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World Industry
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US sets meeting on exploiting
Iraqi oil after Hussein
|
Iraqi
oilfield. | (10/30/2002
- OGI: Washington) The US State Department has pushed back its
planned meeting with Iraqi opposition leaders on exploiting
Iraq's oil and gas reserves after a US military offensive
removes Saddam Hussein from power to early December. According
to a source at the State Department, all the desired
participants are not yet available. The Bush administration
wants to have a working group of 12 to 20 people focused on
Iraqi oil and gas to be able to recommend to an interim
government ways of restoring the petroleum sector following a
military attack in order to increase oil exports to partially
pay for a possible US military occupation government - further
fueling the view that controlling Iraqi oil is at the heart of
the Bush campaign to replace Hussein with a more compliant
regime.
|
Sharif Ali Bin al
Hussein. |
|
Ahmed
Chalabi. | The State
Department wants to include not only Iraqi opposition leaders
such as Ahmed Chalabi and Sharif Ali Bin al Hussein of the
Iraqi National Congress, but recently defected personnel from
Iraq's Ministry of Petroleum, and representatives of the US
Energy Department. It had originally scheduled the meeting for
the end of this month, but was unable to pull together
everyone on its list. According to the source, the working
group will not only prepare recommendations for the
rehabilitation of the Iraqi petroleum sector post-Hussein, but
will address questions regarding the country's continued
membership in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) and whether it should be allowed to produce
as much as possible or be limited by an OPEC quota, and it
will consider whether to honor contracts made between the
Hussein government and foreign oil companies, including the
US$3.5 billion project to be carried out by Russian interests
to redevelop Iraq's oilfields, which, along with numerous
other development projects, has been thwarted by United
Nations sanctions.
Click below for earlier
reports: Post-Hussein
Iraqi regime to cancel prior oil contracts Oil
companies jockeying for primacy in a post-Hussein
Iraq
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