Uh, About That Oil?
Sep 30th, 2005 at 11:52 am by Susie
More bad news via Somegirl:
QARMAT ALI, Iraq — The failure to rebuild key components of Iraq’s petroleum industry has impeded oil production and may have permanently damaged the largest of the country’s vast oil fields, American and Iraqi experts say.
The deficiencies have deprived Iraq of hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue needed for national rebuilding efforts and kept millions of barrels of oil off the world market at a time of growing demand.
Engineering mistakes, poor leadership and shifting priorities have delayed or led to the cancellation of several projects critical to restoring Iraq’s oil industry, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry experts.
The troubles have been compounded in some cases by security issues, poor maintenance and disputes between the U.S. and its main contractor, Houston-based KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., according to the interviews and documents.
Despite the United States’ spending more than $1.3 billion, oil production remains below the estimated prewar level of 2.5 million barrels per day and well below a December 2004 goal of up to 3 million barrels per day.
Wow. I didn’t know it was possible to permanently damage an oilfield. KBR are really special, aren’t they.
Maybe it’s like putting sugar in someone’s gas tank.
No, it’s things more like pumping it out too fast, or forcing in too much water to wash it out with. Some think that this has also happened to some Saudi fields… You can read about it here:
http://www.petermaass.com/core.cfm?p=1&mag=124&magtype=1
FWIW, I think that what this administration has done to Iraq’s resource base since the war ended should be impeachable. It might save us a lot of trouble down the line.