Russia's Lukoil Wins Huge Iraqi Oilfield

The Business Insider ^ | 12/12/09 | Joe Weisenthal

[FromLori]

So much for America getting all the oil it spent billions of dollars, and thousands of lives to "liberate."

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By SINAN SALAHEDDIN (AP) – 10 hours ago

BAGHDAD — A consortium led by Russia's private oil giant won the biggest prize of Iraq's second oil auction this year, nabbing a field initially promised them a decade ago by Saddam Hussein while other companies Saturday showed little interest in offerings outside the secure southern part of the country.

Lukoil and Norway's Statoil ASA won rights to develop the 12.88 billion barrel West Qurna Phase 2 field in the Basra region, beating out three other consortiums led by France's Total SA, Malaysia's state-run Petronas and British giant BP PLC.

The field was the crown jewel of Iraq's second international oil auction, which has placed some of the country's most coveted sites up for grabs compared with the riskier fields that drew little interest in the first auction in June. In all, 15 fields were offered over two days, and of the seven offered Saturday, four were awarded.

"It is a big victory for Iraq," Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told reporters after the final field was auctioned. "It is a big achievement for Iraq to win such contracts at the current prices."

Al-Shahristani said that the contracts awarded over the two days, coupled with those awarded over the past few months — including the June auction — would help the country boost production to 12 million barrels per day in six years. Iraq currently struggles to produce 2.5 million barrels a day.

The aggressive interest in West Qurna 2 — the biggest of the 15 offered — reflected not only its ample reserve base and cheap development costs, but also its location in the relatively Shiite heartland in Iraq's south.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> What is your point?

The point was masterful satire, beautifully executed. Bravo!

[VR-21]

It sickens me anymore to see how this country sends her best to bleed and die on foreign soil for other peoples benefit, while the human dreck remains here to breed another inferior generation (My own personal theory about why we’re starting to resemble the Europeans). Funny how knives in the back are usually put there by those one loves, trusts or wants to believe in. God, how stories like this embitter me!

[Cicero]

Not surprising. I believe the Chinese also made a deal with Iraq earlier.

The Democrats and the anti-war nuts accused Bush of being a Texas oil man, screamed about Cheney, and whined that there should be no blood for oil.

Well, oil was in fact one of the original purposes of the war, as I understood it back then. Secure the Iraqi oil fields before going into Saudi Arabia, the real instigators and paymasters of Wahabi terrorism. But then the whole thing got sidetracked and bogged down.

Before 9/11 we were being repeatedly hit by Muslim terrorists (9/11 was only the last and largest, but part of a long string of outrages), and we couldn’t just attack the Saudis without risk of losing the world’s oil supply, most of which was controlled by Muslims, bringing the industrial nations to a screaching halt.

Then we got all that leftist whining, that Vietnam quagmire stuff, the Halliburton accusations, and the rest of it, and either Bush chickened out on the rest of the plan, or he found it politically impossible to go ahead with it. First Afghanistan and Iraq, then Syria, the Saudis, and finally Iran.

So basically we have fought the Iraq war for nothing and the Russians and Chinese, who aided our enemies, have come up the winners. I’m not sure that Bush could have done any differently, since even as much as he did do seems to have sunk his presidency, what with all the undermining from the left.

Well, that’s what the Democrats wanted, I suppose. They’d much rather lose wars than win them.

[rlmorel]

I appreciate satire, but satire is nearly impossible nowadays, in my opinion.

One can make the argument that reality is satire now, but I have always felt that satire must be in some way distinguishable from reality, otherwise, what is the point other than to simply pump up the blood pressure of others?

Of course, I recognize there are many who get their jollies from doing just that. It isn’t something I enjoy personally, although I do enjoy watching the Left become unhinged when dirty irritation of reality intrudes on their ideas of utopia.

THAT I confess to...:)

[rlmorel]

And just to be clear, I am not calling kittykat77 a liberal...if he/she says it was satire, I accept that completely. I was commenting on the regrettable pleasure I sometimes feel upon seeing my adversaries (Liberals) in emotional discomfort.

[rlmorel]

And I also have to admit being bitten by satire on FreeRepublic more often than anywhere else, so I cannot be too upset about that. There is a particular Freeper (whose handle escapes med) to whom I fell victim multiple times.

He had a particular penchant for that specific type of satire which is indistinguishable from reality.

I learned (after a while) that nearly every thread posted by this person was satire. But it took me a few tries...

[DieHard the Hunter]

> I appreciate satire, but satire is nearly impossible nowadays, in my opinion.

Sadly, that’s a nearly unassailable defense. Once upon a time not long ago the world was a simpler place...

[rlmorel]

Yeah.

That’s the truth.

Sigh. I suspect people who have lived through crisis for generations before us have all thought the same thoughts: That the world WAS simpler in earlier times, and why do WE have to go through this?

And that makes me want to quote Sarah Palin’s husband when (after telling him their son was going to have Down’s Syndrome) she asked him “Why us?” and he replied...”Why not us?”

[FromLori]

Well said.