EXXONMOBIL LAPS UP IRAQ WAR PROFITS

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EXXONMOBIL LAPS UP IRAQ WAR PROFITS
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2008-01-26 14:46. Media

By Nick Mottern, Director, www.ConsumersforPeace.org


“EXXON GUNS FOR ALL-TIME PROFIT RECORD” declared CNNMoney.com on January 23, 2008, explaining:

“ExxonMobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, is within striking distance of setting an all-time profit record – again.”

As ExxonMobil prepares to celebrate what could be a record profit of more than $10 billion for the last quarter of 2007, jubilant company officials and stockholders might want to join in a moment of silence for the more than one million war dead in Iraq – Iraqi and American combined. They paid the ultimate price in a war in which ExxonMobil has had a hand and which we can estimate is responsible for at least $2.5 billion of ExxonMobil’s latest profit.

This estimate of ExxonMobil’s war profit, between 20 and 30 percent of its overall profit, was kindly provided at my request by Dean Baker, economist and co-diretor of the Center for Economic and Policy Policy Research, who said that the excess profit can be traced to: (1) the loss of at least one million barrels a day of Iraqi oil production due to the war; and (2) “the additional uncertainty about supplies created by the war.”

“I’m just speculating,” Dr. Baker says, “but the price of oil is probably about $10 to $22 a barrel higher because of the war” attributed to the two factors noted above. “If (oil) prices were 10 – 20 percent lower, Exxon’s profits might be 20 – 30 percent lower.”

Dr. Baker, who has testified before Congress on the oil industry, specializes in evaluating the social costs of political decisions, studying housing, Social Security and Medicare, as well as oil.

What this analysis means is that the Iraq War is not only a major factor in the profits of ExxonMobil and other major oil companies, but in the cost of gasoline and petroleum products in the U.S. and around the world. The $150 billion plus economic stimulus package before Congress is prompted in part by the oil price inflation besetting U.S. consumers.

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