Survey Results

You all received 100% grades on the "Pay Attention!" survey. Governments own 90% of the world's oil.

Newsy update: Iraq has granted no-bid short term contracts to several big oil Companies to help it get it's oil out of the ground and to market. There was a Dutch, French and a couple of US companies involved. They have less than two years to work to get the production up to where it should be, adding potentially 500,000 barrels per day to the supply. This is a bit less than ANWR could pump, and a bit less than the King Faisel said they would pump (we hold our breath waiting).

When you read about this, it looks like the oil companies are helping themselves to the oil of Iraq, and our government is afraid it will look like the old "War for Oil" accusation has merit. But consider, these companies provide service to help Iraq utilize it's state owned resource, bringing money into Iraq.

Yes, they are making more money from oil revenue than they can spend, literally. The government there is building a huge surplus of money because they are still debating how the oil revenues should be shared and used. In the meantime, we continue to pour millions into Iraq to rebuild it. This is changing, but not very fast, as the Iraqi government is being careful not to let that huge surplus get depleted before they have deliberately considered what to do with it for the common good of the citizens.

Three questions:

1) Why does Total get to profit, because they have helped Iraq establish a government? Or is it merely an "Oil for Cognac" deal? Is it because half of the Iraqis who had to leave over the decades live in France and developed a kind of second home feeling?

2) Why is 800,000 barrels of oil a day "nothing" when it comes from Alaska (and therefore not worth drilling for), and it is a big deal when it comes from the Saudis? Is it because the environmentalists who oppose drilling in ANWR are really dirty colonialists who want to exploit the resources of the Arabs, or is it because they want to see money flow from the US to the Mideast, and not stay in our own economy?

3) If Iraq, with a crippled oil industry is awash in oil money, and building a huge surplus and can't spend it all, how do the other countries do it? Does Saudi Arabia have this issue?

Think about this...