Oil firms boom on Iraq war

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 (UPI) — As ExxonMobil prepares to celebrate what could be a record profit of more than $10 billion for the last quarter of 2007, jubilant company officials and stockholders might want to join in a moment of silence for the more than 1 million war dead in Iraq — Iraqi and American combined. They paid the ultimate price in a war in which ExxonMobil has had a hand and which we can estimate is responsible for at least $2.5 billion of ExxonMobil’s latest profit.

“Exxon guns for all-time profit record” declared CNNMoney.com on Jan. 23, explaining: “ExxonMobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, is within striking distance of setting an all-time profit record — again.”



This estimate of ExxonMobil’s war profit, between 20 percent and 30 percent of its overall profit, was kindly provided at my request by Dean Baker, economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who said that the excess profit can be traced to: 1) the loss of at least 1 million barrels a day of Iraqi oil production due to the war; and 2) “the additional uncertainty about supplies created by the war.”

“I’m just speculating,” Baker says, “but the price of oil is probably about $10 to $22 a barrel higher because of the war” attributed to the two factors noted above. “If (oil) prices were 10-20 percent lower, Exxon’s profits might be 20-30 percent lower.”

UPI