Libya: Oil for Blood

By ADRIAN SALBUCHI | RT | APRIL 13, 2012

Last year NATO countries bombed Libya, demanding “democracy” in the country. But now it’s clear it was all about oil and it’s not like the Americans and Brits are going to be democratic about it, and share those spoils equally with France and Italy.

So… oil giants Total from France and ENI from Italy are just going to have to wait in the sidelines while the hungry American and British big boys take their juicy oil slices first… ExxonMobil, Chevron, Texaco, BP, Shell…

It’s no surprise then to read in The Wall Street Journal that the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), together with the puppet Libyan “authorities” are launching “investigations” into both companies’ “financial irregularities” in their shady dealings during the forty-two years of Gaddafi’s power. Now who would have imagined this! An Italian oil company involved in kick-backs? Corruption at the highest echelons of the French oil industry?!? Tsk, tsk!!! Unheard of…! The US and UK would never do something like that!! Just ask Enron, ask Halliburton, ask BP…

Clearly, major oil companies will now be judged on how close or how far they were from the Gaddafi’s, and on how much their respective countries contributed to last year’s war effort. Perhaps even on how much and how far and wide they shared their huge ill-obtained profits. It seems that scorecards must now be completed…

It’s worth remembering that at the height of the Libyan fighting last year, the “rebels” found the necessary time, between their “freedom fighting” shifts, to set up a new national oil company. As Bloomberg reported on 22nd March 2011, “The Transitional National Council released a statement announcing the decision made at a March 19 meeting to establish the “Libyan Oil Company as supervisory authority on oil production and policies in the country, based temporarily in Benghazi, and the appointment of an interim director general” of the company.”

And just as big oil and big finance always dance together, that report then went on to explain that “The Council also said it “designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”

Like Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, or Abelard and Eloise, Oil and Money are probably the West’s most universal and paradigmatic duo. Their love affair has been going strong for many decades.

Oil is a mighty powerful global business. Oil companies can make or break governments and entire countries. Nationalizing a foreign oil company like Iran did in the early fifties can put the CIA and MI6 spy agencies into full-gear ousting democratically elected governments and replacing them with “more suitable leaders’.

Trading oil in any currency other than the US Dollar as Saddam Hussein dared to do in November 2002 can get you invaded just a few months later. Even weak Argentina’s finger-pointing at illegal British oil escapades in the Falkland Islands resulted in the Royal Navy dispatching super destroyers and nuclear subs to the region…

Libya is the world’s 9th largest oil producing country and holds Africa’s largest oil reserve. Gaddafi was planning to introduce a new currency for Libyan and regional oil: the Gold Dinar which, contrary to the US Dollar, would have had true intrinsic value. Gaddafi’s central bank, in turn, was fully independent of the global financial usury-based system presently in global free-fall. Gaddafi was using oil revenues for his own people and not for the US/UK/EU/Israeli war efforts in the Middle East and further afield.

So, when the Persian Gulf became the very, very hot spot it is today, the global oil cartel together with the mega-bankers who shuffle those trillions upon trillions of Petro-Dollars all over the world, had to make sure that their respective governments would put their military on red-alert, as the oil giants scrambled for new sources…

The focus is increasingly on oil fields lying in “kinder, gentler” parts of the world: the Falkland Islands, the Brazilian Coasts, and Libya that lies smack in the middle of that easy-to-attack “it’s our-bloody-Mediterranean-Sea” North African Coast.

Last year’s destruction of Libya was a reflection of just this type of complex behind-the-scenes engineering of all these key oil, financial, military, media and political players. It’s the kind of Real News that seldom if ever hits the headlines… just because it is the Real News!

During the better part of last year until the public execution of Muhamar Gaddafi by the Western Power’s proxies inside Libya – i.e., mercenaries, criminals, thugs and CIA/MI6/Mossad agents, aka “Freedom Fighters” – the Western media repeated time and again how very bad Gaddafi had suddenly become overnight; how the poor Libyans were clamouring for “democracy”; and how the heroic Libyan “freedom fighters” based, armed, trained and financed in Benghazi were battling to “liberate” Libya and impose Clintonite “democracy” and “human rights”. Actually these “freedom fighters” overshot their runway: now that Libya is finally “free”, they’re asking for the Eastern Cyrenaica region to secede from the rest of the country.

Was civil war part of the West’s plan for Libya? Last year, after securing full UN backing via Resolution No. 1973 allowing NATO air strikes to devastate the country and impose the most violent regime change seen in recent times, NATO-backed thugs have plunged the country into chaos.

As the “Libya Business News” publication mentions on Tuesday, “About 3,000 people gathered in Benghazi last month to announce that Barca (Cyrenaica) was an autonomous region within a federal state. Barca is at the centre of Libya’s oil industry, with two thirds of production and three quarters of reserves there.” It is one of the three historic regions into which the country is divided. And while Barca has the most oil, the other two is home to two thirds of the population. So the question now is how the rich revenues from rich oil reserves will be “democratically” distributed among the population.

Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina. www.asalbuchi.com.ar

Venezuela will not recognize World Bank ruling in Exxon case

by Daniel Wallis
Reuters
January 8, 2012

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that his country would not recognize any ruling by a World Bank tribunal in a multibillion-dollar arbitration case with Exxon Mobil Corp.

Exxon took Venezuela to the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID, seeking as much as $12 billion in compensation after Chavez ordered the nationalization of the Cerro Negro oil project in 2007.

“I tell you now: we will not recognize any decision by ICSID,” Chavez said during a televised speech. He has repeatedly accused the U.S. oil major of using unfair deals in the past to “rob” the South American OPEC member of its resources.

“They are immoral … How much could they steal in 50 years? Who would dare launch this madness without any foundation? They wanted $12 billion. From where, compadre?” he said.

“We are not going to bow before imperialism and its tentacles, understand that … They are trying the impossible: to get us to pay them. We are not going to pay them anything.”

An Exxon spokesman said the company had no comment.

Some interpreted the president’s remarks as meaning Venezuela would reject rulings in any of about 20 other cases that it faces before the World Bank’s tribunal, all triggered by a wave of state takeovers in recent years.

They include separate multibillion-dollar proceedings brought by another U.S. oil major, ConocoPhillips.

But two statements issued later, by Venezuela’s Petroleum and Mining Ministry and by its state oil company PDVSA, only referred to Chavez saying the nation would refuse to recognize a verdict in the Exxon case.

Last week another arbitration panel, of the International Chamber of Commerce, awarded Exxon $908 million in a separate case relating to the Cerro Negro nationalization, turning attention to the ongoing World Bank proceedings.

RESOURCE NATIONALISM

On Saturday, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez told Reuters he did not expect a verdict in Exxon’s World Bank case before the end of this year.

It is due to start being argued in February, Exxon says.

Both cases have been closely watched by the industry for precedents in future disputes between companies and producing states, which have increasingly sought a greater share of oil revenue as prices soar and new reserves become tougher to find.

For years, Venezuela’s socialist leader has accused foreign oil companies of plundering the nation’s reserves, but has also maintained close ties with many of them.

Lawyers consulted by Reuters said the ICC decision only covered a commercial dispute between Exxon and state oil company PDVSA over earnings Exxon lost as a result of the takeover.

Exxon says the World Bank case is for compensation for its assets, and experts say it could yield a larger award.

The government has insisted Exxon receive only slightly more than the $750 million it said is invested in the project. Last September, Venezuela offered to settle for $1 billion.

For years, Chavez has confronted oil companies with tax hikes and contract changes aimed at increasing revenue from the industry to fund state-led anti-poverty development programs.

Venezuela’s push to boost control over its oil industry has been followed by similar efforts in other producing nations. Critics say it has scared investors away from the South American OPEC member and left crude production stagnant.

But some oil companies have remained eager to invest in Venezuela’s Orinoco extra heavy oil belt, which is considered one of the world’s largest mostly untapped reserves of crude.

U.S. major Chevron and Spain’s Repsol both signed deals in 2010 for new multibillion-dollar projects there.

The Anglo American Oil Fraud

By Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
April 18, 2010

The surplus oil production capacity could totally disappear, says the Military. Really?  Last time I checked there were numerous oil fields waiting to be discovered and exploited.  So, why is the United States military warning about peak oil again?  Can there really be a limitation to access fossil fuels?  Sure, there is.  However it is not due to lack of oil, but to lack of infrastructure to localize it and extract it for everyone to use.

Most of the scarcity talked about today originates from two different places.  The first, as mentioned before, the lack of infrastructure in many parts of the world which limits refining capacity.  Second, the fact that the oil cartel and oil companies hug the existing oil in order to make prices spike and availability to be limited.  So why is the military warning us?  Can this be the beginning of the U.S. military campaign to massively find support for an attack on Iran?

Propaganda works in many ways.  Provoking fear of war, lack of resources and apocalypse are some strategies well known today.  Just like the Military Industrial Complex brainwashed its way into two wars at the start of the new century, it is also possible it may be preparing for another conflict.  Persia is blessed with lots of oil and the establishment always had its eyes on it.  Peak oil, danger of nuclear war, and other strategic geopolitical reasons will be asserted in the following months to invade yet another country in Asia.

In the meantime, we can analyze why there may be oil scarcity in the United States and elsewhere.  Recently, Russia Today dedicated a news segment to the claim that peak oil is within two years from occurring.  Watch the report here.

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