Posted on 04/15/2002 9:38:00 AM PDT by SlickWillard
This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows.
To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27210
Monday, April 15, 2002
James Baker quietly
lobbies India
Secret visit to gain support for Iraq attack, partner for oil
By Shantanu Guha Ray
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
NEW DELHI – The visit was shrouded in secrecy. Only a few dozen people in India knew that James Baker – former U.S. secretary of state, Texan oil man and close confidant and key strategist for Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush – arrived in Delhi a fortnight ago.
The visit set the Indian rumor mill buzzing as oil industry players speculated about its purpose.
Western diplomatic sources confirmed that during the closely-guarded visit, Baker – who cobbled together the global alliance against Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War – met senior officials of the prime minister's office and the external affairs and petroleum ministries.
The agenda, the sources say, was three-pronged:
Baker was on a private visit and stayed with U.S. Ambassador Robert Blackwill at Roosevelt House, Gordon K. Duguid, information officer at the U.S. Embassy, said in an interview.
Though Indian foreign office officials remain tight-lipped on the visit, diplomatic sources said Baker sought India's support for the planned attack on Iraq. While the U.S. considers Iraq a terrorist state, India has traditionally maintained good business and trade ties with Baghdad.
Besides buying oil from Iraq, India also has been the largest exporter of electrical equipment to the Arab nation. Of the $750 million that Iraq spent on its electrical needs in the last three years, India bagged almost half. This could quadruple in the near future.
Iraq's minister for commission of electricity, Sahbaan Mahjoob, visited India after Sept. 11 and indicated that Indian exports could be raised to $700 million in the next two years. India's increased business with Iraq is an area of discomfort, a senior Western diplomatic source said.
It was not immediately known whether Baker met Indian premier Atal Behari Vajpayee before the prime minister left for his visit of Singapore and Cambodia. Along with the diplomatic maneuvering with the prime minister's office and foreign office officials, Baker made a presentation to petroleum minister Ram Naik and heads of state-owned oil and gas companies. He also extended a personal invitation to Naik to visit and address the James Baker Institute of Public Policy in Texas.
The aim was to dissuade Indian companies from investing in Iraq, a top Western diplomatic source said. He added: Investments of $600 million have been planned by ONGC and Reliance for Iraq.
The two companies have signed an agreement with Algerias Sonatarch to secure an oilfield in Iraq for production of crude. ONGC Videsh Limited, a subsidiary of ONGC, has sought to form a venture with two other partners to produce crude from the Tuba oilfield. ONGC is awaiting approval from its board to invest approximately $63 million in Iraq.
Both ONGC and Reliance refused to comment on Baker's visit.
Baker also exhorted Indian companies to join hands with American oil companies for explorations in Nepal, said a senior petroleum ministry official.
ONGC is well-placed to buy a 50 percent stake in two exploration blocks in Nepal, owned by the Houston-based Texana Resources. Indian petroleum ministry sources agree that the state-owned company's investment in the two blocks were of strategic importance to India as they were located near the Indo-Nepal border. Block three in Nepalgunj and block five in the Chitwan region were awarded to Texana by Nepal under a production sharing agreement.
Texana will conduct detailed exploration, including seismic work to further define drilling locations, said Texana president Max Mazy.
"We have high hopes and strong indications that the potential exists for world-class hydrocarbon resources in Nepal," Mazy said.
Baker's interest is understandable. First, a joint venture would help U.S. companies figure out the difficult terrain. Secondly, it would help major U.S. oil firms stave off rival interests. Two Chinese companies – China National Star Petroleum and National Oil and Gas – had also expressed interest, along with Pakistan's Oil and Gas Development.
These are Washington's hopes. How New Delhi reacts remains to be seen.
Shantanu Guha Ray is a senior journalist with the New Delhi publication Outlook.
http://biz.yahoo.com/i/te__4_4_.html
As far as I can tell, Texana Resources doesn't have a web site. The following Google search gives about 32 hits, most of which are worthless:
texana resources nepal
There is an article, at an outfit called Financial Express, that speaks in the same broad generalities as the WorldNetDaily article [indeed, the WND article looks as though it were plagiarized from the FE article], but which offers no specifics, such as a Texana trading symbol, the name of a parent holding company, or a link to a company web site:
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe20011025/top3.html
I found an online resumé, for one Frank Alexander, who claims to have made a presentation on behalf of Texana Resources. This single mention, in his resumé, is the only semi-independent confirmation I can find that Texana actually exists:
1999: Presentation/Paper (San Antonio): “Nepal’s Fiscal Terms” to a delegation of representatives of His Majesty’s Government of Nepal, for Texana Resources Company.
http://energy-environment.com/ResumeFA.html
Curiously, if you examine the HTML code behind Alexander's email address, you get
<a href="mailto:hibc@energy-environment.com;%20alexanderf@bennettjones.ca">Alexander@energy-environment.com</a>
which suggests that he really works for an outfit called Bennett Jones, out of Canada:
http://www.bennettjones.ca/mainframe.html?Page=firm_lawyers.html
So, I ask all Texas Freepers, and any other Freepers with some knowledge of the oil bidness: Just what is Texana Resources Co.? Here are a few possibilities:
1) The WorldNetDaily author, Shantanu Guha Ray, doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
2) The WorldNetDaily author, Shantanu Guha Ray, is part of a fraudulent enterprise, running a bogus company, called Texana Resources, whose sole purpose is to separate fools from their money.
3) Texana Resources Co. is some guy with a telephone and a fax machine working out of his garage in his spare time.
4) James Baker, a bunch of Canadian lawyers, some Bilderbergers, and a handful of Rothschilds, are wheeling and dealing their way through Central Asia, making gazillions of dollars in the kind of backroom deals we peons can only dream about.
5) Texana Resources Co. is a CIA front operation.
Any ideas?
If they're privately held, then I understand why they don't have a trading symbol. However, I can't understand all the secrecy. Why don't they have a web site? Why aren't they promoting themselves? Where's the marketing? And if they are at least semi-legitimate, then inquiring minds want to know whether Bush family peripherals like Uncle Neil are gonna show up among the owners.
Jim Baker is walking a real fine line here between diplomacy and the very worst sort of war profiteering.
They are invisible companies that actually develop prospects and then drill them. They deliver the product into a pipeline where somebody pays them for it, and it is then refined or processed by another company who puts their brand name on it.
I have a book on my desk which is a directory of American oil companies. It's not complete, but it is 687 pages long and it's single-spaced. I doubt if most Americans have heard of more than a couple dozen. Those would all fit on one page, easily.
There's nothing secretive about it.
Let me rephrase what I said before: If there is any truth to this WND story, then Jim Baker is walking a fine line between statesmanship and the very worst sort of war profiteering.
But even if we could establish some sort of a link between the former President and Texana, I don't see how it's war profiteering. Oil companies partner up all the time, especially in exploration concessions like these in Nepal. Where's the conflict of interest?
I have not said that there is a conflict of interest, and I have not said that anyone is engaging in war profiteering. However, you can't really say, with a straight face, that this situation doesn't present a rather enormous potential for conflict of interest, and a rather enormous potential for the appearance of impropriety. When the stakes are as big as they are in this matter, people like Jim Baker need to bend over backwards to avoid these sorts of potentials and appearances.
Slick, maybe this first one means James Baker is trying to promote Ms. May's career for some reason. No wait, the first one is from 1982...
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
PR Newswire
December 2, 1982, Thursday
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 /PRN/ -- Contrary to what their flashy image may
portend, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders are "good, all-American moral
Christian women," according to one of their members, who is an honors
graduate of Texas A & M and was valedictorian of her high school
class.Interviewed by sports reporter Dick Schaap for this Sunday's
issue of Parade magazine, Melinda May, a second-year Dallas Cowboys
Cheerleader, complained about what she called the public's
"preconceived notion" about the Cheerleaders."Sometimes I get almost angry," Ms. May declared, "and so do the
other girls. I just wish everybody could meet us and see what we're
like. They'd realize we are good all-American moral Christian women.
The organization, I think, just epitomizes what life is about."Asked by Schaap for an assessment of the Cheerleaders' appeal,
if, indeed, their sex appeal is misconceived and if the sexists
protests of feminists groups are misdirected, Ms. May said, "Some
people enjoy the dancing aspect. Some people enjoy our smiles." And
she added, "I think our uniform is very flattering, and I'm very
proud of it, I don't ever feel embarrassed at all."A native of the small Texas town of Crosby, Ms. May was not only
valedictorian of her high school class of 141, she was also a drum
majorette, an all-district guard in basketball and president of the
National Honor Society. She was voted Friendliest, Most Likely to
Succeed and Future Farmers of America Sweetheart.Admitting that she is probably the most famous person ever to
come out of Crosby, Ms. May told Parade that since she's become a
Dallas cheerleader, "I've grown, I've changed, I've become a better
person. My confidence has improved."Ms. May, who holds a degree in business management, works full
time in the accounting department of Texana Resources. Being a
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader is only a part-time job, which pays only
$15 a game, for which Dick Schaap observed they do not go on strike.
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
Pg. 30FT Energy Newsletters - International Gas Report
January 8, 1999
AMERICAN FIRM REVIVES SEARCH
International Gas Report
US independent exploration company Texana Resources has reawakened interest in the state of Nepal. The Houston-based firm has won an exploration and production contract from the government for the Nepalgunj and Chitaun regions, in the Nepal Tera, along the border with India, says Texana president Max Mazy. Early in 1997, Nepal's Petroleum Exploration Promotion Project, Department of Mines & Geology in Kathmandu, invited bids for 10 tracts along the southern border with India. Block size was about 4,850 sq km. Texana appears to be the first to take acreage. Nepal has no oil or gas output and has traditionally depended on India for about 5,000 b/d of imported petroleum products. The country threw open 10 blocks in 1985. Shell took one in 1986 and put down the abandoned Biritnagar-1 hole in 1989. A large number of gas seeps and an oil seep have been charted in Nepal. In the early 1980s a government team, with Japanese help, located a small reservoir in the Kathmandu Valley holding an estimated 1.5 Bcf of gas.
Nepal has massive hydropower potential, estimated at 83,000 MW. In 1997 Enron of the US and Tata of India were reported seeking to revive the GBP 700m, roughly 400 MW Arun dam project in Nepal from which the World Bank withdrew in 1995 after protests by environmental lobby groups. In 1996 a water and power deal with India made the go-ahead for such schemes more feasible. An Australian company, Snowy Mountain Engineering, gained approval for a GBP 1bn, 750 MW project in northern Nepal.
Meanwhile, Enron Renewable Energy blew hot, then cold on a dam on the Karnali River in west Nepal to produce a maximum of 10,800 MW of electricity for export to India and China. The firm became concerned about selling a big block of power abroad from the approximately GBP 7bn scheme, India and China having been eyed as markets.
Texana's new search agreement calls for detailed exploration, including seismic, to further define drilling sites, says Mazy. Local officials say the three-year deal could be extended for two optional two-year periods. Local laws include a 12% royalty and 50% tax. However, Punnya Prasad Dahal, a senior official in the industry ministry, reckons that if exploration proves positive, government could consider amending laws to lure investors.
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
World Oil
August 1, 2001
No. 8, Vol. 222; Pg. 101 ; ISSN: 0043-8790
Natural gas use increasing; China; Brief Article
Sitathan, Tony
Developing countries are expanding gas power generation/supply to mitigate oil import costs. Foreign investors are being actively courted
(Snip information about China, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Viet Nam, Pakistan, Myanmar, Brunei, & Philippines)OTHERS
Nepal has no indigenous oil/gas reserves or production. Its primary energy source is hydroelectric power and some coal. It imports 12,000 bpd refined products. No results have been reported on a 1998 seismic exploration license to Texana Resources.
(snip)
India Business Insight Database
October 25, 2001
ONGC TO PICK 50% IN US FIRM'S NEPAL BLOCKS (the acquisition is of significance as the two blocks are located on the Indo-Nepal border)
SOURCE: Financial Express; Daily; Oct 25, 2001; Pg. 1Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is all set to acquire Texana Resources' 50 percent stake in two exploration blocks in Nepal. The acquisition is of significance as the two blocks are located on the Indo-Nepal border. Besides, they are located close to other two blocks allotted to ONGC-Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) combine in the Ganga basin on the Indian side. ONGC and the US firm plan to tie up and submit bids for exploration blocks, offered by Nepal in future. Texana will transfer operatorship rights for these two blocks, 3 and 5, to ONGC. ONGC would also have the right to export oil and lay a pipeline after the discovery of oil and gas.
Thanks for the ping, Harrison.
There is nothing at all remarkable about their concession in Nepal, and their interest in bringing in the Indian national oil company as a partner. This the way the business works. I can't think of any foreign concessions where companies don't partner up. This obviously is a high risk project involving a lot of bucks. It's also important to have a market for the product if it's ever discovered. Bringing in India makes perfect sense.
It's so routine that it doesn't even deserve comment, except that some see it as evidence of something sinister.
The only sinister thing is that you didn't post a picture of that Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.
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