Iraqi oil after Hussein

["Clement M. Henry" <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

Here is an interesting item published in an oil journal that I picked off
the net:

Oct 30, 2002- Oil and Gas International: US sets meeting on exploiting
Iraqi oil after Hussein


(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.

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.