Is Halliburton REALLY the only contractor who can do the work?

[megaplayboy]

Anyone know who the other potential players in this field are? I get sick of conservatives spouting the line that it's the only company qualfied and capable of doing the type of work they got the no-bid contracts for...

[VaLabor]

1. yes

Bob Grace is president of GSM Consulting, a small company in Amarillo, Texas, that has fought oil well fires all over the world. Grace worked for the Kuwait government after the first Gulf War and was in charge of firefighting strategy for the huge Bergan Oil Field, which had more than 300 fires. Last September, when it looked like there might be another Gulf war and more oil well fires, he and a lot of his friends in the industry began contacting the Pentagon and their congressmen.

“All we were trying to find out was, who do we present our credentials to,” says Grace. “We just want to be able to go to somebody and say, ‘Hey, here's who we are, and here's what we've done, and here's what we do.’”

“They basically told us that there wasn't going to be any oil well fires.”
Grace showed 60 Minutes a letter from the Department of Defense saying: "The department is aware of a broad range of well firefighting capabilities and techniques available. However, we believe it is too early to speculate what might happen in the event that war breaks out in the region."

It was dated Dec. 30, 2002, more than a month after the Army Corps of Engineers began talking to Halliburton about putting out oil well fires in Iraq.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/25/60minutes/main551091.shtml

[megaplayboy]

4. thanks--that was very helpful

I look forward to wiping the 'smug' off a few faces:spank:

[SoCalDem]

2. Of course they are...

they are the only ones who could be counted on to RETURN THE MONEY in the form of "campaign contributions" and sweetheart jobs after the admin guys have finished looting the treasury.:)

[Don_G]

3. Halliburton Has An Exclusive No-Bid Arrangement

With the DoD; a 5 or 6 year something Cheney engineered before he became Veep. Anything that needs to be done will be offered to Halliburton first.

[megaplayboy]

5. What's your source for that?

that would also be helpful...

[Don_G]

6. I Heard It On NPR A Week Or Two Ago

Sorry, I don't have a link.

On Edit: It was probably "Talk Of The Nation" and the subject was the price tag of building Iraq. I'm on a dial up and its slow but this may be the audio link: http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=8-Sep-2003

[Yupster]

7. I'm no expert, but

I live in the oil patch and I own a working interest (1% !!!) in 21 wells, so I know a little bit.

The main thing Haliburton has going for them (besides friends in high places) is the best list of business cards.

There are many oil specialists who live out here and contract on with Haliburton or other companies and do specialist industry work all around the world. They are very highly paid and highly skilled. Haliburton has the ability to gather the most of these people together and send them around the world.

A few nights ago, someone listed a long list of companies that the NYSE listed as oil services companies. Most of them were companies which owned and operated a specific oil pipeline, or operated a specific technology, like fracting spent wells, or water pump fracting, or disposal wells and technology, or cement encasing, or even fire extinguishing.

Around here, the other company that could put together a major operation like Haliburton would be Schlumberger (pronounced Slumber-jay). I think they're still a French company, so forget them, for security clearance problems alone. There's also a company called BJ Services around here which is a fairly large company that has many of the same skills, though it's much smaller, and spends most of its energies operating its own properties.

[Adjoran]

8. this is a dead end

It wasn't a "no-bid" contract, it was an open bidding multi-year contract to do all the overseas work for the Army. Halliburton was the only bidder, but that's not a "no-bid contract." At the time, it was not known how big it would get, but that was always a possibility.

It wasn't just to fight oil fires, it was to maintain and rebuild the infrastructure, too. Only HAL and SLB have the resources and experience to do that AND put out a large # of oil well fires. BJS is a growing company, but Yupster is correct that they haven't been contracting their services out on this scale yet.

There are plenty of questions to be asked about HAL and Cheney and the energy task force, etc. This one is barking up the wrong tree, though.