Iraq To Pay Foreign Cos In Oil For Signature Bonuses

[sabra]

Source: WSJ

LONDON (Dow Jones)--The Iraqi Oil Ministry said Thursday it will pay foreign energy companies with crude oil production in exchange for giant cash "soft" loans they will have to make to the government as one of the conditions for being awarded oil drilling contracts.

"The companies will be paid in oil," Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told journalists on the sidelines of an Iraq investment conference.

Shahristani said the government had decided recently to force companies to cough up a total of $2.6 billion in payments - which will vary in size from company to company depending on the oil field contract they're eventually awarded - because of a dramatic shortfall in government oil revenues caused by weak crude prices and lagging production.

The loans, which are basically cash payments to the government, will be made after a company is awarded a contract. The payments are many times more than the payments companies had originally expected to pay.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090430-717919.html

[Tempest]

1. In other words, it's a bribe

Frontline is having a show about international bribes on PBS.

It's called Black Money.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/blackmoney/

I listened to Pacifica radio this morning and they did a segment on the issue. It went into depth on the BAE scandal.

[Vidar]

2. So they have to bribe Exxon et al. to pump their own oil? We have truly accomplished our mission.

[conspirator]

3. Yep. This is no different from when Genghis Kan massacred a city and plundered its resources

The difference is that there are so many dumb people who actually believe that the puppet president represents sovereignty.