Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist credibility by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. For instance, “independent conservative” radio host Jerry Doyle announced: “I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down. We’ve invested $650bn to liberate a nation of 25 million people, shouldn’t we just demand that they give us oil? I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in 10 days, not 10 years.” There were a couple of problems with Doyle’s plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stick-up in world history. The second that he was too late. “We” are already heisting Iraq’s oil, or at least are on the brink of doing so.
It started with no-bid service contracts announced for Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total (they have yet to be signed but are still on course). Paying multinationals for their technical expertise is not unusual in itself. What is odd is that such contracts almost invariably go to oil service companies — not to the oil majors, whose work is exploring, producing and owning carbon wealth. The contracts only make sense in the context of reports that the oil majors have insisted on the right of first refusal on subsequent contracts handed out to manage and produce Iraq’s oilfields. In other words, other companies will be free to bid on those future contracts, but these companies will win.
One week after the no-bid service deals were announced, the world caught its first glimpse of the real prize. After years of backroom arm-twisting, Iraq is officially flinging open six of its major oilfields, accounting for half of its known reserves, to foreign investors. According to Iraq’s oil minister, the long-term contracts will be signed within a year. While ostensibly under the control of the Iraq National Oil Company, foreign corporations will keep 75 percent of the value of the contracts, leaving just 25 percent for their Iraqi partners.
That kind of ratio is unheard of in oil-rich Arab and Persian states, where achieving majority national control over oil was the defining victory of anti-colonial struggles. According to Greg Muttitt, a London-based oil expert, the assumption up until now was that foreign multinationals would be brought in to develop new fields in Iraq — not to take over those which are already in production and therefore require minimal technical support.
Paradoxically, it is Iraq’s suffering — its never-ending crisis — that is the rationale for an arrangement that threatens to drain Iraq’s treasury of its main revenue source.
Invading countries to seize their natural resources is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. That means the huge task of rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure — including its oil infrastructure — is the financial responsibility of Iraq’s invaders. They should be forced to pay reparations, just as Saddam Hussein’s regime paid $9bn to Kuwait in reparations for its 1990 invasion. Instead, Iraq is being forced to sell 75 percent of its national patrimony to pay the bills for its own illegal invasion and occupation.
