Thursday, July 24, 2003

CE N'EST PAS POSSIBLE! NO TOTAL-FINA-ELF CONTRACTS?

More progress. Oil contracts...but the French are not among them.

Heh.
Two major oil companies have each agreed to buy 10 million barrels of Iraqi oil under the first long-term contracts to be offered by Iraq since the end of the war.

BP PLC and Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Cos. each expects to ship 2 million barrels of Basra Light crude per month, starting in August and ending in December, the companies announced. They will load the oil on tankers at Iraq's Persian Gulf export terminal of Mina al-Bakr.

Oil production in southern Iraq has increased substantially in recent weeks thanks to improved security at oil fields, pipelines and other facilities there.

The so-called term contracts for selling fixed quantities of oil over a longer period is a significant step forward for Iraq and its postwar reconstruction. The offers indicate the Oil Ministry is confident that looting and sabotage at Iraqi oil facilities will not prevent it from honoring export contracts lasting five months.

And now that they mention it...how many weeks has it been since you heard of a pipeline being sabotaged in Iraq.

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