Yoshie wrote:
On 5/11/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
so "Hubbert's Peak" is due to nationalizations?
Setting any talk of a peak aside, the FT is basically saying that
state oil companies tend to limit access and give less than maximally
favorable terms to oil multinationals based in the West. That line of
thinking no doubt has and continues to fuel the empire's foreign
policy.
=================================
The article's real beef about nationalized oil is that there is inherent
political pressure on state oil companies to direct their revenues to social
programs and other state spending rather than to exploration and the
development of new supply which would hold oil prices in check.
It concludes:
" 'For the first time in this petroleum cycle, the national oil companies
have a major responsibility for supporting world oil markets over the long
term,' Mr West says.
" 'The real challenge is whether the national oil companies will meet their
responsibility to bring the oil to market,' he says.
" It is unclear whether that responsibility is as important to those
countries as meeting their needs at home.
" For, as Jim Mulva, chief executive of ConocoPhillips, the US's third
largest oil company, says: 'The [national oil companies'] host country may
have other strategic objectives, which may limit the speed by which they
develop their resources.' "
In other words, the complaint is that nationalized oil companies have a
"responsibility", which they do not always meet, to effectively maintain the
subsidization of the wealthier oil consuming counties by the poor in the oil
producing ones.
.
