American and British Oil Companies Open the Door to Iraq's Oil Treasure Trove

After the United States and the United Kingdom jointly launched the Iraq war for more than three years and lost more than 3,000 troops, American and British oil giants are expected to obtain oil exploration rights in Iraq for 30 years.

According to the British "Sunday Independent" report, the Iraqi parliament will consider a controversial bill in the next few days, and Iraq's huge oil treasure house will soon open the door to Western oil companies. For the first time since the nationalization of the Iraqi oil industry in 1972, foreign oil interests will usher in large-scale mining operations in Iraq.

Barham Saleh, Iraq's deputy prime minister and chairman of the Petroleum Council, is expected to unveil the bill on January 7. The bill would give BP, Shell and Exxon the right to drill crude oil for 30 years. This is unusual in the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest oil producers, both maintain tight state control of their oil industries.

According to Greg Mutit, an expert on international energy issues, an American consulting firm hired by the US government helped draft the bill. A representative of the consulting firm has been working at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for several months.

"Three major external organizations have a better chance of reviewing this bill than most Iraqis," Mutit said. "The U.S. government and major oil companies got the draft law in July last year, and the International Monetary Fund also looked at it in September. Here comes the draft. I met with 20 Iraqi parliamentarians in Jordan last month, and I asked how many of them had seen this bill, and there was only one person."

According to the draft bill that foreign oil companies received in July last year, any disputes between Iraq and foreign oil companies must be submitted to international arbitration, which seriously undermines Iraq's sovereignty to manage its natural resources. The draft also stipulates that foreign companies can freely remit their profits abroad without paying taxes.

Mutit believes that because the Iraqi government is now in a weak position and it is difficult to obtain favorable conditions in negotiations, Iraq will pay a huge price for this in the next 30 years.

Iraq is rich in oil resources, with proven oil reserves of 115 billion barrels, ranking third in the world. In recent months, some of the world's largest oil companies have sent people to Iraq to lobby in an attempt to seize Iraqi oil resources.

The Bush administration in the United States is well aware of the value of oil and its role for the United States. When US Vice President Cheney was the head of Halliburton in 1999, he said that by 2010, the world would need 50 million barrels of new oil every day. Where would this much oil come from? He believes that this will ultimately need to be obtained from the Middle East, which holds two-thirds of the world's oil resources.