Pickens says we had a right to Iraqi oil after paying in blood -Bush said no

May 13, 2010 04:24


Oh what the U.S. could have done if it had put a call on Iraq’s Rumaila oil field. If fighting in the Middle East is all about blood for oil, haven’t we spilled enough blood?

Alexandra Zendrian, at Forbes.com

Oh what the U.S. could have done if it had put a call on Iraq’s Rumaila oil field.

Rumaila is the fourth largest oil field with 17 billion barrels of oil. (See “The World’s Biggest Oil Reserves.”) As BP Capital Management Chairman T. Boone Pickens points out, that’s the size of the largest oil field the U.S. has ever had–Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay.

And with an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day flowing from the Deepwater Horizon spill that still hasn’t been contained, the U.S. could use that Iraqi oil. (See “T. Boone’s Not Playing The Blame Game.”)

The U.S. consumed 19.5 million barrels of petroleum a day in 2008, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. By comparison, China, whose China National Petroleum Corp., got the first oil contract in the post-Saddam Hussein era to redevelop Rumaila along with British Petroleum, consumed 7.9 million barrels of petroleum a day that year.

Pickens made pleas to both then President George Bush and President Barack Obama to make calls on the Iraqi oil field, but neither made a move.

FULL STORY



Help Make A Difference By Sharing These Articles On Facebook, Twitter And Elsewhere: