Hi there Frank,

In response to your post of - 20 Nov 03 - 06:17 PM

You advise me to follow the flow of oil - Oil flows to where it is most used, to developed industrialised countries in the East and West. Any great scheme or master plan involved in that? - No, it flows that way because that is where those selling the oil get the best price for it.

BP, counted as being one of the "Seven Sisters" for at least 100 years. A major oil company, whose expertise and wealth was based on their ability to find oil (Shell's on the other hand was based on transportation of oil). The BP take over of Amoco a few years ago had nothing whatsoever to do with the US administration throwing anyone any crumbs - the take-over, like their take-over of Standard Oil, was based on purely business principles and strategy.

As far as I know no exploration licences have been revoked in Iraq which makes them as valid today as they were when they were granted.

In what way did the war you refer to "put a corner on the (oil) market"?

So the "Oil Corporations", their employees (including the boss); their shareholders (all of them), profit. Anything wrong with that? As stated above oil flows to where it is most used - again no dark secret plan, no major change in how the industry operates in response to demand. Oh, by the way, remunerations for CEO's of the type you refer to are decided and voted on by the shareholders of the company - they don't write them themselves, and they are definitely not awarded at the expense of their employees (i.e. they are no worse of after such an award than they were before it).

Please explain how if "Bush and Cheney" get their way they are going to gain control the world's Oil & Gas Industry??

Don't know about Oil Company involvement in alternative energy in your neck of the woods, but over here in Europe, the EU, individual governments and the oil companies are very involved in alternative energy - mark you a great deal of the impetus behind that is the requirements to meet emmission control targets. The unfortunate thing about most alternative energy sources is that they cannot produce 440v- 3 phase power required for industry.

What is the parallel in Afghanistan - money voted and allocated for reconstruction in Afghanistan is doing precisely that. Why should the case be any different in Iraq? The belief, or expectation, of instantaneous and complete improvement to circumstances in both those countries is what is naive. It is going to take time, money, combined with the will and resolve to see it through (reconstruction of Germany 5 years - as I've said before it's early days yet).

You say that although : "There are international interests in the oil business but they (are) controlled by a cartel who keep the prices up so that consumers will pay more at the pump."

What cartel are you referring to - OPEC? If so OPEC's main take on things is to ensure that the resources of the member states are managed and exploited to the maximum advantage of those member states.

As to prices at the pump - considering what people in the US regard as reasonable use of the resource we are talking about - you should be paying five times the amount for your fuel.

Regarding representative parity between France and Germany, and the US and Britain regarding oil leases in Iraq. I think you will find that if anything the French come of best - Saddam was one of their best customers for nuclear technology, missile systems and combat aircraft for years. Ba'athist Iraq paid for those goodies with oil, oil exploration and production licences, etc, which still hold good today.