THE Iraqi Oil Thread pt 2 (merged)

[ozkrenske]

heroineworshipper wrote:

What's wrong with fighting for Oil, survival, & life as you know it?

I'll just say "Blowback" as a one word answer.

For a much better answer, I will say hatred and unintended consequences. The current war in the middle east, if it is for oil, is obviously not helping the world at large.

George Bush could of said in 2002, "I ask this nation to dedicate itself to throwing off the shackles of dependance on foreign energy." If he had then invested half the money expended on the war in iraq in america, developing infrastructure, energy sources and conservation the results would have been incredible. 50 + nukes coming online now with probably another 25-50 over the next three years. Probably a 5-10 mpg increase in average vehicle fuel consumption by now. Maybe even a few high speed rail and enhanced freight rail lines as well. It would also have helped the economy in quite a considerable way.

Instead it's all gone, for no gain, only loss. All it's built is hatred in the world and damaged the American economy. Once 2 of the 3 big American auto companies go under the economy will be shattered. When some one who has observed a big chunk of his family die decides on revenge by carrying out a WMD attack on the US things will just get worse.

Yep "blowback" is the answer.

[mos6507]

heroineworshipper wrote:

What's wrong with fighting for Oil, survival, & life as you know it?

I'll just say "Blowback" as a one word answer.

If this isn't dysfunctional I don't know what is. It's like "gee, I know I'm addicted to oil but I have to look like a moral upstanding american. I can't let my neighbor know that I openly sanctioned a resource war, so thank goodness our president, following in George Bush's pioneering footsteps, will find some transparent McGuffin to hang on country du jour so we can invade them, steal the oil, and walk away with plausible deniability. It's a dirty job (my heart bleeds) but somebody's got to do it. I know it, my neighbor knows it, but we won't really acknowledge it to eachother because we're supposed to be the good guys."

You know, I partly blame congress for this, for refusing to impeach Cheney and Bush. They've now set a precedent for presidential corruption and abuse of power. I can only hope that Obama has more integrity than some of the more cynical members of this forum think he has.

[idiom]

Yep. America is screwed. The question is how many nations can she take down with her?

[OilFinder2]

Be sure to rush out to your local newsstand today to catch a copy of the Wall Street Journal.

--> WSJ teaser <--

Wildcatters Plunge Into North Iraq
By Neil King Jr.

TAWKE, Iraq -- The Canadians are squeezing oil from sand. The Brazilians want to nurse it up through miles of seawater, sandstone and salt. But here in the far north of Iraq, oil is literally bubbling to the surface.

Oil executives lament that the age of "easy oil" is over. It isn't over here. For companies that have stumbled into this corner of Iraq known as Kurdistan, it's an era that has just begun.

"Look at this," said Magne Normann, Middle East director for DNO International ASA of Norway, as he stood beside a pond of oil oozing up on ...

There's a photo gallery accompanying the article which non-subscribers can read.

Check it out - oil everywhere!

Sizable natural seeps of oil are uncommon anywhere in the world these days. In Iraq, however, they have often tipped off explorers to large pockets of oil underground.

Mr. Normann, left, admires one of the many natural oil seeps near the village of Tawke, just miles from the border with Turkey. These seeps first drew DNO's attention to this corner of Iraq.

Oil oozing out the sides of the rocks!

More than 25 companies from around the world are now prospecting in Kurdistan, making the area one of the liveliest exploration zones in the oil-rich Middle East.

Left, oil seeps from a rock ledge northwest of Erbil.

[joewp]

Good, OF2. Let's suck it out of the ground and burn it up as fast as we can, just like we did with all the other oil.

The sooner it's all gone, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

[yesplease]

The sooner it's all gone, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Given the huge external costs of autos alone, I can't say I agree.

[TheDude]

Check it out - oil everywhere!

Like Santa Clara County, CA:



Tons Of Oil Seep Into The Gulf Of Mexico Each Year - iReport.com

Seeps and Oil Exploration

Oil Seep at McKittrick, California

This last depicts all of the same phenomena they're encountering in Kurdistan.

[OilFinder2]

^
Now all it needs is some trapped saber-tooth tigers and wooley mammoths.

[mattduke]

Richard is going into the Iraqi oil business.

link

[Cashmere]

A Zionist, neocon, Jewish businessman who pushed for war with Iraq on every pretext other than oil now wants to profit from Iraqi oil?

Will wonders never cease?

Next thing you know, an Evangelist will be caught stealing from his flock.

A black hooligan will be caught popping a cap in somebody's ass.

GW will stumble over his words.

Al Gore will propose blotting out a portion of the sun to reduce global warming.

Spears/Lohan/Hilton will flash a pussy.

A pit bull will maul somebody.

A priest will abuse an altar boy.

And yes folks, you guessed it . . .

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Wait for it . . .

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A bear will sh-t in the woods and the Pope will be Catholic.

[Starvid]

Perle has very strong personal contacts with Turkey, and loves that country.

[eastbay]

Perle has very strong personal contacts with Turkey, and loves that country.

Yup, too bad that friendship, love, and loyalty wasn't directed to the US.

[Graeme]

Iraq to resume oil exploration after 20 year pause

Iraq will resume searching for oil on Friday for the first time in two decades, the oil ministry said on Thursday, in the hope of finding vast reserves that lay undiscovered because of sanctions and war.

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the third largest in the world, but the government believes the country's actual oil reserves may be three times as high.

guardian

[americandream]

Iraq to resume oil exploration after 20 year pause

Iraq will resume searching for oil on Friday for the first time in two decades, the oil ministry said on Thursday, in the hope of finding vast reserves that lay undiscovered because of sanctions and war.

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the third largest in the world, but the government believes the country's actual oil reserves may be three times as high.

guardian

I wonder whether Saddam was aware of oil's peaking profile and left the oil in the ground for future generations of Iraqi children. Oh well, we can all drive down Queen Street in years to come in our fancy 4X4's at discounted oil prices and to hell with these kids inalienable rights to enjoy what was theirs.

[pedalling_faster]

Wow. that's an f'load of oil. no wonder Cheney wanted to invade the country (twice, first as defense sec. & then as VP)

i read somewhere that Iraq has about 2000 wells and that Texas has about 1 million, that is, Texas is much more thoroughly explored.

'3 times as high' - 345 billion barrels ? & Iraqi oil if i remember correctly is really easy to refine, i.e. it costs about $1 a barrel to refine (somehow that doesn't seem right - anybody got a better number ?)

no wonder bubbleChimp said, "F--- Saddam ! We're taking him out !"

i did wonder if Iraq, with so many fewer wells, would have more oil in the "discovered reserves" category, eventually, like, an extra 10-15 billion barrels.

but an extra 230 f'ing billion barrels ! of OIL - at $100+ a barrel ?!

if this is real, why aren't people making a bigger deal of it ?

[Tanada]

Iraq having 115 billion barrels is just as much an illusion as Saudi Arabia having 270. Both created a chitload of paper barrels back inthe 80's and 90's and never looked back or took produced barrels off the books.

[OilFinder2]

Wow. that's an f'load of oil. no wonder Cheney wanted to invade the country (twice, first as defense sec. & then as VP)

i read somewhere that Iraq has about 2000 wells and that Texas has about 1 million, that is, Texas is much more thoroughly explored.

'3 times as high' - 345 billion barrels ? & Iraqi oil if i remember correctly is really easy to refine, i.e. it costs about $1 a barrel to refine (somehow that doesn't seem right - anybody got a better number ?)

no wonder bubbleChimp said, "F--- Saddam ! We're taking him out !"

i did wonder if Iraq, with so many fewer wells, would have more oil in the "discovered reserves" category, eventually, like, an extra 10-15 billion barrels.

but an extra 230 f'ing billion barrels ! of OIL - at $100+ a barrel ?!

if this is real, why aren't people making a bigger deal of it ?

Perhaps you missed this thread:
--> Iraq has ‘more crude oil’ than Saudi Arabia, says author <--

[3aidlillahi]

Rockman doesn't post on the weekends, but I think I know what he'd say to these numbers. "Probably reserves to a geologist only means there's not enough data to disprove me." Or something like that is how he's said it a few times.

So these "350 bln" figures aren't really accurate. They are just numbers being thrown around with nothing to really support or disprove it. We'll have to wait until we start actually drilling, which hasn't really happened in a long time in these areas.

[OilFinder2]

This article is about something else, but there's a passage in it which gives you an idea how much oil Iraq expects to be pumping in the future.

--> LINK <--

Iraq hopes to boost oil production to 4.5 million bpd by 2013 and 6 million bpd by 2018, Shahristani said.

[TheDude]

That's about 1 mb/d over their 1979 peak, about 2 mb/d over what they're pumping now, assuming there aren't major volumes of 'hot oil' being siphoned off as it is. There's 1.25 mb/d listed in megaprojects but that's all baked into the cake of overall global production, natch.

And the country's still unsettled. 10 killed in attacks on the 19th alone.