Big oil’s interests are being abused in these wars for Israel.
Iran is a thoroughly capitalist nation with multi-national corporate penetration. US firms are losing market share.

Iran oil exports at risk in UK ship sanctions plan

By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON (Reuters) - A British proposal to target Iran’s national shipping lines under a draft U.N. sanctions resolution could temporarily curb Tehran’s ability to export oil to world markets, maritime sources said on Tuesday.

The confidential draft, obtained by Reuters on Friday, suggests denying rights of passage to Iranian merchant ships in foreign waters. The withdrawal of landing rights for Iranian aircraft is also suggested.

The proposal would have countries “deny permission to take off from, land in or overfly their territories, or berth in or secure passage through their territorial waters, of all aircraft and vessels owned or controlled by Iranian airlines or shipping companies.”

Under the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention ships of all nations have the right of innocent passage through a country’s territorial seas. U.N. member nations are bound to enforce Security Council resolutions once adopted.

Oil shipping sources said on Tuesday that, if adopted, the proposal could have a short-term effect on Iran’s ability to supply oil to world markets, even though U.S. and European officials insist it is not meant to target Iran’s oil.

“It’s a question of logistics,” said James Davis of Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence Unit (LMIU) in London, a consultancy that tracks global oil tanker flows.

SHORT-TERM IMPACT

He said Iran could revert to the commercial shipping market to move its oil, thereby side-stepping the United Nations.

“Whether there is enough tanker capacity to cover it is another question, but I think we are looking at a short-term impact,” he said.

The draft sanctions proposal is aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Iran for defying U.N. Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment.

Iran says its goal is peaceful generation of electricity. The West fears the enrichment is aimed at producing a nuclear weapon.

Oil ship industry sources estimate that around 40 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports are shipped on National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) vessels. An NITC official contacted by Reuters in Tehran declined to say how much the state-owned fleet carried.

Iran, OPEC’s second largest producer, pumps 3.85 million barrels of crude a day and exports 2.4 million barrels of that on tankers by sea, with about 60 percent bound for Asia and the remainder shipped to Europe.

Washington has banned U.S. companies from lifting Iranian oil and investing in Iran since 1995.

“For 2007 we’ve observed under 40 percent of crude oil exports shipped on NITC vessels, mostly from Kharg Island in the Gulf,” LMIU’s Davis said.

One of the biggest oil tanker firms operating in the Gulf estimated the figure to be 42 percent of exports.

Davis said the remainder was moved by oil firms aboard their own supertanker fleets or aboard privately chartered vessels.

“The main lifters are Japanese, Indian, Chinese, South Korean. A small amount goes to southern Europe,” he said.

A second proposal would target aircraft and vessels — including those operated by the Islamic of Republic of Iran Shipping Line and Iran Air Cargo — that traffic in goods banned under two previous U.N. resolutions.

http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnL269674.html

Iran oil exports at risk in UK ship sanctions plan

By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON (Reuters) - A British proposal to target Iran’s national shipping lines under a draft U.N. sanctions resolution could temporarily curb Tehran’s ability to export oil to world markets, maritime sources said on Tuesday.

The confidential draft, obtained by Reuters on Friday, suggests denying rights of passage to Iranian merchant ships in foreign waters. The withdrawal of landing rights for Iranian aircraft is also suggested.

The proposal would have countries “deny permission to take off from, land in or overfly their territories, or berth in or secure passage through their territorial waters, of all aircraft and vessels owned or controlled by Iranian airlines or shipping companies.”

Under the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention ships of all nations have the right of innocent passage through a country’s territorial seas. U.N. member nations are bound to enforce Security Council resolutions once adopted.

Oil shipping sources said on Tuesday that, if adopted, the proposal could have a short-term effect on Iran’s ability to supply oil to world markets, even though U.S. and European officials insist it is not meant to target Iran’s oil.

“It’s a question of logistics,” said James Davis of Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence Unit (LMIU) in London, a consultancy that tracks global oil tanker flows.

SHORT-TERM IMPACT

He said Iran could revert to the commercial shipping market to move its oil, thereby side-stepping the United Nations.

“Whether there is enough tanker capacity to cover it is another question, but I think we are looking at a short-term impact,” he said.

The draft sanctions proposal is aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Iran for defying U.N. Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment.

Iran says its goal is peaceful generation of electricity. The West fears the enrichment is aimed at producing a nuclear weapon.

Oil ship industry sources estimate that around 40 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports are shipped on National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) vessels. An NITC official contacted by Reuters in Tehran declined to say how much the state-owned fleet carried.

Iran, OPEC’s second largest producer, pumps 3.85 million barrels of crude a day and exports 2.4 million barrels of that on tankers by sea, with about 60 percent bound for Asia and the remainder shipped to Europe.

Washington has banned U.S. companies from lifting Iranian oil and investing in Iran since 1995.

“For 2007 we’ve observed under 40 percent of crude oil exports shipped on NITC vessels, mostly from Kharg Island in the Gulf,” LMIU’s Davis said.

One of the biggest oil tanker firms operating in the Gulf estimated the figure to be 42 percent of exports.

Davis said the remainder was moved by oil firms aboard their own supertanker fleets or aboard privately chartered vessels.

“The main lifters are Japanese, Indian, Chinese, South Korean. A small amount goes to southern Europe,” he said.

A second proposal would target aircraft and vessels — including those operated by the Islamic of Republic of Iran Shipping Line and Iran Air Cargo — that traffic in goods banned under two previous U.N. resolutions.

http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnL269674.html

Anyway, strong countries don’t come under the same pressures to meet debt obligations as weak countries do, and the U.S. is still extremely powerful.

There’s a good deal more at stake here than just the profits from oil extraction directly, although that is obviously a large and important issue for U.S. elites. Failure to assert military hegemony over ME energy reserves will also likely weaken the U.S. dollar, erode popular support for stratospheric military spending, and possibly damage or even destroy the existing corporate-friendly social order.

As an aside, American soldiers are being killed because they are the instruments of occupation, not because of anything George Bush does nor does not say.

” the multi-decade long oil contracts that U.S. oil companies are negotiating”

only presents a small part of this picture. The part that the war mongers don’t mind exposing. Americans have shown support for military action to preserve access to oil since the Carter doctrine. But this occupation isn’t about preserving access to oil. Even the reserves of Iraqi oil are being overstated in a desperate attempt to justify maintaining the occupation:

Is the story of ‘massive untapped oil reserves’ fact or fictions?

By Sharif Ali

Azzaman, May 29, 2007

The restive Province of Anbar grabbed the headlines of world media recently. But the news, fortunately, was not related to the ongoing violence and ferocious resistance of U.S. occupation the province has been reputed for in the past four years.

Suddenly, world media focused their attention on significant oil reserves of 100 billion barrels. And where? In the western desert and specifically in Ramadi Province.

The reports ostensibly left no doubt that the province sits on gigantic oil fields which, if exploited, would place Iraq ahead of Saudi Arabia as he world’s top oil producer.

The reports were based on a study by energy analysts I.H.S.

The figures took Iraqi oil experts and analysts by surprise and they have their own reasons to be suspicious of the estimates and the timing of their announcement.

The Province of Anbar is Iraq’s largest, occupying 31.1 percent of Iraq’s area of 434,934 square kilometers.

The province, the scourge of U.S. invasion troops, is inhabited by 1.3 million people and more than 95 percent of its land is barren desert.

Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) carried out seismic surveys of the province and dug numerous oil wells between 1955 and 1061.

The National oil Company made its own surveys which continued for over two decades and only came to a halt after the imposition of punitive U.N. trade sanctions in 1990.

During the same period major oil firms like ExxonMobil, Japex (Japan Petroleum Exploration), Ascom, Petronas and Repsol made extensive surveys through joint agreements signed with the Ministry of Oil.

The reports of all these surveys, which are part of the Oil Ministry’s archives, were discouraging and could not come up with categorical results that the western desert, that is the area falling within the provincial borders of Anbar, holds substantial oil or gas reserves.

That conclusion was substantiated by an article in MEES, the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey, in a report about the results of 2004 surveys by American geological groups which said the area’s oil reserves run between half a billion and one billion and a half of proven reserves.

Brushing all these findings aside, the U.S. energy analysts I.H.S., for reasons yet to be uncovered, reveals surprising and shocking figures of estimates totaling 100 billion barrels.

Who are we to believe? Is it logical and sane to doubt the surveys by IPC, the National Oil Company, giant foreign oil firms and recent surveys by U.S. groups and believe the I.H.S?

I.H.S. report smacks of politicization. It was written and made public with the aim of pacifying the violent and restive province by telling its rebellious population it is better for them to lay down their arms and make use of their oil riches under the new oil law and federal system.

But the powers that inspired the I.H.S. report forget that one major reason for the Iraqis frustration and disillusionment is the oil law in its current form and the federal system.

Whatever oil is there in Iraq belongs to Iraqis as a nation the fruits of which will have to be reaped by the country at large and not its federated provinces.

Note: The writer is an expert in Iraqi oil reserves and served as a director-general at the Oil Ministry.