At 30/10/02 12:00 +0000, you wrote:
> >Lord Browne, chief executive of BP and one of New Labour's favourite > >industrialists, has warned Washington not to carve up Iraq for > its own oil > >companies in the aftermath of any future war. I think I'm right in saying that BP-Amoco is actually the second largest *American* oil company so what actually is Browne on about? Mark
I would not be surprised if you are better informed on this.
I cannot extract the figures from the BP website, but perhaps the issue is in what sense is it an "American" oil company.
The wider question is now to what extent do imperialist/monopoly finance capitalist companies have any national base. Certainly they have rivalry but is the nature of finance capital such that it will inevitably lead to war, in the way Lenin argued in the second decade of the 20th century? It is related to the question of ultra-imperialism. An accurate balanced and scientific assessment of the the interpenetration of finance capital is not automatically the same question as whether to be a revolutionist or a reformist in the face of the actual situation.
It seems clear that Browne has personal links with the UK government in the way leaders of Esso have with the US government. BP still seems to think of itself as a British based company, although it is trying to change the meaning of B in BP.
The meeting approving the merger of BP and Amoco in 1998 was held in the Royal Festival Hall London. They hailed it as the largest industrial merger in the world at the time.
I have got these clips of statements by Browne the following year when the company went on to take over Atlantic Richfield
April 1st 1999
Describing the deal as "a compelling strategic and geographic fit of quality assets", BP Amoco chief executive Sir John Browne said it would yield annualised pre-tax synergies of around $1 billion by the year 2001.
The deal will substantially boost BP Amoco's reserves and production, giving it the largest oil output of any non-state company, and will consolidate its position in Alaska where the resulting synergies and cost-savings are likely to increase the region's competitiveness and significantly encourage future investment.
"For BP Amoco, the strategic rationale for this deal is the immense potential it offers for future growth," Browne said. "In Alaska in particular, the synergies we can achieve from combining our operations will greatly increase the competitiveness of the state in the face of uncertain oil prices and provide a strong incentive for significant investment in existing and future fields."
Browne said the deal would also give BP Amoco entry to the key West Coast retail markets of the US where ARCO has a leading market share in five states and owns two of the most efficient refineries in the region. With the prime refining and retail network BP Amoco already has east of the Rockies, this makes it a coast-to-coast marketer in the US.
Elsewhere, onshore the US and the Gulf of Mexico, ARCO will add 360,000 barrels of oil equivalent to BP Amoco's daily output - half of it gas, chiefly from ARCO's 82 per cent stake in Vastar, one of the most profitable operators in the Lower 48.
Internationally, the deal will add major volumes in South East Asia, most notably in Indonesia where ARCO has an estimated net share of up to eight trillion cubic feet in the Tangguh gas field, regarded as one of the best liquefied natural gas projects in the region.
It also adds gas reserves in the South China Sea, Malaysia, Thailand and Qatar and oil interests in Algeria, Venezuela, the Caspian and Russia.
In the UK, ARCO will add gas and oil production equivalent of over 100,000 barrels a day from fields that are complementary to BP Amoco's North Sea operations, making the group the largest single supplier of UKCS gas.
"The addition of ARCO's international assets powerfully strengthens our global portfolio," Browne said. "Most significantly, it gives us a major platform for upstream growth in Asia where we will now have world-class gas reserves ready to supply Japan, Korea and other key markets when recovery comes to the region, which it undoubtedly will."
I think the way to look at this is that BP is a British finance capitalist company that is well on its way to becoming nothing but an international giant finance capital company. That is why it calls for a level playing field about Iraq (level for finance capitalist companies), and it does not call for war. Indeed it would be very damaged by any sort of war, or even bad business atmosphere, between the UK and the USA. This is a economic reason why fully inter-imperialist war is unlikely although local wars have been common in various parts of the world in the last 50 years.
Nevertheless although BP ("Beyond Petroleum") would like to be free roving fully international company able to play governments off against each other on the level football playing field, reality is not perfectly homogenous. There are irregularities within it. Even at the highest most abstract level of finance capital, there are the human contacts of social capital. BP has these much more strongly with leaders in the UK state than in the US state.
I suppose a crunch question is whether BP could ever have a US CEO.
The fight between BP and say Esso, and between the British government and the US government, over the carve up of Iraqi oil will definitely not come to war, because modern finance capital is so inter-penetrated. (That might not apply to Russian capital lobbying for its own stake in the Iraqi carve up, but that too is unlikely to lead to war. It might just however lead to Russian troops advancing into Northern Iraq in a preventative "peace making" initiative. Iraq might get divided up into zones of occupation like Germany did, but hopefully US and Russian troops would not fire at each other in ill will.)
However there is a fight, and as the underdog in terms of state power, it is BP's Browne who is calling for a level playing field across the world for companies like his. i.e. some sort of accountable world financial government. That is the end point of the interests of international finance capital.
Chris Burford
London
