudis. Since then, Aramco will stay the most loyal “employee” of the Saudi Crown, doing everything in its power to satisfy its Saudi hosts in order not to jeopardize the company’s concession ; for instance, during the nineteen seventy-three oil embargo launched by King Faysal Ibn Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud on the US, the company’s executive officers not only did exactly as they were told to by the Saudis but cut back production even more than asked to show at what extent they were cooperative with their host country. Another example is the fact that Saudi Arabia’s capacity to put pressure on the OPEC crude oil prices relies on the secrecy of its maximum oil drilling capacities with current infrastructure so when in December 1979 company executive officers said to The Justice Department than in fact Aramco had little spare capacity, the Saudis went extremely angry and retaliated by expressly ordering Aramco to cut its deliveries to parent-companies Standard Oil of California (Socal) and Exxon by twenty thousand barrels per day ! Despite the company’s total cooperation, the Saudis decided nevertheless to engage a nationalization plan of Aramco but contrary to classic nationalization which includes acquisition by the local government of a company’s ownings without any financial compensation, the Crown did it between nineteen seventy-three and nineteen eighty through legal, though forced, financial acquisition of shares : in 1973 the Saudi Government acquired twenty-five percent of Aramco’s shares perhaps as a punishment to the US’s pro-israeli involvement in the Kippur War, in 1974 it increased to sixty percent to finally reach one hundred percent in nineteen eighty after what in nineteen eighty-eight the company’s name was changed from Arabian American Oil Company to Saudi Arabian Oil Company (or Saudi Aramco), we could assume that the date chosen by the Saudis to change the name was symbolical as nineteen eighty-eight is the name “Aramco” ‘s forty-fourth anniversary.

Major oil consuming nations’ history

2008-06-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

Since prevailing in the nineteen thirty-nine / nineteen forty-five war (World War 2), the former Allies turned against one another as it is so well said in Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s quotation in nineteen forty-seven : There is now an Iron Curtain along the Old Continent (Europe) ; quotation that symbolized the beginning of the Cold War Era which will last until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in nineteen ninety one (1991) after the famous Mikhail Gorbatchev speech, result of this man’s Glasnost and Perestroika politics. As it became a central interest in geopolitics given its importance especially for defence industries in the climate of the Cold War, oil access became a priority for Western Nations whom were fighting the influence of The Soviet Union at the time. But this oil running meant as well dependence to oil and as such to oil producing nations, mainly Arab Nations so when the US backed israel in the Kippur War (nineteen seventy-three), Arab leaders decided to take action and punished the US and the West by raising the crude oil prices : the prices went from fifteen dollars per barrel to seventy-five dollars per barrel in one day, equivalent to a multiplication by five ! The result was catastrophic ; this provoked a stock exchange crash, an inability of the oil companies to provide the necessary oil quantities for the Western economies resulting as such in a massive oil shortage, and most dangerous result was that the US could not provide anymore the necessary oil to sustain its military campaign in Vietnam ! All these result are summed-up today by experts under the name of the 1973 Crisis. This crisis accelerated the movement of globalisation, encouraging companies to move to Third World countries in search of cheaper labour force in order to reduce at once production costs. But in this climate of overwhelmingly increasing global prices, those who made their way are oil companies such as Exxon, Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Elf, British Petroleum (BP), Chevron, Aramco etc. who saw their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) exponentially increasing. Until today Western Nations still depend on oil imports and these oil companies grow even stronger on international economic, and by extension political, stage mainly through merger actions such as Exxon-Mobil and Total-Elf-Finna ; actions that render these oil companies monopolistic in their sector imposing as such their rules on the consumer, and by extension given the importance of oil, on the global economy.

Oil producing nations’ history

2008-06-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

Since the invention of the diesel engine in the late nineteenth century, oil business took a central stage in produced and transformed goods. As such, oil companies began thriving and multiplying. The main regions where oil used to be dug are the US, the Middle-East and Romania. According to its “America for Americans” protectionist self-reliance economic politics which lasted until the beginning of the Cold-War Era in nineteen forty-five, the US produced their own oil for their own demand mainly in the Texan region encompassing the Gulf of Mexico (Houston etc.). Following its engagement as a leading Western Nation against the Communist world-wide influence led by the United Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) and when modern economies saw oil taking an outstanding place in their functionality, the US took on the mission to secure its oil imports as it is nowadays called The Petroleum Security of the United States of America and as such looking towards the emerging oil producing nations’ of the Middle-East. In this region, oil producing is an old story, the first fields to be developed in the region were in Iraq (more precisely in the northern region of Mossul and southern region of Basra) under the Turkish Ottoman Rule which lasted until nineteen eighteen (1918). The main customer of the production was the Turkish Crown’s ally : The German Imperial Crown. The first pipeline to be developed was named the “Baghdad-Bahn” (or the “Baghdad-Road” in German) which encompassed a highway, a gas main and an oil pipeline in order to ensure the adequate infrastructures necessary to the establishment and settlement of Germanic oil companies (Dutch Shell etc.) and responding to the high needs of the new but fast economic development of the region. The other region having known an outstanding economic development thanks to oil business is the Arabian Peninsula, just south of Iraq. Following the discovery of oil in Basra, the “Al Sabah” Kuwaiti ruling royal family hired some British geologists to set an expertise research mission over its tiny territory in search for oil along with the Iraqi border ; the research bare fruits and Kuwait entered in the community of oil producing countries. In nineteen thirty-three, an American exploration expeditionary team found oil while digging for water in the Persian Gulf coastline of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia established just one year ago by His Royal Highness King Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud after a long struggle against the rival Al Rasheed tribe. Given the outstanding quantities discovered, a world-wide record in oil discovery at the time, King Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud’s Desert got the attention of numerous industrialized countries in order to be awarded an exploitation contract in The Saudi Persian Gulf oil fields. While the British, the French, the Japanese and the Germans were negotiating, the Americans were the first to put money on the table without further discussion and as such, the first joint Arab American oil company was established : the ARAMCO (Arabian American Company). Until now, Aramco stays the most important company in its sector amongst all oil companies in the World as it has control over an outstanding quantity of oil representing nearly forty percent of the world’s oil reserves. The other less known former major oil producing region is Romania. Indeed, this country used to be the first oil exporting country in Europe, its oil played a major role during World War Two as it was The Third Reich’s first oil source without which it would have never been possible for Adolf Hitler to keep his War Machine operative and on the move. It is precisely in the region of Ploiesti that oil was mainly pumped out but given its o’too well known central role in the German War Machine, the Allies launched in nineteen forty-four a huge carpet-bombing mission using B-25 Mitchell aircrafts to raze the oil refineries, the oil rigs and oil wells ; following this campaign The Wehrmacht (The German Armed Forces) had to face the Soviets on the Eastern Front during the winter of that year with a limited ability to move its Panzers which helped as such the Ally Victory in Europe (V.E. Day – Victory in Europe Day).