Shell Opens an Office in Baghdad After a 36-Year Absence

[True_Blue]

Source: NYTimes

BAGHDAD — Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world’s biggest oil companies, completed a multibillion-dollar natural gas deal with the Iraqi government on Monday and said it had established an office in Baghdad — the first foreign petroleum giant to do so since Iraq nationalized its oil industry more than three decades ago.

The company described its decision to open an office here as a milestone that partly reflected the vast improvement in Iraq’s stability compared with conditions during the worst years of the war. But in a sobering reminder of the underlying dangers of doing business here, the company would not disclose the location of its office, and the senior Shell official who announced the gas deal was accompanied by a phalanx of armed guards.

“We are ready to establish a presence,” the official, Linda Cook, executive director of the company’s gas and power unit, said during a news conference in Baghdad’s heavily guarded Green Zone.

Ms. Cook, who oversaw the signing of the gas deal with the Iraqi government, appeared with Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/world/middleeast/23iraq.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast&oref=slogin

[Pete2069]

1. American tax payers supported about Country to gain wealth

ON our soldier's blood and our tax money....
Thanks Bush , Cheney and McCain...

[gingersnaps1]

2. Ahh, yes, it was all worth it then.

The lives lost, the trilliions spent and the climbing deficit has proved fruitful. We have won. People this is what victory smells like. Take a big whiff. Shell in Baghdad, I am going to pop the top on the champagne bottle. I mean this and I own a piece of a mortgage company, I am having the best week ever.

[provis99]

3. Imperialism is on the march

[badgervan]

4. Combined With...

... all of those permanent military bases around the country, I'd say bushcheney's mission is right on target. Lying hypcrites. 4169 of our best are dead for.... what? Oil. Protection for Israel.
Shame on us.

[leftchick]

5. Mission Accomplished!

:grr:

[vendredi]

6. Fundamentals

The fundamentals of the oil industry are sound, at least.