Posted on 09/22/2004 7:45:10 AM PDT by jtesh
You linked to a site called cooperativeresearch.org. Do you know who runs it? I checked, the Enron/Bombay/Afghan pipeline logic is utterly laughable. It's even contradicted by the support press reports they cite, apparently they don't know how to read them.
Maybe that's where Loftus gets some of his information.
Short - the bombay gas facility is set for LNG, not pipeline gas. The reports about Enron deals in Uzbekistan mentions the Russian company "Gasprom" - certainly indicating that proposed transportation would be west, north or northwest - Euro markets.
What they've done with that map is take a project wholly unrelated to Enron and falsely cast it as Enron.
I missed that part of it. You're right, Enron had nothing to do with the Afghan pipeline. Unocal made every effort for several years but couldn't put it together, and at this point have lost interest.
The Turkmen, Afghans, and Pakistanis are very keen to find someone to come in and build it, but none of the big names are interested, and who can blame them. India is looking at a couple of pipeline alternatives that bypass the country altogether, by way of China, or offshore from Iran. But no one in their right mind wants anything to do with Afghanistan.
If Premier is looking at it, its because they are gamblers gambling with someone else's money.
http://www.alternet.org/story/12525
There's some hilarious stuff out there. This article takes the cake.
My favorites:
1. The breakdown of the Qatar deal...so, what about Iran, Saudi, etc. etc. as sources?
2. The repeated implication that "LNG" would be, could be transported by a pipeline.
3. The loop-de-loops trying to tie Enron to the Taliban. Here's my favorite: "Lay's last documented e-mail was sent on August 27th, about the same time the Taliban allowed the International Red Cross to visit jailed foreign aid workers in Afghanistan." Proof!
"Moore couldn't find a tie between Bush and Unocal, so he invented the Enron involvement in the story."
I discuss it a little here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1178920/posts
Well, you know, maybe . . .
Once upon a time, Britain
"invested" billions
in China and got
only tea in exchange. But
countries with mighty
armies and navies
do not have to be hostage
to their investments.
The first "modern" war
was the opium conflict.
It embodied all
the blurred lines between
global business, politics
and social action.
Those lines are still blurred.
Only now people pretend
there's only business . . .
I'm not sure how oil came to be such a bogeyman. The mere mention that an oil company might be sniffing around is enough for some writers to go spastic.
In their world a few oilmen run the world. They have no idea of the complexity of that world, the literally thousands of companies involved, sometimes partnering, always competing and jostling for position. And whereas at one time American companies were the only ones willing to go beyond their own borders, that is no longer the case and Americans bid against rivals from a growing number of countries every time at bat (and, they partner with those same rivals when opportunity and need intersect).
Still, American companies have some advantages in finance and technical expertise, which gives them a leg up, but they are also targets for blackmail and terror attacks and so they choose their risks carefully and let their smaller rivals do the riskier ones.
I rather admire Enron, in a way, they were doers, builders, and left many many projects in their wake. The investors got burned, but the power plants and pipelines are still out there making money for their new owners. The India debacle is what sank them, when they thought they had a committment from the Indian government to pay market rates for power, and then they didn't fulfill their part of the bargain.
I've seen this before. Countries that subsidize power get themselves into a situation where they have power shortages they can't solve. Due to the subsidy, they lose money on every kilowatt, or gallon of gasoline, or whatever, so there are shortages. They can't solve the shortage, though, because to build new facilities they would have to charge market rates, and the first time the people riot, that idea goes right out the window. So its blackouts, or riots, which do you prefer?
Where the article says Enron wanted to charge 700% of the going rate, that tells you India had subsidized power and people were paying 1/7th the market rate. I promise you that Enron would never have built a power station there if they could only charge 1/7th market rate.
The article implies that Bush was engaged in trying to save Enron, but it was Clinton that went to the mat for them. And, sadly, even Clinton could not convince India to make good on their earlier commitment. Bush refused to help, which is when Enron collapsed. Dems forget, but the Dems initially criticized Bush for not helping Enron, before switching their attack. Dem investigations of Enron became closed door sessions and then died when it became obvious that all roads led back to Clinton.
The Shell Mobil pipeline I mentioned, that they abandoned, was for the same reason. Peru promised to change the law to encourage gas-fired power plants (paying market rates) to provide a domestic market for at least part of the gas. That was their promise that made the project viable. But politically, it wasn't possible for them to do it at the time, when gas and power both were subsidized. So Shell and Mobil walked away, at a loss of $300 million. They were big enough to stand the loss. Enron wasn't that big, and their loss was 10 times bigger.
Peru subsequently sold the project to some no-name investors, made some of the legal adjustments, and got it built as of a couple months ago. Recently they were trying to attract Shell and Mobil to come back, but I don't think that going to happen anytime soon.
Thanks Shermy!
The Net waters have been made so muddy by the propaganda, it is really really hard to tell what is what.
Twice Americans have been held up. In 1938, Mexico nationalized American oil investments. In the early seventies, Venezuela did the same.
In neither case did the military get involved. The companies impacted negotiated a settlement, and walked away.
In at least the Venezuelan case, the separation was a friendly one, and the original owners continued to provide consulting expertise for decades after.
But as a consequence, no American oil company ever goes into a country thinking they will own anything. The way it works is this; the host country offers a concession for a fixed period of time. The investor puts up all of the money to develope the project, and the host country takes a percentage. If the project is too iffy, or the host's percentage too large, they won't get any takers.
But if the terms are reasonable, they will attract any number of bidders from a number of countries. The winner builds and operates the project for the life of the contract (10, 15, 20 years) and at that time the project reverts to the host country. At that time they have the option to operate it themselves, or put it up for bid again.
It often happens that the company that wins, and builds it, will subsequently sell the project and move on. That is usually allowed within the terms of the concession with the permission of the host country.
I am familiar with several projects where American companies have stepped back and the no name companies have come in, due precisely to risk. Koreans, Argentines, Spanish, Brazilians, Italians, French, Canadians are all in the game and will go where we won't sometimes.
The issue of bribes plays a role. American companies are prohibited from paying bribes and kickbacks, which doesn't entirely make it go away, but "sweetners" have to be done in an above-board way. For example, building a bridge for a community when what the community leader wanted was the "money" for the bridge, if you know what I mean. Or maybe hiring the son of someone, when that someone really preferred a check under the table. Foreign companies don't have that limitation, and that opens doors as well.
The tripe was that Halliburton was building a pipeline and that oil was the only reason to be in Afghanistan and Iraq.
No, there is no oil pipeline in that sense.
halliburton is not building a pipeline, that was not the reason we are there.
Hope that makes nmore sense.
Yes. Middle east states
nationalized oil fields, too.
I strongly suspect
the lack of response
from the West's military
in these instances
is very telling.
A good cynical question
is, Did these countries
nationalize oil,
or did the big companies
swallow up the states
under the guise of
populist confiscation . . .
Is OPEC a club
of oil producers,
or a post nation-state form
for world politics?
Actually, OPEC is a club for bankrupt command economies.
If you understand economics, you understand that OPEC can't control anything, for several reasons. Most of the new oil in the world is in non-OPEC countries. So if they limit their own production to manipulate oil prices, all that happens is they lose market share.
Of course, they know this, so they don't really do it.
When they announce a cut in production, there is usually a reason that is not the one given. A field is down for maintenance, a pipeline is down, labor trouble, something forces them to cut production. So they will announce publicly that they have "decided" to lower production. Then when the problem is solved, they quietly return to full production.
Being centrally controlled economies, they are all stagnant, and government spending takes priority over investment in oil production. So the only way they can maintain or expand production is to attract foreign investment. Furthermore, being centrally controlled economies, they are typically one-industry countries, meaning that they, not we, are hostage to their oil. So they dare not cut production, because to do so means social chaos and blood in the streets. Even Saudi Arabia is in the red. We might get several percent of our oil from them, but they get 100% of their revenue from oil. If they cut production, our gasoline goes up a buck, and they have a civil war in the streets. And then their OPEC buddies quietly increase production to take up the slack without publicly saying anything. Or else some non-OPEC field that wasn't viable at the lower price, suddenly now is viable, and they take up the slack. Either way, whatever they say publicly, they dare not cut production because to do so is to lose market share.
So OPEC's control over the oil markets is eyewash. It impresses the newsrooms, but it isn't real. What controls oil prices is the business cycle. These days, mainly China's business cycle. Five or six years ago, when Asia went into recession, oil dropped into single digits, and there were coup attempts in oil capitals around the world. Right now, Asia as a whole and China in particular are on a strong upswing, and oil prices (and steel prices) are going through the roof as a result. Most people don't pay attention to steel prices, China is the elephant in the room. When they are busy, oil and steel both go through the roof. If China goes into recession, oil and steel prices collapse and we see gas for a buck a gallon at the corner mart.
I seem to remember an earlier thread connecting Enron to intelligence operatives, or covert activities, or something like that. Does anybody else recall this?
What a trans-Hindu Kush pipeline at 17,000 feet? This doesn't make sense.
I remember that. I will see if I can find it.
Every company
on the earth is a "command
economy." In
"politics" it's called
bad, in "business" it's the rule.
All of your eye wash
I think blinded you
to the big paradigm shift
in the modern world --
just as nation-states
replaced kingdoms some time back,
today business-blocs
are in the process
of replacing nation-states.
Some old metaphors
will still be useful,
others become meaningless.
If your metaphors
tell you that OPEC
is just stage craft, to my eyes
your "understanding"
of economics
isn't helping you live in
the real world right now.
Or, who knows, maybe
I'm totally misreading
everything. Could be.
Okay I found it. It was http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1079699/posts?page=45#45.
In a discussion about Abdul Qadeer Khan that veered into BCCI and Nugan Hand, Enron came up. I asked, "Are there claims of international intrigue at Enron, or hints of CIA or ex-CIA connections?" Here is the anwser I got:
<<
frank wisner, jr, assisted enron while he was clinton's ambassador to india. he was later on the enron board of directors.
wisner's father was instrumental in establishing covert action as a major function of the cia. he was the head of the opc, and then he was ddp - deputy director of plans - when the merger of opc with oso was completed in 08/52.
it is also said that enron employed many ex-cia operatives, and many then returned to the cia after enron's collapse. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/11/60minutes/main505913.shtml
>>
Thank you.
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