Viable Investment in Energy Complicated

Interesting moves are being played on the energy chessboard. While Hugo Chavez and Ahmedinejad are out to create a block of energy rich, “anti-imperialist” forces, it is now being reported Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a “controversial law” to be shortly introduced before the Iraqi parliament.

Won’t it be more difficult now to say that oil was not the driving force behind the US intervention in Iraq?

Indeed, when US Vice President Dick Cheney said in 1999 as head of the oil service company Halliburton, “so (from) where the (additional) oil is going to come from? The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies,” had a point. The prize is definitely here!

This major shift in Iraqi energy policy is taking place while Baghdad is under occupation. The Independent newspaper says the US government has been involved in drawing up the law. Critics of the plan say that Iraq is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty, as the new law envisages a “production sharing agreement”