Documents suggest oil surcharges paid in Iraq

[Judi Lynn]

Oct. 19, 2004, 1:27AM

Documents suggest oil surcharges paid in Iraq
New York Times

Billions of dollars of Iraqi oil had been sold under a U.N. program — and food and other goods bought with the proceeds — when Saddam Hussein decided in 2000 that he personally wanted a bigger cut of the action. Documents now suggest that at least one U.S. company acceded to that demand, paying surcharges that kept the oil flowing.

The action by the Coastal Corp., which was founded by the Houston entrepreneur and oilman Oscar Wyatt, is detailed in a formal Iraqi government tally of secret payments made from September 2000 to December 2003, when steps were taken by U.S. and British officials to stop the surcharges.

Coastal, the only publicly traded U.S. oil company on the list, is shown as having paid $201,877 in surcharges. It is a small piece of the $228 million in surcharges on oil sales that a CIA report released last week said Saddam collected, largely from Russian companies.

Wyatt said through a spokeswoman on Monday that he had no knowledge of Coastal paying any surcharges. A spokeswoman for the El Paso Corp., which acquired Coastal in 2001, declined to comment, citing a grand jury subpoena the company had received from federal court in New York.
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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2854747
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