Doug,
Tell your list that:
the wise Mage (as usual) is right. I over stated that. Iraq would need start up $ but would then be self financing. I plead guilty to cranking out that piece in one sitting.
But as for "production sharing agreements" which is the form that "privatization" of oil usually takes -- the real assets below ground are almost never sold off -- were already in the works under Saddam.
I don't think there is any huge hurdle to involvement via PSAs by the majors, the independents, the chinese, et al.
the question is not really privatization vs state ownership it is the cut, or split on future PSAs... will it be fair or totally unfair?
As it stands now the Iraqi oil industry, which I have been looking into, is in near collapse and if the country goes to hell so goes the industry.
My main point (or attempted) point was this: a rational section of the ruling class is now worried about something much more than Iraq's oil. It sees the real possibility of region-wide chaos: social breakdown spreading on a previously unseen scale. they have at the helm a man who seems to work only for himself and not for his class.
CP
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Christian - fyi - Doug
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: John Mage <jmage at panix.com>
>> Date: December 19, 2006 4:26:37 PM EST
>> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> Subject: [lbo-talk] Re: Parenti on ISG: we lost,
> time to leave
>> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> List-Archive:
> <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk>
>>
>> The excellent Christian Parenti writes:
>>
>>> Experts close to the industry say the country
> needs $20 billion to
>>> $60 billion in capital investment if it is to
> recover its former
>>> glory. That deficit alone practically insures
> future privatization--
>>> or at least liberalization of participation by
> foreign firms and
>> oil
>>> majors.
>>
>> This is deeply deeply wrong - it is not "the
> deficit alone" that
>> "practically insures" anything. With Iraq sitting
> on top of a lake of
>> scarce oil, once there is a viable government and
> peace there will be
>> many many sources of capital investment on terms
> not less favorable
>> than
>> those given to Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Indonesia
> or other
>> ***independent*** countries. China alone would
> pay the necessary on
>> terms that do not involve privatization or
> production sharing
>> agreements
>> - a kind of colonial subjugation that does not
> exist in any other
>> significant producing nation. Christian has
> swallowed something
>> vile at
>> a gulp.
>>
>> john mage
>>
>>
>>
>> ___________________________________
>>
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>