Posted on 11/14/2010 11:04:28 AM PST by Dr. Eckleburg
BASRA, Iraq—This dusty and ragged city in southern Iraq was notorious a couple years back for its vicious militia warfare and rampant smuggling. Today Basra has a very different rep: one of the world's newest oil boom towns.
Some of the world's largest energy companies are ramping up drilling in Iraq. They are focused on a handful of fields clustered near Basra, the nation's oil hub, as the government attempts a dramatic expansion of output that could help moderate world energy prices for years to come.
The drilling frenzy has triggered an investment and building boom in Basra itself. Recently, the investment commission of the local governorate said it had awarded 11 new investment licenses worth $500 million to local and foreign companies with new projects in the area. Separately, a 65,000-seat soccer stadium is on the drawing board...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
8~)
Some of the world's largest energy companies are ramping up drilling in Iraq. They are focused on a handful of fields clustered near Basra, the nation's oil hub, as the government attempts a dramatic expansion of output that could help moderate world energy prices for years to come.
The idea that the USA could buy up a large part of oil production is intriguing. This would deny China resources they use against us.
But it would require that we accept $5/gal gas, for at least a short time. And there would be retaliation from China.
Can’t imagine that this would happen.
If we would only allow drilling here we wouldn’t need to borrow money to buy their oil. If they want a solution to the deficit, here’s one.
If Ben Bernacke doens’t hopelessly degrade the dollar, than this could help with fuel prices.
Isn't crude generally considered a fungible commodity?
/bingo
No recovery here until the Islamist is removed from office.
“Bush’s Fault”
Bush lied, and democracy, opportunity and modern industry came to Iraq...
Doesn’t have that ‘saying’ quality, does it?
I imagine that Iraqui decisions not to favor American oil companies has more to do with Bush/Cheney than it does with libs. really ironic since while the Afghanistan war made sense at the time, the Iraq war did not. And I despised Saddam Hussein for the murdering skumbags that he and his family were. In fact I think the best thing to come out of the whole Iraq war is that we will never have to deal with Uday and Cusay(sp?). Bush wanted the war because SH “tried to kill my daddy.” and Cheney wanted it for big Halliburton contracts. Incidentally, I just heard today that in 2005 Cheney made sure that gas drillers were exempt from clean water standards when “fracking” oil shale, and now there are serious problems of ground water poisoning.
I don’t know what you are smoking, but it must be some powerful stuff.
Part of what I say is based on the thoughts of my son who is currently in Special Forces, and 8 days after SH invaded Kuwait was deployed in Saudi Arabia with the 82nd Airborne.
Several months before we went into Iraq in 2003, and after the big Gen Shinseki(sp?) blowup because he said we should have 350,000 troops going in I asked my son how many he thought we ought to have. His figure was 450,000. Subsequently, the man Bush put in, his name escapes me at almost 3 am, said we should have had around 1/2 million.
At any rate I have watched the situation with more than the average interest since my son’s life is at risk. And also given it a lot of thought. He also served for 8 months in Afghanistan in 2006 with Special Forces.
Why don't you educate yourself about fracking and stop regurgitating the liberal line?
I think it’s fairly safe to say that the Chinese got the contract, just as the French got contracts from Saddam earlier, because they offered the Iraqi political leaders the biggest bribes.
American oil companies aren’t allowed to offer bribes to foreign governments. Which is why our “Big Oil” companies are now relative midgets compared to foreign state oil companies, which do offer bribes.
I am not regurgitating a liberal line, I was looking at interviews of rural people (classic Tea Party material) distressed by illness, tainted water, and water that gives off gas that was set on fire in the video clip. One company had even admitted damage to the point of providing free drinking water, although the people still have to shower in tainted water. I didn’t even know there was a “liberal” line.
Fracking is done at depths of 5000 to 9000 feet....far below the water table.
There is a steel casing running down to the horizontal to prevent interference with the water table.
Additionally, the first 800-1200 feet of steel casing is enclosed in concrete to prevent problems with the water table.
The pictures of methane in water are people who drilled their well into a methane pocket...it has nothing to do with gas drilling or fracking.
The drillers have had surface spills that resulted in bottled water being provided, but nobody has demonstrated damage to existing, underground water supplies from fracking.
Those are the facts, not hysteria from environmentalists that are trying to stop natural gas drilling.
What I was refering to was this ...
“Bush wanted the war because SH “tried to kill my daddy.” and Cheney wanted it for big Halliburton contracts. Incidentally, I just heard today that in 2005 Cheney made sure that gas drillers were exempt from clean water standards when “fracking” oil shale, and now there are serious problems of ground water poisoning.”
I respect and appreciate your son’s military service but I fail to understand what it has to do with the above quoted statements from your post.
What it has to do with my son’s service is that I was really paying attention to what was happening because I didn’t want my son to get killed in a badly planned, poorly executed war started for less than the national interest. I thought SH was a monster, and was glad that we were going to take him out, but should we have done it when we had not finished in Afghanistan?
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