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Page added on October 18, 2012
Exxon seeks to quit flagship Iraq oil project
Exxon Mobil wants to leave its flagship Iraqi oil project after upsetting Baghdad by signing a deal last year with the autonomous northern Kurdish region, which the central government deemed illegal.
It wants to leave its contract to develop the giant West Qurna-1 oilfield in southern Iraq , diplomatic sources said on Thursday, because of concerns over the profitability of the project.
Exxon has informed Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani and the U.S. State Department of its intentions, said two U.S. officials.
“Exxon is telling Baghdad: ‘We are letting you know we’re looking to leave,'” one of the diplomats said. “They are shopping around and looking at all the options.
Shahristani declined to say whether Exxon was pulling out, but told Reuters in an email that Baghdad was sticking to its line that all contract signed with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) without the approval of Baghdad were illegal.
“All companies that entered in such contracts were asked to cancel them or pull out,” Shahristani said.
“Exxon Mobil can be contacted about their decision.”
Exxon declined to comment.
Royal Dutch Shell is the minority partner in the oilfield project.
8 Comments on "Exxon seeks to quit flagship Iraq oil project"
Arthur on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 4:43 pm
I think that the real reason Exxon is leaving Kurdistan is fear of war in the region, whereas the south is now stable and ethnic homogeneous.
A few days ago there was an interesting new article by William Engdahl about the backgrounds of the Syrian conflict, of which we hear not much lately, which means that there is no good news for the western terrorists.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-turkey-israel-and-the-greater-middle-east-energy-war
According to Engdahl, what the US lead invasion in reality accomplished, was that the US army functioned like an effective icebreaker, connecting Shia dominated territories like Lebanon and Syria to the Shia heartland in Iran, via Bagdad. Bingo says Teheran!
In July 2011 the governments of Syria, Iran and Iraq signed an historic agreement concerning a gas pipeline of 5600 km and 110 million m3 gas/day, from the Iranian Port Assalouyeh near the South Pars gas field (the lagest in the world) in the Persian Gulf, to Damascus in Syria via Iraq territory, ending in Lebanon’s Mediterranean port for delivery to EU markets. This would mean that after completion of the two Northstream pipelines, last month (and two new Russian-German gas pipelines planned), SCO would have yet another major pipeline to Europe. At the same time the preferred (by the western elites) Nabucco pipeline, from the Stan’s to Europe, seems to be dead in the water. This new pipelines would also circumvent Turkey, who would love to be a Eurasian energy hub, but that’s not happening so far. The only potential for becoming such a hub is for petro-pipelines coming from Iraqi-Kurdistan, which will become richer with every exported barrel, preparing for the inevitable last and final uprising of the Kurds in Turkey.
Exxon sees it all coming and decides to make money where it is relatively safe: in the Shia south and not in Kurdistan.
Others on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 4:43 pm
“because of concerns over the profitability of the project.’
So does it cost more than $100/barrel to produce. Is this the reality.
Exxon produces only 1/2 its output in Oil with Natgas being the other 1/2.
DC on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 9:08 pm
I think Iraq, and indeed the entire world would be a lot happier if Exxon just pulled out of the Earth entirely, maybe set up on Mars or something.
Iraq needs to re-nationalize its oil, get rid of the amerikans,(they are still there, make no mistake), and send the US and UK oil firms packing. Oh yea, and start selling oil in Euros again….
BillT on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 1:20 am
If/when Israel attacks Iran, all bets are off. That southern part of Iraq is in the hands of Shiia Muslims, not Sunni if I remember correctly. The Shiia’s are tied to Iran. But then, all oil shipments are likely to be disrupted for a while or maybe years. We shall see.
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 3:34 am
The criminals behind the PNAC project and Clean Break strategy of destroying all nations in the ME for the benefit of Greater Israel and which was initiated by the 9/11 false flag event, miscalculated badly. They thought they could turn the resulting rubble into western lapdogs. Instead they strengtened local Sunni and Shia identities. Yes, they achieved regime change everywhere, but made the road free for Sunni and Shia fundamentalism, aided by western sourced twitter, facebook and mobile phones.
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 4:06 am
More independent confirmation that the western initiated conflict in Syria is about the attempt to prevent an Iranian gaspipeline to the Meditairenean through Syria:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article176254.html
The US is battling a situation it helped creating in the first place: by eliminating Sunni Saddam, they freed the Shi’it majority from the Baath dictatorship and de facto handed over Iraq to the Iranian sphere of influence for free. And they potentially wrecked the future of Turkey by letting the Kurd genie escape from the Iraqi bottle. They thought they could impose liberal democracy on an essentially tribal world. They failed. Now they are preparing for the last mistake, the coming attack on Iran, which will lead to an armed conflict between the US and China, the breakup of the west, the formation of a EU-Russian alliance as a consequence of EU dependence on Russian fuel and the onset of the balkanisation/tribelization of the US itself.
BillT on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 4:33 am
Arthur, I think we agree on this topic. You see the Middle East/Europe/Asia/American situation the same as I do. Only Central and South America seems to be sitting out this event. Even Africa will become involved eventually.
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 5:32 am
Yes, it looks as if all the fears of Brezinsky as formulated in his book, the Grand Chessboard, are coming out: the idea was to keep the Eurasian heartland divided, to make sure that no power could emerge there that could rival the US. The essential factor in this game is energy. The gigantic flows of fuel through pipelines represents the labour equivalent of hundreds of millions of virtual energy slaves. The way things are going now, Europe is sucked into Eurasia, read Russia, because of the changing energy configuration. The role of oil is going to be replaced by that of gas and that gas is going to be delivered almost exclusively by SCO. Although most of the European population still has a preference of being part of the western cultural sphere (largely based on nostalgia), the new reality will be that Europe and America will drift apart. Germany, for historic reasons, will have the least trouble of kissing the west goodbye and the french nationalists also announced that they want to turn towards Russia, once they will be in power, possibly in five years. It means that Europe will turn Gaullist, with Putin as the successor of Charles de Gaulle.
When the Brezinsky doctrine and with it the US empire fails, and when it will be clear for all to see, that there will be no New American Century, the GOP, the party of Joe Sixpack and Sally socker mum, will turn into the White Party and the US army will smash J-Power, just like the Soviet army did in 1953, after the death of Stalin, using 9/11 truth as a catalist. The US will disintegrate along racial lines, hopefully peacefully, through secession. No garantee though.