Further Details on the Big Halliburton/Iran Drilling Contract

[TexasLawyer]

US Halliburton wins gas contract in Iran despite sanctions
(from the Middle East Times)

Here are some more details on the Halliburton/Iran deal. For some reason, this story did not receive much U.S. press coverage.

I sure hope that tripling Iran's oil production by 2010 doesn't help Iran's power-mad theocracy to finance further additions to its already burgeoning nuclear arsenal. Axis of evil, you know. Might have to invade!

http://metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050111...



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"Halliburton and Oriental Kish are the final winners of the tender for drilling South Pars phases 9 and 10," Pars Oil and Gas Company managing director Akbar Torkan said, according to state television. An unnamed Pars company board member said that the deal for the gas fields in the Gulf off the south coast of Iran was worth about $310 million. He said that Halliburton had not directly signed the contract but that it had offered its services via Oriental Kish.

Under a law introduced in 1996 the United States threatens sanctions on both American and foreign companies investing more than $40 million in Iran's petroleum industry. Halliburton, once chaired by US Vice-President Dick Cheney, has come under investigation in the United States for its dealings with Iran through a Cayman Islands subsidiary.

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The United States also accuses Iran of covertly trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge vehemently denied by Tehran.

Iran, which is OPEC's second-largest oil exporter, also has the world's second largest gas reserves. Phases 9 and 10 of South Pars, operated jointly by South Korean and Iranian companies, are expected to produce 50 million cubic meters (1.8 billion cubic feet) of natural gas, 80,000 barrels of condensates and 400 tons of sulfur a day.

In addition, the phases are expected to produce each year 1 million tons of ethane for petrochemical feedstock and 1.05 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas for export. Iran hopes to boost gas output from 110 billion cubic meters a year in 2000 to 292 billion cubic meters in 2010. Gas accounts for about one-third of Iran's domestic energy consumption.

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[TexasLawyer]

1. We asked ourselves if it would be OK

to work for terrorist states, and we said "yes". Yay

http://www.iranexpert.com/2003/halliburtonsiran3december.htm


Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, said in an interview Monday that Halliburton set up an in-house committee to study whether the company’s business dealings in Iran has helped fund terrorist activities. Hall said Halliburton finalized a report and sent it to its board of directors and to the Comptroller’s office, which oversees the police and fire departments’ pension funds.

“The report details the company’s limited work in Iran,” Hall said. “We believe that decisions as to the nature of such governments and their actions are better made by governmental authorities and international entities such as the United Nations as opposed to individual persons or companies. Putting politics aside, we and our affiliates operate in countries, to the extent it is legally permissible, where our customers are active as they expect us to provide oilfield services support to their international operations.”

“We do not always agree with policies or actions of governments in every place that we do business and make no excuses for their behaviors. Due to the long-term nature of our business and the inevitability of political and social change, it is neither prudent nor appropriate for our company to establish our own country-by-country foreign policy.”

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Shortly after major combat in Iraq ended in April, President Bush accused Iran of giving safe-haven to al Qaeda terrorists linked to Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks, as well as remnants of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s B’aathist regime. Many hardliners in the White House view Iran as the next target on the war on terrorism. The White House has also given financial support to Iranians seeking to overthrow Iran’s government.

If the war in the Middle East were to spread to Iran, Halliburton stands to earn billions of dollars in reconstruction efforts there because it already has a presence in the country and its expertise in rebuilding war-torn countries which dates back more than forty years. Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions.

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