This video from the USA is the film Iraq For Sale (a 2006 Robert Greenwald documentary, 1 hour 16 minutes).
From the World Tribune in the USA:
Friday, March 13, 2009
ExxonMobil making a play for Iraq oil deal
ABU DHABI — A U.S. energy major with large holdings in Qatar is crafting a strategy to enter the oil sector in Iraq.
ExxonMobil intends to play a major role in energy exploration and production in Iraq in 2010. Executives said ExxonMobil has been competing to win contracts to develop leading oil fields for Baghdad.
“I hope Iraq creates the conditions that will allow a company like ExxonMobil to be a participant in a significant way,” ExxonMobil chief executive officer Rex Tillerson said.
See also here.
What “conditions” in Iraq do you mean, Mr Tillerson? Still more persecution of trade unions under Saddam Hussein laws than the Baghdad puppet regime is doing already? Still more jailing of dissidents for free speech than is happening already? Still more torture in the jails? More fighting against armed resistance; for which United States soldiers will be needed and will die, thus inducing President Obama to break his promises of ending the Iraq war for the oil profits of Mr Tillerson and his ilk?
And, please, Mr Tillerson, what will you spend those Iraqi oil profits on? On more subsidies for global warming denialist pseudo-scientists; thus undermining President Obama’s promises that he would end George W. Bush’s anti environment policies, propped up by that junk science?
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Mar 15, 7:45 AM EDT
US troops will conduct combat operations in Iraq
US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,257
UK officials were worried about Iraq dossier
BAGHDAD (AP) — A U.S. military spokesman says American forces will still conduct combat operations even after they pull back to bases outside Baghdad and other cities as part of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement.
Brig. Gen. Frederick Rudesheim says the redeployment to the periphery will actually help improve security in the capital because U.S. troops can help stop militants from using bases in rural areas to stage urban attacks.
Rudesheim told reporters Sunday that there will be “no cessation of combat operations” after the June 30 deadline to pull back most American forces from cities.
He also says U.S. military transition teams will remain in Baghdad and other cities to help train Iraqi security forces there.
© 2009 The Associated Press.
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Major Oil Companies Are Circling Iraq
With stability returning, Oil Minister al-Shahristani has big plans to make his country the fourth-largest oil producer
With security in Iraq improving, international oil companies are quickly moving in, often with little or no fanfare. Hanter Gasser, Royal Dutch Shell’s (RDS) top executive for Iraq, recently spent a week in Basra, site of the country’s biggest fields, checking on a joint venture Shell is starting with the Iraqis to find commercial uses for the gas that is flared off during oil production. Gasser says Iraq burns off enough gas to power two countries the size of Jordan.
Shell is one of about 30 oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and BP, that are pursuing licensing agreements with Baghdad. Iraq intends to boost production in seven fields holding an estimated 44 billion barrels of reserves, more than a third of its total. Those agreements are supposed to be awarded in a few months. “We have high interest in Iraq, and we are waiting to see the terms,” Gasser says. Iraqi oil production, at a low 2.5 million barrels a day, is just where it was before the war. If Iraq produced anywhere near its targeted 6 million barrels a day, it could change the industry’s dynamics and curb talk of a looming shortage.
AGAINST OPEC’S FLOW
The key player is Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahristani, a Canada-educated nuclear scientist and chemical engineer who spent 11 years in Abu Ghraib prison for refusing to help Saddam Hussein build a nuclear weapon. He is feeling huge pressure to boost production to compensate for falling prices. In an interview in Vienna, where he was attending an OPEC conference, Al-Shahristani came across as impeccably polite. He’s also a nationalist, determined that Iraq regain its rightful place in the industry and the Middle East, whatever the objections of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which might not welcome the rise of another Shiite-dominated petropower.
Al-Shahristani outlined for his fellow OPEC ministers an ambitious program to reach that 6 million barrel-per-day goal in the next six to seven years. That would make Iraq the world’s fourth-largest producer, after Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the U.S. Al-Shahristani estimates that achieving his goal would cost $50 billion, which he hopes to raise almost entirely from the oil companies. Such a production surge would complicate matters for OPEC, which has cut output by 12%. “I am sure some [in OPEC] hope it doesn’t happen soon,” he says.
Later Al-Shahristani added by e-mail: “By the time we reach 6 million barrels per day in five to six years there will so much demand for Iraqi oil as other countries will go through a declining phase, and we do not expect much restriction on our production ceiling.”
While skepticism remains about Iraq’s ability to execute its plan on schedule, Baghdad’s desire to boost production is no longer a pipe dream. The question is how fast Al-Shahristani can bridge differences with the oil companies to get some big deals rolling. Last year, several companies were close to agreeing to upgrade five fields when Al-Shahristani pulled the plug amid controversy that BP (BP), Shell, and other majors were close to landing contracts without competitive bidding.
He’s now soliciting bids to squeeze about 1.5 million more barrels a day from the eight major fields. In essence, the companies will be paid a fee of perhaps $6 for every extra barrel they can coax from the wells. The majors worry about stiff penalties being imposed if they don’t hit agreed-upon production targets. They’re also leery about forming joint ventures with local companies that are holdovers from the Saddam era. “I would suspect that when we go to the board of directors, there are going to be a lot of questions asked,” says one executive. Al-Shahristani is listening to the complaints. He’s also dangling the possibility of production-sharing agreements, which would let the oil companies enjoy the upside in profits from the oil they discover and produce.
The major oil companies are taking their time with the bidding to make sure they get the best possible terms. To keep up the pressure, the Iraqis are cutting side agreements. Baghdad has negotiated, for instance, a deal with Chinese National Petroleum to develop the Ahdab field. “This showed the Iraqis could complete negotiations on a field,” says Alex Munton, an analyst at Edinburgh consultants Wood Mackenzie. Al-Shahristani is also negotiating a deal on the 3.5 billion-barrel Nassiriya field with Italy’s Eni (E) and others.”Because bid rounds take a bit longer, we have decided to ask selected companies that have done their homework to submit an offer to us,” he says.
Despite the fits and starts, the Iraqis seem bound to gain traction sooner or later. With 115 billion barrels of reserves, Iraq’s potential production capacity could eventually challenge Saudi Arabia’s 12 million barrels a day, according to Helmut A. Merklein, a former senior U.S. energy official who is now a consultant. “The [only] limitation is what the market will bear,” he says.
Business Exchange: Read, save, and add content on BW’s new Web 2.0 topic network
A Gusher of Information
Wood Mackenzie, an Edinburgh-based oil and mining consulting company, has compiled a presentation that assesses the future prospects of the Iraqi oil industry. The 18-page document is packed with charts, maps, and other data. It also delivers a history lesson on Iraq’s beleaguered oil sector.
To view the presentation, go to http://bx.businessweek.com/iraq-business/reference/
Reed is London bureau chief for BusinessWeek.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_14/b4125070227376.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_global+business
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