| Poverty? War? Disease? Corruption? Blame oil - Joseph Fiennes - Independent
"Oil is the devil's excrement." Those are not my words. They were said by Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, a founder of Opec – but they could have been mine too.
Oil has made Luanda, the capital of Angola, which amazingly is the most expensive city in the world after Tokyo. But the vast majority of people live in shacks, struggling to get by. This is oil's irony: it endows wealth beyond imagination, but none of it seems to touch the people around it. Angola is producing 900 million barrels of oil a day, earning the country billions of dollars, but it has languished at the bottom of the United Nations Human Development index for years. One child in three dies before the age of five.
I witnessed this paradox on a recent trip to the country with the charity Christian Aid. I met people who spanned the huge gap between the very rich and the very poor. I met a diamond dealer dressed in Versace. I met a mother with six children, a tiny income and full-blown Aids. I saw children playing in sewage-strewn rubbish piled against the banks of the Bengo river. I watched a group of privately-owned tankers picking up water from the river to sell directly to street vendors. (...)
The people of Angola get nowhere near their oil, neither literally nor metaphorically. In Nigeria the refineries are onshore, which means they are part of people's lives. We have seen pictures in the papers of local people protesting that they are excluded from the wealth – and jobs – that oil creates. But Angola's oilfields are offshore. Its foreign employees live out of town in gated communities and fly on to the platforms in company helicopters. All the ordinary people get is poverty.
The main reason for this is corruption. Corruption here used to be nothing more iniquitous than "Do this and I'll buy you a cola" – so-called fizzy-drink democracy. Now, although bribes are still referred to as "gasosas", they have grown to far more menacing proportions. According to the International Monetary Fund, of the $5bn that the country earns in oil revenues, $1bn disappears into the private bank accounts of the élite, and does not pass through the central bank.
No one knows how much the oil companies pay the government for the right to exploit Angola's oil. The deals are done in the strictest secrecy. This is what leaves the door wide open for corruption. It also means that the ordinary people would be hindered in their ability to protest, even if they did have the strength to do so.
I heard it said plenty of times on my trip that the reason why the civil war lasted for 27 years was because the two sides were being propped up by the US and the USSR – a microcosm of Cold War politics. But less known is that one side of the war was funded by blood diamonds, while the other was funded by oil revenues, or "blood oil".
Now there is just one major power, but Angola is still a focus for world interest because it produces oil, but is not part of Opec. Unfortunately, rich countries are not interested in the fact that oil money is cursing the country.
In Angola I have seen this for myself. But it's the same story in most developing countries that have oil. Oil is bad news. What should be a blessing is more often a curse.
Last week Christian Aid published a report, Fuelling Poverty: Oil, War and Corruption, which
explained why. First, oil is bad for democracy. In Kazakhstan it props up a semi-authoritarian regime which sometimes does not bother to collect taxes because it has so much income. In Sudan it has helped fund a war which has lasted 20 years. In Angola its revenues have allowed the same government to remain in power since independence in 1975.
Click here
to read more
Contents
|
| At Iraqi Oil Firm, Office Is Sweltering but Progress Is Frozen - Washington Post
Jabbar Luaabi, head of the South Oil Co., was deep in another morning of grief when three men from the U.S.-led reconstruction team arrived, offering the same assurances of improvement he had already heard for weeks.
The day had begun with a report from an aide that looters had again broken into a warehouse at the Rumaylah oil fields, which produce more than a third of Iraq's supply. He had nodded sympathetically as a procession of job seekers offered handwritten application letters, then patiently explained that he can hire no one until the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad gives its assent. He had frowned and shrugged as managers came to complain about his selections to head their departments, dropping off petitions and threatening not to work.(...)
Now, the three-member team from the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance -- a Briton, a Dane and a Japanese -- was seated on the plaid couches against the walls of his office, ostensibly here to assist. Luaabi was ready to do some talking.
"What is the function of your organization?" he asked impatiently. "How can you help us?"
More than a month after the fall of Hussein and the beginning of the humanitarian effort to rebuild Iraq, that question is being directed in increasingly strident tones at the foreign powers that control the California-size country -- particularly within the oil industry that represents about 90 percent of the economy.
The meeting in Luaabi's office on that recent morning offered a window into the dynamics at work. Iraq's state oil companies are still struggling to prevent thieves from carting off their equipment. They are pumping about 235,000 barrels of crude oil per day -- not even enough to meet domestic needs for gasoline and cooking oil. The reconstruction team, known as ORHA, is still focused more on study than action.
"The situation is not progressing," Luaabi complained as the morning began.
It was another 110-degree day and Luaabi, 55, was sitting without air conditioning in his temporary office, his regular quarters destroyed by looters. Visitors dabbed at sweaty faces and unkempt hair with towels, but Luaabi's gray-flecked hair and starched blue Oxford shirt somehow remained impeccable as he held an audience like something out of "The Godfather."
(...) The team was visiting Luaabi to acquaint themselves with his company and begin formulating a plan to return it to its prewar shape. Luaabi was educated in England in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Like many Iraqi technocrats, he speaks fluent if accented English. But the British member of the ORHA contingent, dressed in a khaki safari suit and work boots, addressed him at the sort of volume and articulation reserved for the deaf.
"This morning, we were wondering about a couple of things," he said. "If you could give us an indication of the OR-GAN-I-ZATION of South Oil from Baghdad on down, that would be very helpful, indeed." He was particularly interested in meeting the people responsible for "CO-OR-DIN-ATION" with the refineries that produce gasoline and cooking oil.
Luaabi handed over a copy of the organizational chart, then described the different units and their responsibilities, his voice occasionally drowned out by the sound of broken glass outside his window: An old man was sweeping up shards with a palm frond. Then, automatic gunfire erupted somewhere beyond the fences of South Oil's complex. The Briton turned a nervous gaze to the window. Luaabi's eyes did not shift as he talked.
(...) The men from ORHA promised that he would see them again. For almost half a minute after they left, it was silent inside Luaabi's office, the couches empty. But then the door opened again and the jostling hordes in the hallway began pushing their way through, seeking jobs and help.
Luaabi leaned back in his chair and listened. And when the electricity died, killing the rotors of the fan in the corner, Luaabi picked up the stack of petitions and began fanning himself, the head of the largest energy company in a land rich with oil was pushing hot air toward his now sweaty face.
Click
here to read more
Contents
|
| New Iraq oil official finds task daunting - Boston Globe
Mohammad Al Jaburi has been elected to the No. 3 post in Iraq's oil ministry. But the 20-year ministry veteran -- among the last of Iraq's proud fraternity of Western-educated technocrats -- is not celebrating.
His headquarters is a carbonized shell, burned and looted along with the rest of Iraq's government offices after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He is under pressure to raise oil revenue from abroad at a time when the nation cannot meet domestic demand. And worst of all, he has just seen a half-dozen of his colleagues -- careerists like him, with vital international expertise -- ousted by American decree for being members of Iraq's ruling Ba'ath Party.
''There are already serious problems between the top management that was educated abroad and the middle management that was educated in Iraq and cannot speak English,'' Jaburi, who is not a Ba'ath member, said from his office, where the electricity failed twice during an hour-long interview. ''This is having a tremendous effect on us.''
Jaburi was elected yesterday as acting director general of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, the agency that sells Iraqi petroleum to the world. The election, which also filled seven junior posts, was the first since the oil industry was privatized in 1972 and part of a US drive to eliminate from positions of power members of the vanquished Ba'ath Party.
The campaign is popular with ordinary Iraqis, but business analysts point out that not all party members were brutal and corrupt, and many were among Iraq's most competent technocrats. Some 40 percent of oil ministry officials were members of the ruling party, and some fear a wholesale purge of party members could deprive the country of the very expertise it now needs to restore oil production.
''It's not the best idea to choose managers by election,'' said Ra'ad Al Kadiri, an analyst for the Washington-based Petroleum Finance Corp. who is in Baghdad on a fact-finding mission. ''The technocrats at the ministry are trying to deal with the increased demand, but on the flip side, they don't know if they'll have a job tomorrow.''
Click
here to read more
Contents
|
| Iraq Puts Back Oil Output Targets - Reuters
Looting and lack of security is hampering Iraqi efforts to restore oil output, forcing Baghdad to put back production targets again, a senior Iraqi oil official told Reuters on Monday.
The official at the Iraqi oil ministry, requesting anonymity, said Iraq now was aiming to reach 1.3 million barrels a day (bpd) by mid-July, allowing 750,000 bpd for export.
The target, already put back twice, could be delayed further if security did not improve, he said.
"The pillage and looting at the oil installations this time was much more devastating than in 1991," the official said, in reference to sustained damage during the Gulf War.
"In some areas it's getting worse rather than better. What we anticipate on production may not be attainable if the security situation makes repairs impossible."
The country now is pumping only 310,000 barrels a day (bpd) compared to 2.5 million before the war.
It needs 550,000 bpd to meet domestic energy needs before it can resume exports to finance rebuilding.
Just 80,000 bpd now is coming from the southern Rumaila fields, worst hit by looting, and 230,000 bpd from Kirkuk in the north, the official said.
He said lack of security meant there was risk of more looting, even to newly repaired facilities.
"We have no communications and no access to some of the fields and pipelines and no transport to get there safely," the official said.
The southern fields had suffered the heaviest looting. The Garmag Ali water intake station, used to inject water into the Rumaila field was out of action. A new station was required to increase production but had yet to be delivered, the official said.
He said the only major installation deliberately bombed by U.S. forces during the war was the K3 pumping station on the Strategic Pipeline, blown up to stop oil flowing north to Syria.
Click here
to read more
Contents
|
|
Saudi Arabia eases OPEC rumors - NBC
Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said the demise of the cartel had been predicted several times in the past, but that it had survived by concentrating on the oil interests that bring its 11 members together.
“We hear voices that are the harbingers of the end or disminution of the role of OPEC with the end of the war on Iraq,” Naimi told an investment conference in the Lebanese capital, adding that some expected Iraq to withdraw.
“These hasty conclusions are built upon faulty political assumptions and ignorance of the market.”
U.S.-backed Iraqi exiles drew up a policy document for post-war Iraq earlier this year which recommended that Baghdad should accept no restrictions on its output from OPEC and may have to pull out if OPEC imposed an unacceptable quota ceiling.
Echoing this view, the U.S. adviser to Iraq’s Ministry of Oil said in an interview published at the weekend that it may be in the country’s interest to disregard OPEC quotas.
“Iraq like other producing states, be they in or out of OPEC, is keen to realise a fair and stable income from its petroleum resources and more particularly for the reconstruction and rebuilding of its production capacity,” Naimi said.
“It is certain that preserving the unity and well-being of OPEC... is a matter of utmost importance for all members.”
Iraq helped found the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in 1960, although its exports have been exempt from quotas since the United Nations imposed sanctions after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Click here to read more
Contents
|
| Out of Energy - Editorial - Washington Post
Having promised "an energy bill by Memorial Day," the Senate, it seems, has suddenly run out of gas. Other issues have intervened, it is true, but the delay may also reflect some general ambivalence about this legislation on Capitol Hill. If so, the ambivalence is justified. Neither the House version of this bill, passed earlier in the year, nor the version approved more recently by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee does what an energy bill, or, for that matter, an American energy policy, is meant to do. Neither promotes a viable, long-term vision of how the United States is to reduce its dependence on oil. Neither deals with the climate change and air quality issues that are intimately connected to carbon emissions, largely produced by burning fossil fuel.
Both versions propose to spend far more money on producer subsidies than on measures that would promote either greater energy efficiency or the use of renewable resources. Both include unwarranted subsidies for the nuclear energy industry. The final version may also include loan guarantees for companies that want to build a natural gas pipeline from Alaska, even though, as we have previously argued, such subsidies might not be necessary if the pipeline were to run through Canada instead of Alaska. The House version includes a provision to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite repeated Senate defeats of this plan and the ample availability of oil elsewhere in Alaska. The only truly "renewable" form of energy aggressively promoted is ethanol, which, although made from corn, takes nearly as much oil to make as it ultimately replaces. Ethanol's real value is to the farmers who grow corn -- hence its popularity among senators who represent rural states.
At the same time, instead of promoting cars with better gas mileage and lower emissions, Congress, like the administration, has thrown all its eggs into one basket: Quite a lot of people in Washington have convinced themselves that hydrogen fuel cells will soon replace the internal combustion engine -- and so soon will this happen, they seem to believe, that no one need bother about conserving fuel or curbing carbon emissions in the meantime. Yet, although hydrogen fuel cell research is promising, it has no chance of becoming viable anytime soon. Instead of carrying out hydrogen research and fuel efficiency research at the same time, however, the administration and its Capitol Hill supporters appear to believe that the very word "hydrogen" is a magic charm, guaranteed to ward off any talk of fuel conservation in the present.
Click here to read more
Contents
|