PEAK OIL

pahol

"To była ewidentna próba wykazywania wirtualnych zysków w jakimś nowym obszarze, bo już wiadomo było, że „balonik nieruchomościowy” pęka. Surowce i żywność nadawały się do tego najlepiej. Co prawda, niektórzy uważają, że ropa się kończy i dlatego jej ceny mogą tylko rosnąć (zgodnie z zasadą malejącej podaży) ale, po pierwsze są tacy naukowcy, którzy twierdzą, że ropa jest pochodzenia chemicznego, a nie organicznego, po drugie, zgodnie z przewidywaniami z lat 60-tych XX wieku dziś już jej w ogóle nie powinno być, a z czysto ekonomicznego punktu widzenia, to którzy gracze giełdowi podejmują decyzję w oparciu o założenia co będzie za 25 lat? Więc cena ropy z końca czerwca 2008 to raczej była czysta spekulacja, a nie efekt „peak oil”."

Napisał niedawno na swoim blogu pan Robert Gwiazdowski, który często aczkolwiek w delikatnym tonie, odnosi się do kwestii poruszanych na tym forum.

POLECAM TEN BLOG

http://www.blog.gwiazdowski.pl/index.php?content=1

slidexman

film o konczacej sie ropie http://chomikuj.pl/ShowVideo.aspx?id=33430558
_________________
Otwarte Piramidy Finansowe

Bimi

Cytat:

Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling

You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

But look on the bright side. If President Obama has embraced offshore drilling in Brazil, why not in the old U.S.A.? The land of the sorta free and the home of the heavily indebted has enormous offshore oil deposits, and last year ahead of the November elections, with gasoline at $4 a gallon, Congress let a ban on offshore drilling expire.

The Bush Administration's five-year plan (2007-2012) to open the outer continental shelf to oil exploration included new lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. But in 2007 environmentalists went to court to block drilling in Alaska and in April a federal court ruled in their favor. In May, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department was unsure whether that ruling applied only to Alaska or all offshore drilling. So it asked an appeals court for clarification. Late last month the court said the earlier decision applied only to Alaska, opening the way for the sale of leases in the Gulf. Mr. Salazar now says the sales will go forward on August 19.

This is progress, however slow. But it still doesn't allow the U.S. to explore in Alaska or along the East and West Coasts, which could be our equivalent of the Tupi oil fields, which are set to make Brazil a leading oil exporter. Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won't allow at home.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html

R4S

Peak Oil

The following observations and comments were written in early 2007 and are summarised from Ian R. Crane's forthcoming book ‘Out of Darkness’.

I have learned recently that Mike Ruppert was taken seriously ill in Venezuela and is now recuperating in Canada. It's very sad to hear of Mike’s predicament and wish him a full and speedy recovery. I suspect that Mike has for some time now realised that he is caught up in a web of intrigue which goes far beyond anything he ever dreamed of when he 'signed up' to poularise the myth of Peak Oil.

'Crossing the Rubicon' is a critical part of the official mythology.

I have good reason to suspect the hand of John M. Deutch behind Mike Ruppert’s transition from pioneer of 9/11 Truth to purveyor of Peak Oil mythology. It’s no great secret that Mike made a life-long enemy of Deutch when he exposed CIA drug running during Deutch’s tenure as head of that organisation.

As a non-executive director of Raytheon, Deutch has benefited personally from the rewards associated with the massive increase in arms sales, as a result of the illegal wars in Afghanistan & Iraq. However, his personal financial profit from Raytheon pales into insignificance when compared with the five fold increase in the stock price of Schlumberger, where he has been on the board of directors since 1997 (the year before I left Schlumberger after 19 years; the last three and a half years being based in the NeoCon capital, Houston Texas).

The price of oil in 1999 bottomed at $9.81 per barrel; a figure that was considered to be far too low to sustain an appropriate level of investment in the industry. The US oil industry was also concerned that if Iraqi oil came back on full stream any time soon, it could depress prices even further. This would not only have a serious negative effect on the oil industry but would also be detrimental to the flow of the US$ in the international financial markets; thereby reducing the ability of major oil producing countries to purchase US goods & services. With the Clinton/Gore regime showing little enthusiasm for addressing these issues, the Neo-Cons saw the window of opportunity to change the political landscape with the forthcoming (2000) presidential election. Taking their lead from Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, ‘The Grand Chessboard’, the Neo-Con think-tank known as ‘The Project for the New American Century’ produced their blueprint for an aggressive US foreign policy in their September 2000 report titled, ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses – Strategy, Forces & Resources for a New Century’.

Once in office, Dick Cheney commissioned a report on behalf of his oilfield buddies (Cheney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995 until being elected/appointed vice-President in 2000) titled, ‘Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century’. The report was supposedly produced by ‘An independent Task Force, sponsored by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University and The Council on Foreign Relations’. One of the participants in the discussions leading to the production of this report was ‘Kenny boy’ Lay; none other than the now disgraced (and supposedly deceased) ex-CEO of ENRON and major contributor to the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign fund. Another of the signatories of this report was Thomas F. McLarty, Vice-Chairman of Kissinger McLarty Associates, listed as ‘an international strategic advisory firm’. An Independent Task Force? Need I say more?

However, one of the lesser known but most significant participants in the production of this document was one Matthew Simmons, President of Simmons & Company International, a specialised energy investment bank. Simmons is also a member of the National Petroleum Council and Bush/Cheney Energy Transition Advisory Committee and past Chairman of the National Ocean Industries Association. Whilst Colin Campbell takes the credit for re-awakening interest in the work of Dr. Marion King Hubbert (he didn’t like the name Marion, so he had everyone address him as ‘King’), Matthew Simmons, who admits to first reading Campbell’s hypothesis in 1996, was instrumental in translating the basic tenets of Hubbert’s depletion theory into an investment context. All that remained was to get the principles of the theory into the mass consciousness. A strategy that would be absolutely critical in softening the public reaction to the growing realisation that Weapon’s of Mass Destruction would never be found in Iraq; as admitted by Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 that the myth of WMD’s was created for political expediency (link: www.truthout.org/docs_03/053103A.shtml

Consequently, it was essential that the American public were initiated into the theory of ‘Peak Oil’ as rapidly as possible. Only Mike Ruppert knows the detail of the circumstances which lead to his infamous interview with Matthew Simmons on August 18th, 2003. The reality is that this date was the turning point for Mike Ruppert; by early 2004 Mike had turned his attentions away from exposing the fraud of 9/11, focusing instead on promoting and popularising the theory of ‘Peak Oil’. As a direct result of his outstanding work on 9/11, the majority of his acolytes followed Mike blindly into the very plausible but selectively simplistic theory of ‘Peak Oil’. By encouraging Ruppert to incorporate the concept of ‘Peak Oil’ into ‘Crossing the Rubicon’, Simmons was able to ensure that the concept of ‘Peak Oil’ went ‘mainstream’, particularly amongst the 9/11 skeptic community, within a matter of months. The subliminal message being that even if the events of 9/11 don’t stand up to scrutiny and the attack on Iraq had been somewhat less than legitimate, these events were a necessity if we (the gas guzzling USA) are to retain our oil dependent life-style … ‘cos ultimately, we the (USA) come first; although the gentlemen of AIPAC & the ADL might have other priorities … but more on that particular issue another time!

Deutch, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a serious playmaker; a talent that Euan Baird, Andrew Gould’s predecessor as CEO of Schlumberger, would have been well aware of in selecting him to serve as a non-executive Director, despite the fact that there was a serious cloud over the legality of his activities and behaviour while head of the CIA, thanks largely to the tenacious investigative work of a guy by the name of ... Mike Ruppert. It was reported that Mike Ruppert, single-handedly, cost CIA Director John Deutch his guaranteed appointment as Secretary of Defense after confronting him at Locke High School with hard facts about CIA drug-dealing (President Clinton pardoned Deutch on his last day in office). Based upon the circles in which they move, it is unthinkable that Deutch and Simmons (also a member of the CFR), would not have crossed each others paths on numerous occasions but if any confirmation were needed that these two major players have had considerable direct contact, look no further than an organisation called ‘Resources for the Future’, where both Deutch and Simmons serve as Board Members! Deutch’s membership the CFR, his previous membership of the intelligence community, coupled with his Phi Beta Kappa connections, would have been more than enough to ‘arrange’ for the highest profile 9/11 antagonist, to become the populariser of Peak Oil, either wittingly or otherwise!

As an aside, it is interesting to note that Deutch was invited to be the Phi Beta Kappa orator at Harvard in June 2005, delivering a speech to recent PBK graduates during which he questioned the wisdom of retaining US forces in Iraq. Co-incidentally, this speech was delivered exactly one month prior to the London bombings. In 2006, Deutch then chaired the Independent Task Force established by the Council on Foreign Relations to produce the report on ‘National Security Consequences of US Oil Dependency’, a role in which he was able to bring fellow Schlumberger Board Member Linda G. Stuntz to the attention of the CFR.

As a further aside, Jamie Gorelick, another Schlumberger Board Member and member of the CFR, was instrumental in ensuring that the 9/11 Commission stayed ‘on message’ … but more on her another time.

All that said, I do not advocate a continuation of ninety million barrel per day consumption … but who do you think owns all the patents on alternative energy? The oil & gas industry has much to answer for but by touting and perpetuating the myth of peak oil, my ex-colleagues in the oil industry are laughing all the way to the bank, cashing in stock options that lay moribund for almost twenty years but have in the past three years, provided them with access to wealth beyond their wildest imagination. Just take a look at the obscene profitability reported by all the major oil companies since 2003. If any of the big boys seriously believed in Peak Oil they would be investing at much higher levels in new seismic exploration, new drilling techniques, reservoir management and stimulation processes, as well as the construction of new drilling rigs. In fact, they could easily double or even treble the current level of investment and still report record profitability. Why don’t they do it? Because the theory of Peak Oil has no traction within the industry. Why don’t they argue against it? Would you, when you are reaping the phenomenal benefits in ‘Shareholder Value’?

Schlumberger and Halliburton, the two major global oilfield services companies, come closest to declaring their interest in perpetuating the Peak Oil mythology by sponsoring Colin Campbell’s Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO); not to be confused with an ASBO … although some might see some synergy between the two!

Meanwhile, Matthew Simmons & John Deutch make out like bandits, thanks primarily to the success in getting Mike Ruppert to take up the cause and popularise a theory that would have been far more difficult to implant in the wider consciousness, without his participation. Mike’s reward is poor health and life on the run.

I have this vision of John Deutch, wearing a wry smile as he monitors the SLB stock price while thumbing through his copy of ‘Crossing the Rubicon’, saying to himself, “Thanks Mike, you owed me.”

Selected supporting links:

www.fromthewilderness.com/ssci.shtml

www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id279/pg1/index.html

www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/depletion.pdf

www.environment.harvard.edu/navigation2/Simmons.pdf

www.oilcrash.com/articles/blackout.htm

www.slb.com/content/about/board.asp#jd

www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

www.harvardmagazine.com/commencement/05pbk-deutch.html

www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/EnergyTFR.pdf

Other Related Links:

The Myth of Peak Oil
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives/peak_oil/index.htm

Global Oil Scam: War, Disaster, Lower Living Standards Mean Mega Profits
http://infowars.net/articles/july2006/280706oil.htm

Peak Oil Scam Exposed - Again (Mike Ruppert Too)
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel......amp;page=2

Oil Is NOT A Fossil Fuel - It Is Abiotic
http://www.rense.com/general67/oils.htm

The Deep Hot Biosphere : The Myth of Fossil Fuels
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0387952535

Artificial scarcity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity

http://www.ianrcrane.co.uk/index.php?act=viewDoc&docId=23

ElComendante

Jestem tutaj nowy, więc przywitam się w tym wątku. Witam, więc wszystkich i wracam do tematu Peak Oil. Wszelkie rozważania na ten temat to wróżenie z fusów i czysta futurologia. Wynika to, choćby z faktu tego, iż nie wiemy, jakie technologie poszukiwań ropy jeszcze mogą powstać, a co za tym idzie nie mamy pojęcia, co i ile odkryć możemy. Wszelkie szacunki, które są robione dzisiaj, opierają się na braniu pod uwagę, przy wszelkiego rodzaju obliczeniach, technologii znanej nam obecnie. Rodzaj takiej futurologii jest obarczony zawsze błędem niemożności przewidzenia tego, co się pojawi, co zostanie wynalezione i jak wpłynie to na dalszy rozwój cywilizacji. Można oczywiście przewidzieć jakiś jeden, czy kilka wynalazków, które mogą pojawić się za kilka lat, ale nie da się przewidzieć tysięcy. W ten sposób tworzą się chore teorie, które się dewaluują. Przykładem jest słynna sytuacja z szacowaniem kryzysu w rozwoju miast ze względu na powiększającą się ilość obornika. Pod koniec XIX wieku był to istotny problem, gdyż w samym tylko Londynie znajdowało się w 1900 roku 50.000 koni obsługujących same tylko autobusy, a jeden koń produkował między 15, a 35 kg obornika dziennie. W Nowym Yorku dla przykładu znajdowało się 100.000 koni produkujących 2.5 mln funtów końskiego nawozu dziennie. Wielu mędrków przewidywało wówczas, iż nastąpi taki moment, nazwijmy go dla naszych potrzeb Peak Horse, który doprowadzi do zastopowania rozwoju miast, tudzież wręcz ich upadku ze względu na ilość koni, ilość obornika, problemy sanitarne z nim związane, ilość ziemi potrzebnej do produkcji siana dla tak dużej ilości zwierząt. W 1898 roku odbyła się nawet Międzynarodowa Konferencja Urbanistyczna w Nowym Jorku, której głównym tematem był ów koński problem. Zaplanowana na 10 dni zakończyła się po 3, gdyż delegaci uznali dalsze rozważania nad technicznymi rozwiązaniami problemu obornika za bezcelowe ze względu na brak sensownych rozwiązań. Jak historia potoczyła się dalej doskonale wiemy. Zapewne żaden z delegatów nie uwierzyłby nam gdybyśmy przedstawili mu świat, choćby z lat 30., jako jedynie koncepcję w owym 1898 roku na wspomnianej konferencji.
A, teraz wracając do tematu. W taki sposób prezentowane są wciąż dane dotyczące szacunków na temat ropy naftowej: Zgodnie ze styczniowym raportem z roku 2004 dla Petroleum Review, odkrycia megaprojektów (takich, które zawierają więcej, niż 500 milionów baryłek lub około 6-dniowe zaopatrzenie) spadły do zera. W roku 2000 odkryto 16 megaprojektów. W 2001 tylko 8. W 2002 dokonano 3 odkryć, a już w 2003 żadnego. Na początku 2006 ogłoszono odkrycie 10-13 miliardów baryłek w Kuwejcie, jednak wg wewnętrznych dokumentów kuwejckiego sektora naftowego złoża Kuwejtu są dwa razy mniejsze, niż podają oficjalne dane. Na chwilę obecną odkrycie pola o 200 milionach baryłek przyjęte zostaje z dużym zainteresowaniem. Takie znaleziska są często przytaczane jako dowód, że żadnego kryzysu nie będzie. Proklamacje te mają na celu udobruchanie statystycznego Kowalskiego, który nie ma niezbędnej wiedzy, aby zrozumieć co to właściwie znaczy".
Oczywiście owe szacunki były tworzone na podstawie wiedzy geologicznej i technologii wydobycia znanej przed 2004 roku. Widziałem stronę na tym forum, na której prezentowane są odkrycia nowych złóż, ale wspomnijmy o największych. 2.2 mld baryłek odkryte przez PetroChina w zatoce Baohai w 2007, koło Hawany odkryte złoża szacowane przez US Geological Survey na 4.6 - 9.3 mld, a przez Cubapetroleo na 20 mld baryłek, złoże Carioca szacowane na 30 mld baryłek odkryte koło Rio de Janeiro, złoże Tiber koło Houston szacowane na 3 mld baryłek. Rząd Wenezueli zmienił ostatnio szacunek swoich złóż z 217 na 290 mld baryłek, co dawałoby pozycję lidera temu krajowi w ilości posiadanych zasobów przed Arabią Saudyjską, choć Oil reserves w Wiki nadal podaje, że ten kraj ma tylko 90 mld (pewnie źródła, które to podają są dla wiki niewiarygode, bo podawane przez wenezuelskich, a nie amerykańskich geologów).
Czy odkrycie złoża przekraczającego 500 milionów baryłek jest, więc nadal tak niewiarygodne? Czy prawdopodobieństwo spadło do zera? Czy obserwujemy właśnie jakieś cuda wytworzone przez boskie interwencje? Czy Petroleum Review kala się przed statystycznym Kowalskim i przeprasza za dawne szacunki, czy też robi jakieś kolejne analizy, na których opierają się tzw. eksperci?
Jak się okazuje robienie ludzi w konia trwa nadal. Cena baryłki po wydarzeniach w Libii nagle skoczyła z 98 do 112 dolarów, a przecież Libia wydobywa jedynie 4% światowego zapotrzebowania. Jednak łatwo po tym fakcie zauważyć, iż cena ropy na światowych rynkach zależna jest, nawet nie od spekulantów, a od kartelu, który trzyma łapę na globalnych zasobach. Pytanie jest jedynie kto owym kartelem tak naprawdę steruje. Pod płaszczykiem obrony praw człowieka okazuje się, że należy walczyć ze zbrodniarzem Kadafim, który jeszcze rok temu przyjmowany był z otwartymi rękami na salonach. Czyżby, jednak nie chodziło o coś zupełnie innego? Jakie są rzeczywiste libijskie złoża, skoro irackie nagle urosły do 350 mld baryłek.
Peak Oil jest doskonałym straszakiem, a takowe istnieją od zawsze począwszy od apokalipsy, poprzez kolejne końce świata, a skończywszy na milenijnej pluskwie, dziurze ozonowej i końcu świata w 2012. Straszak ten wzbudza emocje oparte na archetypie zagłady cywilizacji i łatwo uzyskują rzesze, które krzyczą o potrzebie rychłych zmian, które znowuż odpowiednio drogo kosztują. Ponadto, jeśli złoża ropy się wyczerpują, czyli zasobu jest coraz mniej to zrozumiałe, że podaż jest stała lub wręcz zmniejsza się, a co za tym idzie rosnący popyt musi prowadzić do wzrostu ceny. Jedni są usatysfakcjonowani, bo wytłumaczyli sobie problem, inni na tym zarabiają, jeszcze inni szukają rozwiązań pośrednich mających na celu ratunek dla ziemi, a kolejni śnią koszmary o końcu świata. W końcu ktoś wpada na pomysł silnika diesla, ktoś go udoskonala, ktoś wdraża do produkcji masowej i mamy problem z głowy. Niestety, niektórzy w międzyczasie umierają z myślą, że ich dzieci utoną w tonach gówna przekonani do tego przez wybitnych specjalistów.

Bimi

What Peak Oil?

Is peak oil imminent? Lots of people seem to think so.

The data (released by BP a company who have a vested interest in oil scarcity) don’t agree. Proved reserves keep increasing:

The oil in the ground will run out some day. But as the discovery of proven reserves continues to significantly outpace the rate of extraction, the claims that we’re facing immediate shortages looks trashy.

Some may try to cast doubt on these figures, saying that BP are counting inaccessible reserves, and that we must accept that while there are huge quantities of shale oil in the ground, the era of cheap and readily accessible oil is over. They might cite the idea that oil prices are much higher than they were ten years ago. Yet this is mostly a monetary phenomenon resulting from excessive money creation beyond the economy’s productive capacity. Priced in gold, oil is still very cheap — almost as cheap as it has ever been:

czytaj dalej: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-what-peak-oil

pneumokok

hehe ciekawi mnie czy dalej ci co się wypowiadali w tym wątku wierzą w peak oil Very Happy

cały czas są znajdowane złoża ropy, choćby 2 lata temu ogromne złoża w Izraelu
http://www.voltairenet.org/article172827.html
ceny dyktowane są przez spekulantów z Wall Street

grzanek

Z artykułu Billa Engdahla: O, ropo, gdzież jest twój kres?

In 2010 Israel and the Houston, Texas company, Noble Energy, discovered the largest offshore gas field, Leviathan. It was the world’s largest gas discovery in a decade, with enough gas to serve Israel for at least a century. The geophysics of the offshore areas around Greece suggest that that hapless country could also have more than enough undiscovered oil and gas to repay all foreign debt and more.
(...)
In 2006 Brazil’s Petrobras made the largest offshore oil discovery of the last 30 years, holding at least 8 billion barrels of oil in the Santos Basin 250 kilometers from Rio de Janiero.
(...)
According to the US Geological Survey, the Arctic could hold 90 billion barrels of oil, most of which is untapped.
(...)
In April 2015 the energy exploration firm UK Oil & Gas Investments announced it had drilled near Gatwick Airport and found what they estimated could be up to 100 billion barrels of new oil. By comparison the entire North Sea has yielded some 45 billion barrels in 40 years.
(...)
Now in August, 2015 the Italian oil company ENI announced discovery of a supergiant gas field in the Egyptian offshore, the largest ever found in the Mediterranean Sea, larger than Israel’s Leviathan. The company announced the field could hold a potential of 30 trillion cubic feet of lean gas in place covering an area of about 100 square kilometres. Zohr is the largest gas discovery ever made in Egypt and in the Mediterranean Sea.
(...)
In May the Cuban government released a study that estimated Cuba’s offshore territorial waters held some 20 billion barrels of oil.
(...)
In the 1950s a group of Soviet scientists was tasked with making the USSR self-sufficient in oil and gas as the Cold War heated up. (...) They made exhaustive tests in the deep-earth research labs in Moscow of the Soviet military. They developed the brilliant hypothesis that oil was constantly being created deep in the bowels of the Earth below the mantle. It pushes upward towards the surface passing through beds of various elements such as ferrite. They did repeated laboratory experiments producing hydrocarbons under tempetrature and pressure imitating that in the mantle. These migration channels, as the Soviet scientists termed them, were fissures in the mantle caused over millions of years under the expanding of the earth and forced by the enormous temperatures and pressures inside the mantle. The path the initial methane gas takes upwards towards the surface determines whether it emerges and collects as oil or as gas, as coal, as bitumen as in Canada’s Athabasca Tar Sands, or even as diamonds which are also hydrocarbons. The Russian and Ukrainian scientists also discovered, not surprisingly, that every giant oilfield was “self-replentishing,” that is new oil or gas is being constantly pushed up from inside the mantle via the faults or migration channels to replace oil withdrawn. Old oilwells across Russia that were pumped far beyond their natural full rate during the end of the Soviet era when maximum production was considered highest priority, were then shut, considered exhausted. Twenty years later, according to Russian geophysicists I have spoken with, those “depleted” wells are being reopened and, lo and behold, completely refilled with new oil.

The Russians have tested their hypothesis to the present day, though with little support until now from their own government, whose oil companies perhaps feared that a glut of new oil would collapse oil prices. In the west, the last thing Exxon or other Anglo-American oil majors wanted was to lose their (once) iron grip on the world oil market. They had no interest in a theory that would contradict their Peak Oil theory.

Jednym słowem: Końca nie widać!

Krzyzak

wyciekły materiały ujawniające powszechną korupcję w kwestiach wydobycia i sprzedaży ropy

http://www.theage.com.au/interactive/201.....world.html

fragment:

Cytat:

massive leak of confidential documents has for the first time exposed the true extent of corruption within the oil industry, implicating dozens of leading companies, bureaucrats and politicians in a sophisticated global web of bribery and graft.

After a six-month investigation across two continents, Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post can reveal that billions of dollars of government contracts were awarded as the direct result of bribes paid on behalf of firms including British icon Rolls-Royce, US giant Halliburton, Australia’s Leighton Holdings and Korean heavyweights Samsung and Hyundai.

The investigation centres on a Monaco company called Unaoil, run by the jet-setting Ahsani clan. Following a coded ad in a French newspaper, a series of clandestine meetings and midnight phone calls led to our reporters obtaining hundreds of thousands of the Ahsanis’ leaked emails and documents.

The trove reveals how they rub shoulders with royalty, party in style, mock anti-corruption agencies and operate a secret network of fixers and middlemen throughout the world’s oil producing nations.

Corruption in oil production - one of the world's richest industries and one that touches us all through our reliance on petrol - fuels inequality, robs people of their basic needs and causes social unrest in some of the world's poorest countries. It was among the factors that prompted the Arab Spring.

Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post today reveal how Unaoil carved up portions of the Middle East oil industry for the benefit of western companies between 2002 and 2012.

In part two we will turn to the impoverished former Russian states to reveal the extent of misbehaviour by multinational companies including Halliburton. We will conclude the three-part investigation by showing how corrupt practices have extended deep into Asia and Africa.
The leaked files reveal that some people in these firms believed they were hiring a genuine lobbyist, and others who knew or suspected they were funding bribery simply turned a blind eye.

The leaked files expose as corrupt two Iraqi oil ministers, a fixer linked to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, senior officials from Libya’s Gaddafi regime, Iranian oil figures, powerful officials in the United Arab Emirates and a Kuwaiti operator known as “the big cheese”.

Western firms involved in Unaoil’s Middle East operation include some of the world’s wealthiest and most respected companies: Rolls-Royce and Petrofac from Britain; US companies FMC Technologies, Cameron and Weatherford; Italian giants Eni and Saipem; German companies MAN Turbo (now know as MAN Diesal & Turbo) and Siemens; Dutch firm SBM Offshore; and Indian giant Larsen & Toubro. They also show the offshore arm of Australian company Leighton Holdings was involved in serious, calculated corruption.

The leaked files reveal that some people in these firms believed they were hiring a genuine lobbyist, and others who knew or suspected they were funding bribery simply turned a blind eye.

But some knew much more. A handful of senior insiders at firms such as Spanish company Tecnicas Reunidas, French firm Technip and drilling giant MI-SWACO, not only actively supported bribery but pocketed their own kickbacks; US defence giant Honeywell and Australia’s Leighton Offshore agreed to hide bribes inside fraudulent contracts in Iraq; a Rolls-Royce manager negotiated a monthly kickback for leaking information from inside the British firm.

Many of those revealed to have been culpable, including the wealthy Ahsani family itself, which runs Unaoil, continue to operate with impunity.

The files expose the betrayal of ordinary people in the Middle East. After Saddam Hussein was toppled, the US declared Iraq’s oil would be managed to benefit the Iraqi people. Today, in part one of the ‘Global Bribe Factory’ expose, that claim is demolished.
THE BRIBE FACTORY

It is the Monaco company that almost perfected the art of corruption.

It is called Unaoil and it is run by members of the Ahsani family - Monaco millionaires who rub shoulders with princes, sheikhs and Europe's and America’s elite business crowd. At the head are family patriarch Ata Ahsani and his two dashing sons, Cyrus and Saman. Their charities support the arts and children, and Ahsani family members sit on the boards of NGOs with ex-politicians and billionaires. Ten years ago, a spreadsheet showed they had cash, shares and property worth 190 million euros. They are members of the global elite.

ElComendante

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article114931993.html

"Permian’s Wolfcamp formation called biggest shale oil field in U.S.

In a troubled oil world, the Permian Basin is the gift that keeps on giving.

One portion of the giant field, known as the Wolfcamp formation, was found to hold 20 billion barrels of oil trapped in four layers of shale beneath West Texas. That’s almost three times larger than North Dakota’s Bakken play and the single largest U.S. unconventional crude accumulation ever assessed, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At current prices, that oil is worth almost $900 billion.

The estimate lends credence to the assertion from Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield that the Permian’s shale could hold as much as 75 billion barrels, making it second only to Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field."